Bullied

Adam’s solution to being bullied backfires

Adam was the shortest senior at Beaver High School in Beaver, Wyoming, a small town just west of Casper. Even at full stretch he barely reached 5’ 3”. The great majority of senior girls were taller than Adam, but he had learned to live with the ridiculing and the insensitive jokes. At first, they embarrassed him. Then they wore him down. Soon, the comments weren’t just tiring—they were aggravating. Now, he just couldn’t take it any longer.

At 10:47 a.m., during Adam’s Trig class, three police cars rolled up to the front entrance of the school. He caught sight of them through his first-floor classroom window. Adam froze. Why are they here? Had Timothy broken his promise and told someone? Adam couldn’t shake the feeling. Timothy’s seat was empty. So were his promises. Somewhere in his gut, something twisted. Beginning to feel betrayed, all he could think was “What do I do now?”

Within a couple of minutes three policemen entered the building and went directly to the principal’s office. Out of Adam’s sight, an additional police vehicle pulled around to the back and parked near the building’s rear entrance. Two policemen exited the vehicle and positioned themselves at the back door.

Could he slip out unnoticed? He turned to his teacher, Mr. Jackson. “Can I go to the bathroom?” he asked, voice steady but urgent. Jackson glanced at the clock.

“Can’t you wait until the bell?”

Adam shook his head. “I feel like I’m going to throw up. I need to go now.”

“Throw up, huh?” Jackson frowned but waved him off. “Go but be quick.”

Adam grabbed his school bag and promptly moved to the door. As he crossed the hallway, he could hear the muffled voices of conversation in the school office.

He ducked into the study hall thinking no one was there. Crossing over to the windows—he saw the fourth police car moving to the back of the school.

Mrs. Swanson, the study hall teacher was sitting at her desk, said, “Adam, what are you doing? Why aren’t you in class?”

He didn’t answer. He spun and burst back into the hallway, still no one in the hall but him.

He sprinted for the east stairwell. Taking the stairs three at a time, he dropped to the basement—and froze. He was cornered. No exit. Just the stairwell behind him. He bolted back upstairs, stopping short before reaching the door at the top. Voices echoed. Footsteps. The police were sweeping the building, door by door, room by room, getting ever closer.

Adam whirled and charged back down. At the bottom, he paused, panting, eyes adjusting to the dimly lit desolate space. The basement sprawled in shadows: workbenches, broken desks, chairs stacked like skeletons, scattered tools, and near the center, close to the wall, a large, old, coal-burning furnace that probably hadn’t been used in decades. In a far corner, he spotted the maintenance man’s desk.

He was thinking, “How am I going to get out of here? Where can I hide?”

The basement was cavernous and dark. Near the ceiling, a few darkened, ground-level windows provided little light. There was just no place to hide.

But, behind the furnace—there was a sliver of possibility. A small door. It wasn’t the kind of door you walk through—it sat a couple of feet off the ground. He pulled it open—not to a room, but to a coal chute angling upward, where light slipped through the seams of another door. This could be his way out, or at least a place to hide.

Forty-eight hours earlier...

He stood just outside the trigonometry classroom, nerves buzzing, breath scented faintly of the beers he’d downed to work up courage. Helen towered at least four inches over him, and all year people had made snide remarks about how Adam never dated—they never understood him. But that morning, fueled by shaky confidence and the slow burn of rebellion, Adam asked Helen to go to the Winter Dance. Being seen with Adam—who was basically invisible all year—would torch the social capital she’d spent years building. Her lips parted as if to smile—but then flattened. Not disgust. Not anger. Just pity. The kind that said he was invisible again.

He should’ve known. Helen's pity stung more than outright rejection—like she was watching a child try something too big for him.

Adam turned and leaned against the wall, head bowed. Now she’s going to make me look even more the fool, Adam thought. His eyes burned, the sting rising faster than he could push it down.

Adam cut his last four classes and waited near the gate leading into the schoolyard for Timothy, his very best friend. He didn’t go home. Couldn’t. Instead, he sat beneath the birch near the school’s driveway—where there was no sound except nature, with the cold wind brushing his face, he kept his eyes shut. He heard the late bell echo hollow in the distance. It seemed like eternity until he heard the final bell. He kept his eyes on the road. Timothy would come. He had to.

Timothy rolled up on his old BMX bike, leaving the seat before it stopped and allowing it to fall over on its own. The last school bus had left the yard when Timothy sat down next to Adam—he never said a word, until Adam began asking him questions.

And now, two days later, in the shadows of the school’s basement, that same burn flickered in his chest. The sting of Helen’s look felt closer than the footsteps echoing above.

Panic started to overtake him, how is he getting out of here? He went back to the door behind the furnace, opened it again and just stood there staring, thinking over his possibilities. He probably couldn’t make it to the door at the top, and even if he did it was probably locked from the outside. They would certainly look in that space, in every dark corner and behind every stack of chairs, tables and desks. Lord, it’s over once they open my school bag. I’ll be off to jail.

The old black-and-gray Octopus furnace loomed large in the basement. The door in the front had been used to scoop coal into the fire pit. Adam’s eyes landed on the furnace—and the idea slammed into him. No one would suspect he was in the furnace; the door looked just big enough to crawl through. He struggled to open the heavy, cast-iron door and looked closely into the pit. If he could twist his body just right, the cramped space could hide him. The pit’s bottom was dirty with soot and the smell of burned coal. The space could work—he had to believe it could save him. Carefully, he placed his school bag inside and gently pushed it back.

The door at the top of the basement stairs opened and a voice said, “If he’s down here, we have him”. Adam could hear the boots thudding, one step after another, echoing louder as they descended.

With his knees against his chest and his chin resting on his knees, he pulled the door closed just as the first policeman hit the floor. At the top of the stairs, a light switch was flipped and instantly four lamps, spaced at odd intervals across the overhead beams, barely broke open the darkness. The lights were not bright enough to prevent dark spots and shadows. They still needed to use their flashlights to search everywhere. Adam’s heart pounded as they walked within inches of his asylum. In the shadow on the wall behind the furnace, the police spotted the coal chute door. Quickly, with weapons drawn, they shouted, ‘Police! Come out now!”

For an instant, Adam thought they were calling him out of hiding. He knew he had come to the end now, and as he put his hand against the furnace door, he heard them bang on the door and make their demand again. Wait—they weren’t pounding on the furnace. They were hammering the coal chute behind it. Adam had thought of hiding in there, thank the Lord he didn’t.

Knowing they had made a thorough search, one of the cops said, “Okay, he’s not here, let’s search upstairs again.”

The sound of their boots jogging up the stairs gave Adam such a feeling of relief, but he knew he had to wait, wait until he felt the school was empty. His arms and legs ached with cramps.
Adam waited hours. His muscles cramped, his throat dry from recycled air and fear. When the silence seemed real—no creaks, no whispers, no footsteps—he finally uncurled, crawled from the furnace, and slipped into the night.
He made it home just before dawn, slipping in through the back fence. But police cars were already there. Neighbors had reported a boy fleeing from the school. His name had spread through dispatch like wildfire.
His school bag—confiscated instantly. Inside, a pistol and boxes of ammunition. No context. No one asked why or how long he'd had it. No chance to explain.
Adam was cuffed on his own porch without resistance.
The prosecution painted Adam as a danger, a radical bent on hurting classmates. That he ran and hid proved guilt, they said. The furnace became a metaphor—his way of hiding from responsibility.
Adam’s classmates didn’t come to his defense. Some were afraid; others didn’t want to be involved. A few whispered rumors that cemented the prosecution's narrative: he was quiet, strange, always alone.
His public defender offered a tepid defense, overwhelmed by the charges. No expert testimony. No deep dive into Adam’s isolation or bullying. No mention that he had considered leaving the pistol at the school as a cry for help—not to use it.
The verdict: guilty of attempted terrorism. Sentenced to adult prison. Twenty-five years.
Inside, the mental brutality echoed school—worse, even. Inmates picked at him. Guards ignored him. He became invisible, a shadow with a number.
He wrote letters—hundreds. To newspapers, attorneys, classmates. Few replied. Most returned unopened.
The school bag haunted him in dreams, as did the furnace. It wasn’t a hiding place anymore, but a symbol: no matter how deep you hide, the world might still find you and choose not to listen.
Time passed. His body changed, but his memories didn’t.
When he was finally released, he no longer had family or purpose. The world outside was automated and fast. He found shelter under the overpass, clutching a worn thermos and his prison journal.
Years later, someone might write about the boy who had hidden in a furnace and later vanished into obscurity. They’d wonder what led him there. They’d theorize, romanticize, invent answers.
But Adam knew the truth. He had looked for refuge. And the world had mistaken it for menace.
The furnace was cold now. But its shadow lived in him.