Babis had a laugh that came out before he could stop it. It was loud and bright and impossible to ignore—just like him.
He lived in a small town where everyone seemed to know everyone, and somehow that made everything harder. At school, the hallways felt like tunnels that squeezed in on him. Whispers followed him. Snickers bounced off lockers. Boys in the back row of class would mimic the way he talked, exaggerating the softness in his voice. Someone once taped a note to his backpack that said, “Why are you like this?”
Babis knew why.
He liked boys.
He liked the way Andreas’s hair fell into his eyes during math class. He liked the butterflies he got when a male actor smiled on TV. He liked the truth inside himself, even if he was still learning how to say it out loud.
But knowing who you are and surviving other people’s cruelty are two different things.
Every day, the bullying chipped at him. In gym class, they “accidentally” shoved him too hard during basketball. Online, fake accounts sent him messages telling him to disappear. Even some teachers heard the jokes and chose silence, which somehow hurt worse.
At home, Babis didn’t say much. He would sit on his bed and scroll through videos of people in big cities living openly, laughing freely, holding hands without fear. He wondered what that felt like—to exist without shrinking.
One afternoon, everything boiled over. In the cafeteria, a group of boys started chanting his name in a singsong voice, twisting it into something ugly. The room felt too small. The noise too loud. His chest tightened.
And then something unexpected happened.
He stood up.
His hands were shaking so badly he had to clench them into fists. His voice cracked at first, but he forced the words out anyway.
“My name is Babis,” he said. “And I’m not going to be ashamed of it. Or of who I am.”
The cafeteria went quiet—not because they suddenly understood, not because they felt guilty—but because they weren’t used to him speaking back.
“I’m gay,” he continued, heart pounding so hard it hurt. “And that’s not an insult. It’s just a fact.”
Someone laughed nervously. Someone muttered something under their breath. But the spell had broken. The chanting didn’t start again.
That day didn’t magically fix everything. The bullying didn’t disappear overnight. But something inside Babis shifted. He had heard his own voice, strong and clear, and he couldn’t unhear it.
A week later, a girl from his history class slipped a folded note onto his desk. It read: “I think you’re brave. If you ever want to sit with us at lunch, you can.”
It wasn’t a parade. It wasn’t a movie moment. It was small.
But small things can be seeds.
By the end of the year, Babis had a tiny circle of friends who liked him not in spite of who he was, but because of it. He joined the drama club. On stage, under the lights, he didn’t feel like a target. He felt powerful.
The town didn’t change overnight.
But Babis did.
He realized something important: the people who bullied him were loud, but they were not the future. The future was bigger than that hallway. Bigger than that cafeteria. Bigger than their small ideas of who he should be.
And one day, when he would leave that town behind, he would carry with him not their cruelty—but his courage.
Because the laugh that came out before he could stop it?
It was still bright.
And it was still his.
😂😂