Antonius Fletcher - District 3

My hair is dark brown and thick, and it's usually a mess. Like, you could hang me upside down and mop the floor with my hair. I don't let it grow out, because my hair is so curly that if I did let it get l too long, I'd have an afro. I have naturally oily hair, too, so if I don't wash it a lot it gets greasy-looking.

My eyes are pretty much the same dark brown color as my hair. You know how you read books sometimes and they describe the eyes of the main female character as "Swirling pools of brown that sparkled when she laughed,"? Well, none of that for me. I've tried to look at my eyes like that before, and all I can think of to compare their color to is mud. Gross, gooey, squishy brown mud. Not a pretty color, believe me. And when I laugh? Nope, no sparkles. Still mud.

I have high cheekbones, which is one of the few things I like about my face. My lips are really thin and pale, and dimples appear beside them when I smile. I don't like the dimples; they make me feel like I have a kiddish face. My teeth are super white because I spend so much time brushing them. I can't stand when people have gross teeth, and that includes myself. It's a good thing they're so white, because I hardly ever smile with my mouth closed because it looks weird when I do. I have really really thick eyebrows that make me really really self-conscious. I pluck them all the time, don't judge me.

I'm tall, about five foot ten, and a little bit thinner that most of the other boys my age, but then again I'm not similar to them in a number of other ways too. I have a pretty muscular build, I mean, I'm not anorexic or anything. I'm just not very bulky. I'm just saying if you took off my shirt, you wouldn't see ribs nor flab. I think I have nice shoulders, at least, that's what I'm told. I have a birthmark on my neck that looks kind of like a misshapen moon. Or one of those crescent roll things, if you want to look at it that way. I have really bad posture, which sucks. I have a problem with slouching when I walk and sit, which probably stems from how much I'm teased around and bullied in school. But maybe that will change since I'll be out of school soon. I have really gross-looking thumbs because I chew off the skin around my fingernails when I'm nervous or when there's tension in the room.

To start, I'll just straight out tell you I'm homosexual. I'm walking down the rainbow road, and I like it that way. It's just how I am, and if people don't like it they can either deal with it or stay away from me, because I don't like being picked on about it. I'm bullied nearly every day because of it, but no one's going to change the way I am. I'm seventeen, though, and I'll be out of school soon, so I won't have to deal with those people anymore. Until them, I’ll have to suck it up and ignore them. I’m a man after all, even if I am gay.

I try to keep my head up all the time (Not physically, though, I have a tendency to slouch). I’m generally an optimistic person, and I try to look at the glass as half full. Sometimes it’s pretty hard to do, but I’m always trying anyway. I always try to cheer other people up, too, but sometimes they don’t accept me enough to talk to me about stuff. My parents say I’m a considerate person, and that I should try to stay that way. I try to look at both sides of things, because I like fairness (even though it’s hardly ever something that’s given to me).

I have a good sense of fashion, unlike some of the other people I know. I know what you’re probably thinking, that it’s kind of a stereotypical gay thing to enjoy fashion, but I can’t help it. I’ve never been very artistic, but clothes are different. My family doesn’t have a lot of money or anything, so I can’t buy designer clothes like in the capitol. But I can usually make the clothes that I do have look good by adding things to them. Note: suspenders are totally coming back. Keep that in mind.

I’m a pretty intelligent person. I’m especially good at math, and that helps me to build things. One time I built a tree house in my backyard for my little brother, and it turned out really nice. My entire room is cluttered with drawings and blueprints of stuff I want to build someday. Mom says my high IQ is the reason I’m so spacey. I have a problem with zoning out and blocking everything else out when I’m thinking about something. She says it’s because there’s so much going on in my mind all the time that it makes it hard for me to concentrate on things.

I’m a skeptical person. I have to see something to believe it. When I was little, my mom would tell me stories, and I’d never believe them. It make it hard for me to imagine things sometimes.

I’m also pretty reserved, unless I’m around my friends. I don’t usually like to talk to people that I don’t know, and I’m not a very outgoing person. It’s probably because I’m not very self-confident. Ever since I first found out I was gay, I have been teased and made fun of, and it’s forced me into shyness. I have a lot of bad habits, and most of them are because of how shy I am. I can’t look people in the eyes; it makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason. I also chew my thumbs when I’m nervous, and I slouch a lot.

I’m the oldest kid in my family; the firstborn kid of Haven and Vitria Fletcher. We’re more fortunate than most of the people in our district; we have a decent amount of money and a two-story house that my parents inherited from my great-grandparents. It has a nice backyard with two trees and the tree house that I built.

When I was five, my little brother, Aaron, was born. At first, I was afraid my parents would like him better than me. I was only five, after all. But then I decided he was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. My dad probably likes my brother better, though, because my brother isn’t gay. My dad doesn’t approve of my homosexuality. My mother doesn’t mind, though.

Even from an early age, I was interested in building things. When I was a toddler, I built things with a set of blocks. When I was growing up, my father showed me how to build small stuff, like birdhouses and bread boxes. The two trees in my backyard are filled with birdhouses that I made, but I was never very good with bread boxes when I was younger. The biggest thing I’ve ever built is my brother’s tree house.

When I started school, I had a lot of friends. A lot of girls liked me, too. But when I was around 14, I figured out my sexuality, and a lot of people didn’t like it. Most of my guys friends avoided me, because they thought I would try to like, lock them in my basement and make out with them or something. The girls were kind of weirded out at first, but most of them didn’t hate me for being gay. Most of my friends are girls now. I still have a couple of friends who are guys, but they’re just not my best friends.