Why Us?

The Stares

                                                                   Chapter 1: The Stares

    Lance McKinnly, the valedictorian, a senior of Hoffton Christian High School, and ironically the popular student, was now the outcast. From the moment that he set foot into Hoffton that Wednesday, the only thing that he received from his fellow students was nothing but cold, heartless stares. With each one of those stares, brought the reminder of how dirty he was to society. Those long stares of disapproval of him being in this school and even on this earth made him want to die, but killing yourself, in his Christian beliefs, was many times worse then what he was.

    He was an abomination and his soul was ruined from the instant his heart started beating rapidly for another young man. This young man was the same age as Lance, seventeen. He had bright, hazel eyes, unlike Lance’s sky blue ones; short, half-curled half-straighten silky brown hair, unlike Lance’s straight dirty, blond hair. He was at least six-foot-three while Lance stood at five-foot-nine. His body was built, which made Lance crumble under his presence. He basically looked like the jock type with the chisel chin, strong arms, rock-hard abs, and stern eyes, but he was not into sports and that made Lance like him more.

    Still Lance couldn’t figure out if it was his looks or his smarts that intrigued him so much about this guy, but once he realized how much he thought about this guy, he knew that it was over for him.

    “McKinnly!” a low pitch, familiar voice yelled from behind him, which distracted Lance from his lingering thoughts.

    Lance blinked his eyes twice and looked around to see that he was standing in the doorway of his English classroom. He was so zoned in on his thoughts that he didn’t even realize that he made it to class.

    “Come one McKinnly, move it. There are others waiting!” the voice continued.

    Lance turned around and sucked in a deep breath as he saw his heart throb, Jason Binning, staring down at him, talking to him.

    “S-Sorry…”Lance mumbled nervously and moved towards his seat as fast as he could to get out of everybody else’s way.

    His desk was in the third row of the seven rows present in the classroom and the fourth desk of the eight in that row. Basically, he was in the middle. The rest of the students bustled inside the classroom and headed towards their alphabetical assigned desks that Mr. Howl assigned to them in the beginning of the semester. Mr. Howl came in after the students and sat at his teacher’s desk that was in front of the class. A black chalk board hung behind him. The classroom had two large windows that were at the far back of the classroom when a person walks into the classroom. The tiles were marbled white, which made it easier to see dirt, but they weren’t wax or cleaned that day. All the walls in the school were off white. The school was too cheap to pay for the white paint. They even added that even if the walls were white that they would sooner or later turn into the off white.

    As everyone found their desks, Lance slightly noticed that one student was not present in the class, but he couldn’t remember who so he let the thought slide as many other thoughts began to settle inside his head. If he could get away from the middle of the classroom, he would gladly do it, especially since it made him an easier target for assaults. Ever since the entire school found out about his sexual orientation Monday, everyone treated him like dirt. Lance hated Mondays, but because of the incident, he had an even better reason to hate them.

    That Monday, Mr. Howl paired the fifty-six students up to read a few chapters of “Othello”. Luckily for Lance, Mr. Howl paired him up with Jason. Lance’s feeling for Jason grab hold of him and made his mind cloudy and so it made him stare at Jason with a very unknowingly sensual look.

    “Don’t look at me like that,” Lance heard Jason say after a while of him reading a part in the play. “Are you even paying attention?”

    “What are you talking about?” Lance said, quickly looking down at his book and realizing that he was on the wrong page.

    “If you keep doing that I’m going to think that you like me or something.”

    “Like you?” Lance repeated slowly.

    “Yea, but don’t worry. I’m sure you’re not like that.” Jason chuckled.

    “Like what?”

    “You know…homo.”

    “Oh…” Lance asked. “Is that bad?”

    “You of all people should know what God thinks of homos. It’s just wrong for another guy to like another guy like that.”

    Lance didn’t bother with another question. He turned his book to the right page and began reading his part. They got through five pages until Jason saw Lance zoning out and staring at him again with that same look.

    “Man, Lance, you’re staring again. Do you like me or something?” Jason laughed, joking with him.

    Lance should have smiled and said no, but that would’ve been a lie and so he looked up and said, “Yes.”

    A dead silence took place over the room. The rest of the students turned their heads towards Jason and Lance. Their conversation carried over the rest of the class.

    “Ha, that was real funny. Right everyone?” Jason chuckled, side glancing at the other students who were staring at them. “You’re lying right?”

    Lance just lowered his head in shame and shook his head no.

Lance’s secret was out of the bag in less than four hours, since the guys gossiped just as bad as the girls. That answer he said in his English class led to his out casting as being one of the ultimate sinful ones.

   If only he didn’t tell the truth then his social standards wouldn’t even have changed. He only had one more week left in school and then he would have graduated and kept this secret to himself, but because of his stupid beliefs he was now living nine days of Hell. Thinking this, Lance looked up at the clock hanging above the black chalk board and saw that he was going to burn for fifty-five minutes in the class.

   “I’m an idiot…” He mumbled to himself as he dropped his red backpack down next to his desk.

   He seated himself down into the desk, but he had to quickly stand back up as he realize that he sat on pieces of folded papers that were surprisingly addressed to him.

   He picked them up, sat back down, and began to read them as Mr. Howl and the rest of the students waited for the bell to ring for all the classes to officially begin.