New Days [Completed]

New Days: Two

Max. Hold up." 

There was still commotion in the room, but Jake had been loud enough to be heard.

 Max froze, but having no choice, really, turned around and faced his friend. Him and all his friends, he realized a moment later. The boys, Ken, Ray, Tony and Jake all looked at  Max with expressions that really couldn't be described, but they made Max's throat dry and the pit in his stomach even deeper. They stood like that awhile, facing each other, till the class cleared out and it was only the five of them left. Ray closed the door, then turned to Max.

"Um...yeah?" he asked.

"Earlier, what- what was that?" 

It was obvious what he was referring to, even without his instincts guiding him, as was Max's choice of action. Play dumb. "What was what?" 

"C'mon, you know..."

"I don't. What are you talking about?"

"You seemed pretty eager to get on with that dare." 

Max thought quickly. "Yeah, well, I just wanted to get it done and over with."

Ken raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Why agree to do it at all?"

"I didn't think I'd hear the end of it if I chickened out."
His confidence was growing - they didn't seem to be entirely certain just yet. 

"Come on, we wouldn't have forced you to do something as disgusting."

He tried to keep it casual. "I didn't know that."

"We're your friends! You didn't think we'd actually make you kiss another guy, did you?" 

Jake's indignance was starting to unnerve him. 

Still, he needed to maintain his calm. He was almost out. "I didn't know."

Jake opened his mouth, then shut it again, but kept his eyes trained on his friend. 

"Okay, forget about it. You'll agree that it's sick to want to kiss a guy?"

It should have been easy to deflect - the question wasn't something entirely unexpected, and on some level, Max had seen it coming. 
"Yeah."

It would have gone well, if he hadn't hesitated.

"Max?" Jake's eyebrows narrowed in suspicion. "You think it's okay to want to kiss another guy?" 

"I don't! I swear!" This was probably the moment that decided everything. Max's voice had gone from soft and solemn to squeaky all of a sudden - his friends knew him well enough to know what that implied.

"You're gay? What the hell, man?" His words were accompanied by a shove towards the wall.

It hurt. Not just the physical contact with the brick wall, but his words. The sudden change in tone was shocking, and I couldn’t miss the disgust that oozed from every one of those words.

"What? No, I'm not! I'm straight..." Max didn't finish what he had started saying. His voice trailed off, and confirmed any doubts the guys must have had.

The next thing he knew, a fist made contact with his nose and he felt the pain rushing in.

***

That was Friday. Monday was worse, as I'd expected. Not only had the word spread and freaked the entire student population out, the teachers looked at me strangely too.It got better when everyone deserted a two meter radius from wherever I walked, more so with the name calling and whispering. My locker got a new paint job, too. But the icing on the cake had got to be being called out of class by Coach Turner.

"Grey!"

"Yes, sir?"

"I won't beat about the bush. Rumors have been flying, but I won’t believe them till I hear it from you. Are you gay?" His face twitched when he said that, but at least he was true to not beating about the bush.

"I...think so." I should have seen what was to come coming a mile away, but I didn’t. The lack of foresight allowed me to go with the truth.

His face had been halfway between pleasant and hopeful till that minute, and I'd been starting to think that I had found one teacher who wouldn't look down on me, which wasn't much to expect, because come on - the entire population couldn't be homophobic, could it?

Contrary to my expectation that he would pat me on the shoulder like he always did and say something like 'I just wanted to know. Keep holding on, Grey", his face hardened and he said it. Said one little sentence that suddenly made everything unbearable. "Then you can't be on the teams."

"Wh-what? Why?" I was shocked, duh.  The boys' reaction had made it clear that probably nobody would be okay being around me anymore, (even the sympathetic wouldn't want to cross them, I knew) but this was crazy!

"The boys no longer feel comfortable with your presence...they threatened to quit."

Ouch. I couldn't even argue back. There was no legal basis I could counter with - because Coach wasn't chucking me off because he didn't like me - and the boys could always say that they didn't want to work with me. On paper, it wouldn't be because I was gay -but that's what it was; on paper. I didn't have anything to say. I just didn't. So I turned away and walked to my next class. The bell had rung when the Coach had kicked me out and...fine.

Ha, yeah, right. Fine indeed. The people I'd called my brothers (okay not Jake, because then it would have been incest, which is illegal) had had me kicked out from the one thing they knew meant the most to me. By lunch, the pain of rejection had built up into madness within and I couldn't take it anymore. I had nothing left. I'd been able to deal with the whispering and name calling, because I didn’t care, but being kicked out of my teams?

My day went on as you'd expect - sitting all alone in classes, having people look at me - some with sympathy, others with disapproval, and soon it was lunch time. This presented another dilemma: I had nowhere to sit. And as I thought that sentence, I also thought how pathetic that sounded. Ah well, we all have our drama queen days. I couldn't go to what had been 'my' table, and though I had had other friends, I knew that none of them would just let me be near them.

It was all about the reputation. They didn't want to get on the bad side of the stereotypical jocks we - they were, I reminded myself I wasn't part of them anymore - and it really wouldn't be fair on them.

All this I'd figured out before getting any food, so I walked out. Screw lunch.