Pressing Flower {EDITING}

Principled Love

“So what exactly are we going to be doing?” I asked Conner the next day in class, it’s been only about a week into my sophomore year, his freshman year, and we’ve already become pretty good friends. The middle schools in our area went from sixth to eighth, so this was the first week that many had ever seen or spoke to each other. Since we went to different middle schools, this was the case for us.

“We have to take care of an egg.” He said with a tired sigh.

“Oh...well this should be egg-citing.” I said with a soft chuckle.

He looked up slightly and shook his head disapprovingly.

Obviously he must have had a bad night, I thought to myself as he gently put his head back on his desk. I sat there not sure what to say or do though our silence was soon broken by Conner.

“I’m sorry about what Mist did to your friend ythe other day. She usually doesn’t behave that way.”

I was about to say something when he cut me off,“Well, I suppose she does...but not that bad.”

I swallowed hard. Now I was sure I didn’t wanna fuck with her. Cause if you’ve seen some of the kids that try to mess with her, they get their asses beat.

“So....do you know why she acted like that?” I asked as I finished writing down some of the notes they had taken the other day while I was out taking a stroll around the school grounds.

He looked up then took a deep breathe before beginning.

“You’ve heard what people called her right?” His voice was almost a whisper.

“Yeah?” I answered not sure where he was going with it.

“Well, people all think she’s gay because of all the girls that find her attractive.” He said stopping to let it all sink in, or thats what I believed it was.

“So she takes it to heart when others, especially boys, start saying shes a lesbian. Though in all seriousness she's straight.”  He stopped and looked up at me,

“Oh.” was all I managed to say before he spoke again.

“Also, she gets so defensive about people joking by calling people gay because she had a friend or two thats gay.” He said as he kinda turned away a little bit. I looked at him, his face with flustered.

Maybe he was embarrassed for saying so much, but then I realized what he meant and just as the bell rang I said it.

“You’re gay.”

He messily grabbed all his papers and binders and was the first out the door. I just stood there watching everybody file out of the room. I couldn’t believe it. Did he really already trust me enough to come out after only a few days.

Later that day at lunch, I didn’t see him. Neither did I see Misachi or Mist. I sighed as I sat down where we had sat yesterday. It felt weird not to have him across from me. Before I knew it Anthony and Zach had made their way over and were now arguing about, god knows what! Anthony must have been having one of those days, where he’s the moodiest person ever. Even moodier than the girls on their periods! I sat there silently as the two continued to bicker. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Conner had said “She gets defensive about people joking by calling others gay because she has a friend or two that are gay.” He trusted me and all I said was that ‘he’s gay’. Very inspirational isn’t it? Did I hurt him? Probably. Though I probably will never be able to ask him if I did or not and how.

Before I knew it I was punched in the arm, forcing me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see a blond looking down over me, she didn’t look mad or upset like she did yesterday.