A Leap of Faith

Day Eight

Jessie had been cryptic as ever when I asked what she had planned for after school. I was running over a few ideas in my head when all of a sudden I felt a body ram into my side, pushing me into the lockers. I raised a hand to my head which had violent whacked against the small metal doors and looked up to see three girls walking away, laughing. My Religious Studies teacher – the only decent adult in the entire school came over to me and gave me a hand up. “Are you okay?” she asked. I nodded, but she didn’t move an inch. “Those girls shouldn’t have done that,” she said, and I smiled gratefully at her.

After the incident in class with Mr Fairfax when I outsmarted him, I had taken to not talking much in school. Some days would go by and I didn’t say a single word. Miss Graham was young and kind and she looked at me directly in the eye, making it hard for me to lie. “Why don’t you talk?” she asked sympathetically. I shrugged my shoulders, feeling more bound to silence than ever for fear of saying something wrong. Miss Graham was my favourite teacher and I knew if I opened my mouth I would only embarrass myself. “Do you talk to anyone?” she asked, and I nodded thinking of Jessie. “Well, that’s good I suppose. If you ever need someone, I’m here.” She smiled at me one last time then walked off down the corridor.

I turned right and walked through some double doors, and as I did Mr Fairfax left his classroom and began walking towards me. “Eva,” he still couldn’t pronounce my name right. “I didn’t see you in class this morning.” Before he could continue I pretended I didn’t hear him, looked at my watch and turned on my heels to walk away. Running back down a flight of stairs I bumped into Jessie and felt a wave of relief. Neither of us had time to talk – she was on her way to Performing Arts and I had to get to RS but just seeing her made my heart sing. Concerned I would be late as I now had to take the long way round in order to avoid Mr Fairfax, I broke into a slow run along the corridors.

Silently I walked to my seat and kept my head down; I figured if I couldn’t see everyone staring at me then somehow it would mean they weren’t. I sat down and flicked my eyes up briefly – unfortunately my plan had failed and all eyes were disgustedly locked on me. Miss Graham smiled at me, noticing the way everyone acted towards me, and then began the lesson. The lesson title flashed onto the screen at the front of the class and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. The main heading read “Marriage and Relationships”, and the sub-topics we were studying were divorce, sex before marriage, and homosexuality.

I sat for most of the double lesson painfully waiting for the final topic to be discussed, and for a moment I had a slight hope that we wouldn’t have time. Then, the next slide came up and the whole class sniggered. “Christian attitudes to homosexuality,” Miss Graham read. Planning to just sit there in silence and keep my head down, yet again my plan was foiled when a girl from my old school spoke up, “Shouldn’t we ask Eva about this? I mean, she’s a Christian and a gay.” It annoyed me that she said ‘a gay’ as if I was some sort of species to be examined, but that was the least of my worried when the whole class spun round to stare at the gay.

“Is it true?”

“I knew it. You can tell by her hair.”

“I don’t want to sit near her.”

“She’s got dyke written all over her.”

All I could hear was the comments that now filled the classroom and the tapping of keys as several people whipped out their phones to text their friends about the breaking news. Miss Graham clapped her hands to pull everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand and I sat in silence, biting my cheek to stop the tears spilling out. At last the bell rang and I hurriedly shoved my books in my bag. I tried to pack as fast as I could to leave the room first, but nerves made me drop everything and instead I ended up being the last one in the room. Miss Graham came over to me and put her hand on my arm. “Don’t listen to them,” she said. I bit my cheek even harder, determined not to cry in front of anyone. “You’re fine just the way you are,” she continued, and one silent tear ran down my cheek. I smiled gratefully, and then turned to leave.