Tranquil Falls

Not on You

Mom had talked Dad into letting Finley pick me up from school some days and me hanging out at his place. It was probably a last-ditch effort to save me from myself, but I was going to take it. It didn't feel like they understood that it took something like this for me to realize who my actual friends were. If I lost friends because I quit basketball, then maybe they weren't people I wanted to be around. And that was growth.

In anatomy, we were working on dissecting cats. We were supposed to be working in pairs, but with an odd number in the class, I'd elected to work alone. Tae had branched out to befriend some of the girls in our class and out of the corner of my eye, I could see them looking sadly down at the skinned cat.

"So...," Brody said as he walked up to the table in front of me, "my partner is transferring schools and Mr. Bates said that I have to partner up or work alone. You know that this shit isn't for me."

I looked up at him slowly, gripping the scalpel tightly in my hand. "Oh? Okay, cool, but no."

"Look, Gatlin, about everything—"

"Save your apologies for someone who wants to hear them," I snapped. "You've been my best friend since elementary school and you dropped me when I decided that I needed to do what was best for me. You have no idea what I have been going through in the last month and a half, Brody. So, good luck. Find a trashcan and keep it close. You'll need it."

He still lingered in front of me, his hands in his jean pockets. I carefully ran my scalpel down the parts of the cat Bates had instructed us to work on, trying to ignore Brody and hoping that he would leave.

"Look, I've been a super shitty friend and I realize that," Brody said, moving around the table and sitting on the stool next to me. I sighed and put down the scalpel. "It's just...It's just that when you quit the team, it felt like you were abandoning me. We were supposed to be in this together for the long run and then this crazy rumor starts about you sleeping with boys? I know that you've slept with a lot of girls, so that can't be true."

I closed my eyes for a minute and then looked at him. "It can be, actually, and why should that matter? Since you've been out of the loop, that guy is the only one who hasn't abandoned me." I shook my head and turned back to the cat. "For what it's worth, I know I haven't been the easiest person to be around lately. I'm a work in progress and a true friend would be patient about that."

He was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke. "It hasn't just been lately, Gat." I glanced over at him. He was frowning at me, his brows drawn together. "You changed long before Taylor died. We didn't want to call attention to it because we figured you would tell us when you were ready, but you never did. Was this what you were hiding? You could have just told us."

I snorted. "My dad called me a fag, Brody, so would it really have been okay for me to tell you that? And it's part of it."

"Then tell me the whole story so I can start to understand," Brody said, reaching out and putting a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away from him, catching Tae's eye over his shoulder as I did. Brody looked like I'd just slapped him.

"If you really want to help me, Brody, then just get the fuck away from me."

"Gat—"

"Don't," I snapped. "You can't come to me with some lame ass apology and expect me to say it's okay. This isn't some dumb fight about flip cup or some shit. My life has been falling to pieces for over a year and you weren't a person that I felt like I could trust. And it's not just about what's been going on lately. You haven't been there, Brody. Not for a long time."

"You pushed everyone away."

"Yeah, but I didn't see you fighting to get in." I shoved my stool back harder than I needed to. It fell to the ground with a clang. "The bell's going to ring."