Ocean Blue ✓

chapter thirty-one

elliot

I can't catch my breath. I can't catch my breath.

Why did Brooklin and Taffy and the girls do this? Why? I tried so hard. Every damn day. I tried to be the best friend I could be, constantly shoving down everything I actually wanted to say or felt for the betterment of those stupid douchebags. I was so unhappy. Ridiculously unhappy. Why? Why did I do that?

My parents don't know I'm gay. Oh my god. This is a fucking mess.

There's so much I need to do, so much on my mind that I know needs to happen, but I can't focus on anything long enough to even comprehend what it is that I need to be doing. My mind is a mess, my hands are shaking on the steering wheel, and I almost hit someone's stupid cat at three in the fucking morning.

Yesterday was so perfect. This is literally the opposite.

I keep telling myself to breathe. Breathe, Elliot. Breathe, so you can go home and tell your judgy parents that you're queer. Breathe, so you can stop your hands from shaking long enough to type in your phone password and see exactly what was said about you. Breathe, so you can go apologise to Neema for hanging up so abruptly. Breathe, so you can go back to Alyssa.

Of course, I don't breathe. I feel like I'm about to pass out.

I pass the Cumm-n-Gitt and contemplate pulling in, but whoever's on shift will be either Enrique, who I don't even know, or Norm, who's hardly a close enough friend to warrant thrusting all this upon. So I zoom past, winding along the scenic path till a speed limit sign, blindingly white against my bright lights and the harsh downpour, reads 55. I screech the Camry to a halt and jauntily three-point-turn, and head back into town.

Salty snot runs freely down from my nostrils, but I can't even wipe it away. Same with the free-flowing tears. My eyelashes are soaking wet, but I ignore it. It's like I can't move. I feel trapped, and small, and I can't breathe.

Every time I try to inhale deeply, my whole body shakes. I pull over a few times before I realise the solution is to stop trying to breathe deep. I head back onto the road with a painfully tight chest.

Okay. Okay. Okay. What do I do? What do I do? Neema isn't the best to offer legal advice here. She took our school's Civil and Personal Law class, and she wants to be a lawyer, but she's not a lawyer.

Maybe it's not even as bad as she says it is.

I'm vaguely aware of my surroundings when I whip over to the side of the road—I'm in one of the neighborhoods close to Duncan's house, now parked squint beneath a yellow streetlamp. The Lumineers CD Duncan's brother lent me sounds fuzzy in my ears. My head feels detached from my body. The Camry's engine thrums beneath me, pulsating, as I reach for my phone in my pocket. My fingers don't cooperate for a few seconds, but I manage to punch in my password through the numbness and shaking.

My Instagram inbox is flooded with messages. It's not too many people who have been messaging me, they've all just spammed me. With what, I don't want to know. It's also nearing four a.m.; most of my schoolmates are asleep.

My chest is heavy with snort. My shoulders shake. What kind of fucking onslaught awaits me tomorrow?

I don't open any of the DMs. I have just as many regular notifs, and I realised that I've been tagged in the InstaTea posts. Some inhuman sound escapes my lips, not quite a groan, or a whimper, or a cry. Pure, animal pain.

My profile feels desecrated. I don't post often, but they're all happy pictures, a lot of me and Duncan and Neema. It reeks happiness. It feels so stupid and innocent. When I switch to my tagged photos, I have to scroll down to find a photo that's not an anonymous text screenshot.