I think after everything that's happened to me; I'm winning in life.
Well, I mean, I've probably just had the craziest two days in my life. Let me remind you. I suddenly get outed by my ex-best friend, my own friends turn on me out of bitter pettiness, I lose my boyfriend, it turns out he was the one who outed me, and I fought back against the biggest dickwad alive?
I was winning. And even if something wasn't going in my favour, I'd switch it around. I had friends again. Well, I had Noelle, and even though I knew her for less than a day, it was better then anybody I had previously.
16:47, Layne's Bedroom, Eavie, UK
'but can I ask you one thing layne?' De-yun texted me, and I was curious for what he was going to say. I responded, but he left me on delivered. I waited for his reply, but after a while, I put my phone on my wireless charger and took a nap. My mind slowly faded into a calm, deep, clean slate as I drifted....
6:47, 17 Eunice Hill Road, Eavie, UK
..... to sleep. I had forgotten to wake up from my nap and slept like a bird for almost 14 hours. The only thing that reminded me to wake up was my phone alarm ringing for me to wake up, and that's when I regretted taking the nap.
Putting on my stylistically challenged uniform as I brushed my hair, reminding me that I still need to get my roots done, I took my phone off it's charger, put my laptop into my bag and left the house, forgetting to eat breakfast.
Can you believe how much has happened over the past week? Neither can I. But as I said earlier, it's fine. I'm winning? I don't even know myself. These thoughts plagued my mind until my bus arrived at school, and I walked in whilst making sure I looked decent. In the morning, there's pretty much nothing to do at school besides go to the library or wait until tutor time. I decided to go with Option A, so my legs walked to the school library where I saw Noelle. She was the only person I wanted to see at that moment, considering that almost everyone else just jumped on the train of disliking me. I sat in next to Noelle, in the plastic pastel blue seats that seemed to be the only source of colour in the whole school, whilst getting my laptop out of my bag.
"Hey, Noelle." I ecstatically said to Noelle, who was reading a book whilst zoning out.
"LAYNE!!!" Noelle screamed, before realising that we were both in a library. "Is that the new one?"
"New what?" I asked. "Oh, you mean my MacBook? Yeah, it's a Christmas present."
"Anyways can I have a De-yun update?" Noelle asked, preparing to laugh.
"Stop laughing! He texted me so..." I responded, excited as I brushed my hair with my hands.
"Like when?" Noelle asked, whilst trying to sit comfortably on our school's very uncomfortable plastic blue chairs.
"Kay, so like. I responded to him, and he just didn't re-" I tried to explain.
"TOLD YOU! Sorry." Noelle interrupted, whilst I looked pissed off, because you know; I was.
"But like that's enough about my life. What about yours?" I asked, attentively because this whole time, I only knew small parts of Noelle's life. As we sat together, I noticed that boy walk in. De-yun. That was like the second time I saw him by himself, considering he was probably becoming Langley's best friend.
"Wait, nobody comes here. Why is he her-" I contemplated before I was interrupted yet again.
"He came for you." Noelle whispered. "Enjoy your Heartstopper moment."
"Enough!" I cried back to her, whilst she laughed softly.
"Hi, Layne. I'm sorry for not responding yesterday, my mum took my phone. But I wanted to ask-" De-yun said, but as he was speaking, the obnoxious loud bell rang over him and interrupted him.
"Sorry, De-yun, speak later?" I asked him, as he nodded his head as he waved goodbye. Which was really awkward because we were all in the same tutor, so we just walked together in silence, throughout the grey corridors, to our black and white classroom. Our door was locked, and it had a post it note that read, 'Year 9 assembly.' Are you serious?
Trust me, if you ever want to experience what hell is like, come to one of our in-school assemblies and you're already halfway there. And this assembly was extremely special because it was about the LGBTQ club. Nothing wrong with it, but the timing couldn't have been worse. As I walked into the repurposed sports hall which was also white and black with a slight hint of grey, I could feel the stares settling in as I sat in my seat, and Noelle sat in the seat next to me.
"Right." My best friend - Mr Blanchard, said after everyone sat down. "Today, we have a special assembly conducted by the head of the LGBTQ+ club." People started clapping whilst others were giving me wide glares. I wasn't the only person who was out but I'm the only one getting all this hate. "Thank you. Langley, you may begin."
"Are my ears deceiving me or did he just call Langley Kingston of all people to the stage." Noelle asked me, but I couldn't respond as Langley started talking.
"I've been asked to talk about the hate that LGBTQACDES+ experience on a daily basis." Langley spoke. You could not be serious. LGBTQACDES. The exact words that came out his mouth. "And it's true. They get too much hate. No matter who they choose to love or what they choose to be, they're still human. And we're also human, so why the harsh feelings?" Not only is this super ironic coming from him of all people, but nobody chooses who to love. It felt really embarrassing sitting in my seat. Why was he even doing this? To mock me? To embarrass me? "You see, I used to have a friend who was an amazing person, and then they unfortunately got exposed for being gay." This was already 4 times more embarrassing than it was 20 seconds ago. "And that's why I wanted to lead this beautiful club. The LCDT community is a beautiful thi-" In the middle of Langley continuing his mediocre speech, he was 'unfortunately' interrupted by one of his friends.
"I'm Sean, one of Langley's friends, and we just really wanted to express our thoughts and feelings towards the LGBTQ+ community. It's every Wednesday after school, in A180." Sean announced. He was kinda attractive. He had brown hair, slightly bronze skin, and made the school's impressively hideous uniform look amazing on him. I already had us in our mind together, chilling and sitting behind a tree, then he moves closer to me, and then we make ou- I came back to reality as I heard everybody clapping and cheering, but Noelle noticed the way I looked at Sean when he was speaking.
"Layne. Hello? Earth to Layne?" Noelle was speaking to me. "Oh my gosh I..."
13:21, The Bench, Eavie's Academy, UK
"... cannot do this! First De-yun now that Sean guy?" Noelle asked me as she put her hands in her head.
"So I can't be friends with straight people now? Gosh I'm going to go to Langley's LCD Club and tell them all about you." I jokingly responded. "But lowkey, did you see the new people that joined alongside you? Like there was one girl with that silvery shiny hair that was like so long."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. It went down to her waist." I responded.
"Wait, describe her again?" Noelle asked.
"She had like, silvery shiny hair." I said, Noelle's body language seemed like she had recalled something.
"What was her name?" Noelle asked, seemingly stressed.
"I'm not sure! You can't expect me to kno-" I said, but a plan formed in my head I think I have a way of finding that out for you." We stood up from the bench, noticing Melanie, Toronto, and Sien sitting together without Peter.
"What's the plan?"
"So, Noelle. We're gonna go to the cafeteria, which is where our best friend Langley always sits with his besties, until he comes over to annoy me, which he does daily. But the thing is, he doesn't leave the cafeteria until near the end of lunch, so what I'm thinking is; We stand up and go to the cafeteria, and if we're lucky, we may see the new girl with Langley." I explained my plan to Noelle as a smile formed on her face; She was in. She put her brown hair into a ponytail as she prepared to walk with me to Langley and his crew.
Honestly, me and Noelle enjoyed walking back into the school's corridors as we looked for the cafeteria. We laughed and joked about the assembly we had earlier that day, before finding the cafeteria and walking in, trying to ignore the eyes, because you know; People still hate me. Noelle looked for the girl I was describing, to see her with her arms around Langley, and he was returning that energy. I could hear subtle whispers coming from his table, and even that Sean guy, who was sitting opposite Langley, was looking at me. We walked through a door back outside before realising we couldn't find where our bench was, so we decided to go with the next option.
A few minutes later, B212, 9G's tutor room.
Me and Noelle braced ourselves as we knocked on the door to our tutor.
"Yes? Who is it?" Our tutor, Ms Greene, asked.
"Hi miss. Do you think you could let us be in here for lunch?" Noelle asked kindly, as Ms Greene thought about it.
"I'm sorry kiddo, but I can't." She said back.
"Please?"
"Oh, fine. Go on then. Just don't make a mess, I have a meeting right now, and I'm teaching a class after this." Ms Greene said, as she left us in the classroom, alone.
"You guys have all been at this school for like two days and already, Langley's dating somebody." I stated the obvious.
"So, you know how there's like 5 new people, me and De-yun included?" Noelle asked me, as I nodded my head in confirmation as she continued to speak. "So all of us are from our old school, Harfield Summit School, and like, that new girl with the shiny hair?"
"Yeah??" I curiously asked.
"She's my ex. She cheated on me with some guy at our old school, and like I broke up with her, and then she proceeded to tell everyone about our relationship, even though I wasn't ready for that. All because I left her because she cheated. Then she basically was the reason for me being bullied. Her name's Lana, and I feel like she's trying to ruin my life here too."
"WHAT????" I asked, clearly shocked. "Full circle moments like these are actually so scary."
"Yeah, and it's just so fuck- Oh shut up. Shut the fuck up." Noelle said, clearly disturbed by something.
"I'm not speaking?" I tried to tell her.
"Not you. That's Langley and Lana, together, with everyone else, and Lana just pointed me out to him. Let's go to our bench." Noelle instructed me as we gathered our shit and left.
Langley's POV.
"Lana, you lied!" I told her as I walked through the corridor, looking for Layne. "He's not here."
"Ugh! Why can't we find them." Lana asked me as the rest of my friends chuckled along with her.
"Where is that fag?" I asked, rhetorically, but of course, Sean had to speak up.
"Langley." Sean called for me as we walked, looking for Layne.
"What."
"You're the head of the LGBTQ+ club." Sean reminded me, like I didn't already know.
"Okay, and?"
"There are things that someone who's the head of the LGBTQ+ club can't do. Watching Fox news, going to straight pride events, and most importantly BEING HOMOPHOBIC. I don't even know why you did this." Sean said, as I looked for a response.
13:32, The Bench, Eavie's Academy, UK – Layne's Perspective
"Why can't they just leave the both of us alone?" I asked Noelle as we put our stuff back down on the bench. "Is Langley's whole life based on pissing me off?"
The timing was comedic almost, as I said that, De-yun ran towards me and Noelle to say something.
"I can't lie, Langley's coming here with his friends." De-yun said to me.
"Kay. But we didn't ask." Noelle responded to De-yun.
"What have I done to you?" De-yun asked Noelle, as he slowly started to get more and more pissed.
"You made my life hell. And I have to sit here and pretend I like you?" Noelle asked, as he looked ashamed.
"Wait, Noelle, what do you mean?"
End of Chapter Five