Author Note: Updated and Edited on the 11th of March, 2018 - also it's my birthday!!!
22.10.19 - There's been some heated discussions regarding a certain topic in this chapter, and I have decided to re-write it. If you're new to this chapter, don't worry. If you aren't and know what was said, know that it was changed for the better. While I do encourage discussions, I think this was too much to handle.
Instagram: broken_dream07
Chapter 19
A Colourful Confession
Nicole arranged a group meeting at the cafeteria prior to coming over. It's the first I've ever seen her look so nervous, despite trying to hide it with her upbeat personality and smiles.
She avoids any questions regarding what the meeting might be about, only concerning herself with last night's events and how drunk she got. Eventually we just go with it, knowing that when Jesse and Rachel arrive everything will be answered.
Raven keeps in tune with Nicole, laughing along to her exaggerated gestures and loud story telling while Noah scrolls through his phone, a look of concern coating his relaxing features. I can't help but be fixed on him as his shoulders slump.
I nudge his side as we round the corner to the cafeteria. "You okay?"
"Mum," he says, before tucking the phone in his jeans pocket. "September can't come soon enough for her. I can't wait for it to be over."
"Birthday party problems." I force a smile to let him know I understand, where in fact it's the complete opposite. I've always had simple birthdays with Stacey, none of which required too much planning prior months away. They usually ended with late night dinners and early morning birthday cake which had us staying in the bathroom for longer than necessary.
Noah isn't going to have that. "From where it's concerned my brother coming doesn't help the situation. But there's no stopping Mum, she has her ways."
"It'll be okay," I reassure him, but mostly to myself. "It'll work itself out."
He acknowledges it but doesn't continue speaking, checking him phone once again when it beeps. I press my lips together, glancing quickly at his open hand closest to mine as courage swims to the point of deciding to take it. My chest tightens as a rush of nerves fall into place. Holding his hand makes everything that more real. And when he squeezes back in return, it all falls into place.
"What about you?"
He hasn't let go of my hand, even as the wind picks up and the flaps of his jacket parts, exposing his solid black shirt. I remember the comfort of the material as though I just wore it seconds ago, making me go out of breath.
"I'm fine."
He raises a brow at me. "I'm starting to get your word 'fine' has a lot of stuff behind it."
When did he start guessing what my words mean? Having to be questioned with what I'm saying begins to set a scratchy, painful instinct to start up again. I push myself to not freeze and default or lie and have walls I've tried hard to break down come back without a momentary thought. This is what it's like to have someone in your space. They're always assessing you.
I swallow it down and squeeze his hand instead, making it out to be reassuring as he tried to do, only failing when I don't meet his eye.
"So much had happened this morning," I say, knowing fully well the events were playing in his mind as servery as mine, "but I really am fine. I'm anxious to know why Nikki wants to have a group meeting."
The look Noah shoots me has me stopping for just that moment and really think about what I just said. Last night at Amor had been an adventure, but Nicole had also shared an important moment with Rachel and me. A moment, that for her, meant so much more than just a silly confession like Rachel's love for all things Disney and musicals, or my need for pizza every so chance I can get. It was bigger than Raven's plans to live out his life the way he mapped it out on his hand, or Jesse's pride in all manner of Rachel. Noah's birthday party plans is put on hold for this moment...
We enter the cafeteria and tension soars through the roof. We begin moving through tables and students, Nicole bouncing all the way, her short hair flying around her face like a windy afternoon catching on, when we reach Jesse and Rachel by the back corner, phones out in front of them with chips out in the middle. Nicole bounces in front of them.
"Hey, hey, hey, my favourite people are here! Sorry we took so long, we had to get a couple of lovebirds out of their nest." She leans in close as I get closer, a cheeky smile adoring her face. "Someone just couldn't stop making kissey-faces."
I release Noah's hand. "That's not true." No one said anything about being lovebirds.
The smile grew. I know the game she plays; hoping to get distracted as much as possible before she went ahead and told us what we already knew. It's a very simple diversion that often give people time to get it together. I don't push further as she continues to gossip about me.
"Can they be even more gross?" she exclaims.
Noah comes behind me, hands reaching out to wrap them around my waist. "You mean you haven't seen your favourite people be gross before?"
"In public? Not quite as much as you guys."
Noah buries his laugh at the crook of my neck sending shivers like a river down my spine. "'Not quite' she says."
"All right," Raven interjects, slipping next to Jesse and pinching his food, "What's the meeting about Nikki?"
She laughs, the nerves kicking in almost as sudden as her rose colour cheeks. I've always seen Nicole as a confident person, someone with no emotional baggage or disastrous fairytale ending. She's the sun that comes through the stormy grey clouds of winter and brightening up everyone's lives with a simple smile or confidence boost...
But for the first time, I've been fooled. Tricked and skimmed along like everyone else—a facade that hides layers of hidden insecurity she dares to not mention. The likelihood this secret of hers has been eating at her for years doesn't go unnoticed, not when her hands shake drastically on the table, or the napkin fidgeting in her fingertips.
"So, this may come as a shock to you, but I like girls." She stresses out the last three letters, eyes trained on a fallen chip. "I've liked girls for a while, and I thought I should tell you."
I swallow hard, glancing at the others on the table, waiting for their reaction. Noah and Rachel don't, but that was to be expected, they already knew. Raven surprises me by remaining at his seat, lips pursed up as he nods slowly until an accepting shrug comes through at last.
"Cool," he says, leaning back against the seats. "Yeah, that totally makes sense. Congrates."
Nicole doesn't bat an eyelash, and that's when I realise her attention has been on Jesse.
Ah. She didn't hold this meeting to admit what majority of us knows.
Jesse sits so still it takes me back to the first time we met when he stared aggressively at me for bumping into them. He gazes still at the chips before him, arms crossed. We're here so nothing happens. We're her support.
Having grasp the understanding makes the tension in the air tighter. Jesse doesn't respond, and Nicole begins to worry her lip. Everyone at the table looks between the two but no one makes to say anything, as if they're waiting for that hurricane to erupt.
Until... "You were bullied." Jesse's eyes flash the same way, too; fired up and ready to roar. "For liking girls. Locking yourself away, never going out, piles of homework at your desk—for what?"
The tension between the two step-siblings rises as Nicole remains quiet, her tremors going at a steady pace. I want to reach out and hold her other hand, but the position of the chairs doesn't allow that to happen, not unless I get up and pull out a chair.
But I know what it's like to be confronted on deep secrets; having them laid out, bare and unprotected as someone analyses them, like an essay ready to be restructured. So with just a breath to calm down my own nerves, I grab the nearest chair, scraping it along the cafeteria floor, and place it down next to Nicole to take her hand.
The wave of relief sending my way tells me I've made the right decision. Now Rachel and I hold her hands as she controls her breathing.
"It wasn't just the bullying." She swallows. "My parents won't accept me, Jesse. They don't support anyone in the LGBTQ community. They think it's wrong!"
Jesse scoffs. "Yeah, well, so is divorce in some people's eyes, yet that's still acceptable." Nicole doesn't bat an eyelash at the statement. Jesse keeps his gaze steady with her. "You can tell Richard. He loves you as if you were his own flesh and blood."
"He'll tell Denise." That must be Nicole's mum. "And then what? They fight about it and decide to get another divorce because of me? No. I won't do that."
Jesse backs up, but the conflict in his eyes tell me how true it must be. I know nothing about their family situation. Any advice I could give them will backfire because I'm not in their situation and I don't understand. I don't have parents of my own to understand. For a moment within the silence, it does make me wonder how they would react if I was part of the community. Would they accept me like Jesse's dad or disown me like Nicole's mum?
"When did you know? Was there a girl?" Rachel asks, folding her hair behind her ears. Jesse's eyes follow the movement.
"There was. I was crushing on her for years and I didn't know until..." Nicole begins uncertainly as she looks back at us before clearing her throat. "She had long brown hair and blue eyes and an addictive laugh. She shared a couple of classes with me. We worked on assessments together, and I thought that I really wanted to get to know her more. So I did everything I could to be near her, even offering to do her homework and assignments. It would sometimes cut back into mine, but I didn't care. I just liked to see her happy.
"Then one day a rumour started flying around that the girl and I were secretly dating because of how suddenly close we were. I never had a clique of people to hang out with, just a random couple of people who usually rogues out. They pulled her up to speak about me, to warm her about me, but she said I wasn't because I wouldn't be looking feminine if I did. In the end it didn't matter what we said. They were persistent and it went round.
"I thought at the time I should just tell her about me. Not my feelings, but who I am as a person so that at least she knew that even great people like me can wound up liking the same sex." Nicole cast her eyes up for a moment before snatching them down again. "Because we were friends and I trusted her, I blurted out that I was gay near the oval looking over notes."
Nicole's shakes fades but what remains is a slump of a weak grip. I hold on further.
"She looked at me like I've seen every other person look at someone when they're not an ideal representation of society: confused. As if questioning my sanity. Because 'How can this person be so stupid to think they're gay?'. She thought I was joking, even laughed it off saying she was, too. Eventually she believed me, then threatened to tell her friends, but I begged her not to. Then she accused me of liking her. I didn't say anything, didn't really know what to say. Not because she was right, but because of everyone else who knew. She left with her notes full. I didn't pay much attention on the test even though I passed with flying colours. We didn't hang out with each other after that, didn't even breathe in each other's space. I always feared if I did, something might break, and my secret would be out, like I've been expecting it to.
"Instead, one morning she stopped by at my lockers with her book bag she carried around and passed it to me, demanding I do it for her or else she'll tell everyone. I felt so trapped." The quaking of her hands returned. "I couldn't say no." Tears pricked at her eyes. "It went on until Year 12 when I met Noah."
With a distraught expression overclouding him, Noah frowns in sadness until he looks back at me; a smile meaning to tell me it was true. I listened further.
"He got me at a bad time studying for my SAC's," she says, a wink of a smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. "I was stressed out and he was on the lookout for a book, which I had. He asked if he could borrow it, and I said—do you remember what I said, Noah?"
"You said, 'You can't, it's gay."
Nicole rolls her eyes. "He laughed so hard he was told to shut up by the librarian passing by."
"Why was that so funny?" Raven interjects, leaning forward on the table.
"The title said 'You're Happy But What Am I?'." A chuckle comes from Noah then, follow by Nicole, red face and a matching colour underneath her eyes, tears ready to drop like her confession.
"We began up a friendship, hanged out a lot. He knew about the rumours and told me he could help. And that's how we ended up fake dating."
Raven blows out air. "My gay-dar was right the entire time, I knew you two weren't dating. Called it out from the get-go."
Rachel looks over at him, and reaches out her hand. "Oh my god, are you gay too?"
"Asexual," he says, picking up a chip from the middle of the table. "I've known for years."
"Sometimes I think I'm bi." Rachel nods her head as Jesse gives her a side look. "I think about girls the same why I think about guys. I just haven't acted on it."
"You've never acted on it?" Jesse blows air. "Is there anything else I don't know about you?"
"I love Adam."
His eyes widen. "WHO—"
"He's the Beast from Beauty and the Beast," Nicole interjects calmly. "You have a Disney fan as your girlfriend here, come on Jesse."
The blond takes a moment before sighing in relief just as Raven projects what we are all thinking: "As in girlfriend-boyfriend girlfriend?"
"Since when?" Noah asks.
Jesse swallows, red warming up his entire face. For a moment I feel bad for him to be put on the spot like that. "Oh, uh, we made up last night after the clubs and then I asked her."
Happiness blossoms within me at Rachel's smile, hiding under the chips she's eating. All she wanted was his love, ever since they met in year 12. If she thinks Jesse is her guy, then he is. But there's a part of me that isn't so convinced. That part doesn't come up, not that it can. We're all sending them congratulations.
Nicole says, "Just wait until I get myself a girlfriend." Colour rises back in her cheeks and she's no longer holding our hands. "None of your heterosexual asses will even compare."
"But I'm not hetero," Rachel says. "We're in a bisexual relationship."
Jesse picks up a handful of chips. "Goddamn it."
The table continues its chatter, and there's no longer that tension circling us. We each adsorb the information in our own way, like how Raven joins Jesse in scoffs down the chips, not really looking anyone in the eyes despite Rachel telling them that we need to have more group meetings. Nicole checks everyone's facial expressions, and Noah reads his phone, assuming Veronica has sent him a message about his birthday.
And just like that, I'm in awe of everyone.
They've all been through their own type of ordeal, neither one worse than the other. A consistent battle since the age of twelve—maybe even younger—where they felt like they had no one to go to. Because in a world like the one we live in, the only person that can ever rely on is yourself.
But when is that not enough? When is it the right time to ask for help?
There's never a right time.
I clear my voice, gaining the attention of the girls first. "I think we should order pizza. A whole lot of it."
"Why's that?" Rachel asks.
Because my parents died when I was twelve, I want to say. Because my depression is eating me on the inside because of them and I can't help but let you all know since you trusted me with your own secrets.
Instead, like always, the words comes out different. "To celebrate coming out."
Rachel's eyes light up. "That's a great idea! Maybe we can call the pizza place up and have them write 'Congrates on being gay' in cheese and salami and olives."
Nicole pulls a face. "That'll be way too much cheese."
"There's never enough!"
"Jesse, tell your girlfriend there is a limit to how much cheese you can put on a pizza," Nicole says, evoking a laugh out of me, making everything go away for just a moment.
Then aunt Stacy's face flashes on my phone.