Chapter 2
The Great News
August POV
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"This was the great n-news?" I ask incredulously. I'm highly more than less disappointed but Catri of course hears that from my voice, knowing me too well.
"Yes, August, don't you see?" She whisper-yells not to draw too much attention to us. I look at her. "Really! You see, if you apply to this trial and get picked and become a model, I can follow you and learn and become your clothes' designer and you'll be a model to my clothes! We could work together, this is so cool!"
I stare at her utterly...shocked. What am I hearing! Someone's, who is supposed to be an eighteen years old good girl, imagination is running a bit too far.
"Catri, f-first of all...I'm a-a boy and not f-fit as a m-model" I say shivering at the thought, my nerves and the surrounding are making me stutter.
"Yes, yes you are both of those things" Catri says smiling. "You're very handsome and cute and I believe you could make it. You're a pretty boy, honey, this would be a good chance to show off and use those looks."
Some group of boys passes us and one of them snorts at Catri's remark and looks at me disgusted. My face redden. I'm not proudly gay, and to be honest I'd like to look less...androgynous, that's the word I guess. Many people here think I'm weird because of my looks. The only thing I like about me really, is my eyes...even if they're odd too. My eyes are grey and they change shade in different lights.
I've been bullied and looked down at in school for my personality and looks, by boys if I just wanted to be friends with them. It's easier now in high school for me oddly enough, but I still get these looks and stares and I'm still made fun of. It's difficult for me to be around other boys, talk with them or anything because of the bullying in addition to the fact I'm gay. Just because I like boys instead of girls doesn't mean I'm automatically attracted to every damn guy, and even if I look like this, I'm still a boy and also not a hooker.
I've never had a boy as friend, never met a guy who wants to be friends and accepts me. Few times, I got a friend and I thought that was going further and that he liked me, like I liked him, but then found out he just wanted to hook up and use me for my looks. I haven't got any real, steady friends of girls, either. Catri is an exception and my best friend, but I'd also call her my only friend outside my family.
"You don't know if we c-could work together, someone e-else chooses what clothes I'd m-model" I say, when Catri snaps her fingers in front of my eyes indicating I have got lost in my mind again.
"Yeah...well, you can now get experience and fame, and then some day you come work with me" Catri says. Her eyes are shining and she's now excited and having difficulties to keep her voice low.
"I-I don't know, Catri...this sounds -"
"- totally awesome!" She squeals, completing my sentence. Usually she does that right, but now she doesn't quite get it as I would have put it. She sighs seeing my face, and starts to drag me to class. "At least try, that never harms and you have nothing to lose."
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As soon as I hear noises downstairs, my for once hungry tummy leads me downstairs and to the kitchen. It's 7.04 AM and only Daddy and Papa are up. I tell them about yesterday and then my decision, and they are satisfied and glad.
"Not that I would have let you go, anyway" Daddy says, his fingers wrapped around his steaming tea cup. He has never learned to drink coffee. "It's good you're so wise, August. You may be good looking and all, but you don't even want to know everything about that world. It can turn against you."
"How do you know?" I ask curiously.
"Not of personal experience, but Ze has told us about what she sees in there" he says, sitting down on Papa's lap. "It's not as fun and easy as they make it look."
"That world is an own, fucked up world" Papa says seriously, and Daddy slaps his arm. He still does that when Papa swears in front of us kids. "Okay, maybe there are exceptions, but mostly. Ze is lucky she's only a designer and is successful enough to chose her clients and stand her ground. Only tough ones survive in those places you just mentioned, kid."
I'm thankful I have my parents and siblings, family...again. Aunt Ze still babies me when we meet and I'm her favorite, not because she loves my siblings any less but I'm the one who 'made her boys become parents and a family and to grow up', like she says. She moved with her brother following the rest of her family to America quite at the same time as we did. My life may seem boring and ordinary to some people, even if it's not because of my secret, but I've also been saved from much. Daddy and Papa are surely right. And I don't need to know.
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Read the full chapter in www.patreon.com/xelaneleh (link in my bio)