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Chapter Three
The ringing of the school bell signaling for lunch didn't bring joy to me. I usually enjoyed lunch, jokingly claiming it was my favorite subject of the day like others, but at the moment all I wanted to do was hang out near the football and track field, knowing that Kendall and Haiden always sat as close to the middle of the cafeteria as possible so they could feel like they were the center of attention.
I gathered my things together, barely leaving the classroom only for an arm to wrap around mine. Familiarity flooded through me as I noted that it was Chloe-Rae that had wrapped her arm around mine. She was blowing her trademark bubblegum.
This time instead of it being bubblegum pink it was grape soda, which made a more gothic aesthetic to her than the pink, and it was her favorite flavor of bubblegum. She just had the pink as a cliché hue, which it was.
"I think that we should just ditch them, hang out by our tree, whatcha think?" Chloe-Rae craned her head to the side, her pieces of pretty hair shimmered in from the well maintained window that was next to us.
It made her features brighten up, and if it weren't for the fact that she wasn't showing true emotions at the moment, I was certain that others would believe that she was beautiful in this moment.
Well, I thought that she was beautiful, but what was the point of me saying that a girl was beautiful in this school when they thought that you were sinking into what society wanted you to be? What if they thought that I was being insincere because of the fact that I wasn't straight? Or that just because I was gay that meant that I had to automatically say that a girl looked beautiful?
"Sure."
I shrugged my shoulders, there wasn't anything wrong with the thought of hanging out with one of my closest (if not the closest) friends that I had bestowed with. Chloe-Rae nodded her head, satisfaction was brimming in her eyes, and I couldn't help but smile warmer at her.
She looked at me point blank with no emotion whatsoever in her face (I couldn't tell now what she was going to say), "what's with the look? Don't tell me that I'm the exception to your sexuality and you have harbored a secret love for me. I would say I am sad to deny you my love, but then I would be lying."
Shaking my head, I allowed her to know that it wouldn't happen. I had yet to have a girl that I looked at which made my heart race and palms sweaty like the three boys that I had crushes on. I never fell in love, and I think it was because of the fact that I thought that love was a dangerous thing.
Together we walked in the direction of the side doors that led out to the school campus. Mom usually packed my lunch, which at first annoyed me immensely when I had started middle school but now knew that it was convenient due to the fact that I wouldn't have to worry about making something the night before or in the morning.
It also helped that I didn't have to eat the processed food that the school board thought was acceptable for adolescent consumption. Chloe-Rae often ate food that I had left over, I had a feeling that Mom knew that I shared my food with at least one of my other friends so she always packed extra.
The warm breeze washed over us, but it wasn't enough that I shifted uncomfortably in my sweater. I saw no need to wear a jacket either, so I was wearing just enough of a thick layer to not sweat immensely.
As soon as the doors opened and we headed in the direction of where the beautiful tree that had been here since the founding of the town, I could sense eyes on me. I looked over my shoulder, finding that Kendall and Haiden were contemplating the thought of coming outside and confronting me.
Kendall was hastily conversing with Haiden, waving her hands around with vivid emotion, but Haiden shook his head and placed his hand on her shoulder blade. She sighed and nodded her head, but I didn't know how to take this. I didn't know if they had decided to drop this or they decided that they should confront me either during Gym or out of school.
"Don't worry about them," Chloe-Rae suddenly spoke, making me flicker my eyes away from the large windows that looked into the cafeteria and to my best friend. As always, I took her advice and made myself think of other things—such as what weird vegan or vegetarian lunch Mom made me for today.
Reaching the tree with bellowed, wiry branches that hung autumn leaves (hues that were bright, but some were burnt hued), I sighed in relief and plopped down onto the dry grass. Chloe-Rae sat down next to me, and I handed the doggy bag that Mom had my food in, she eagerly opened the doggy bag and allowed the food to plop out of the bag and onto the grass.
I watched her as she grabbed all that she wanted with her fingernail polish still as fresh as the first day that she put it on. I think that she was obsessed with making sure that her fingernails wouldn't look like they were maintained by a little girl, or a girl with really low self care. She would put more nail polish on as soon as the pieces of her natural nail were staring to show.
Lunch was a quiet affair; there was nothing to report on. We ate without needing to talk that much, since we weren't Haiden or Kendall. I didn't expect Julito to come out to see us; he was really sensitive when it came to temperature. He couldn't stay that long out in the cold or heat.
We threw our trash into the trashcan outside of the cafeteria and headed in the direction of where the gymnasium was. Chloe-Rae stayed next to me, her arm now clung around mine again. I could tell that this was why some people thought that we were going to fall in love (sometimes others joked that Chloe-Rae was going to make me turn straight again though that wasn't how sexuality worked).
Students were flooding in and out of the gymnasium, some of them with different t-shirts than they wore earlier in the day. Others had their hair still scraped up, while some looked as though they had taken showers.
Usually these were the ones that snuck into the locker rooms so that they could take showers before heading to their next class (the only ones that had time were the last class of the day, and drove to and from school).
Entering the gymnasium, which faintly smelt like sweat and deodorant, Chloe-Rae and I were greeted with our two gym teachers conversing with each other freely in front of the locker rooms that were separated by gender (obviously). They glanced at us, before they looked at each other again.
Coach Ulster watched me enter the locker room with my backpack, like the majority of his students, while others had carried in their duffle bags. Mine happened to be in my assigned locker, I only brought the duffle bag home before the weekend when I knew that I had done hardcore workouts during the week.
The shutting and opening of metallic lockers inside the locker room reverberated as I made my way towards the middle of the locker room. In the back of the room there was the office that was meant for the gym teacher, along with the football coach, both of whom actually went to the same university.
A few of the guys that were around me were conversing freely with each other, some talking about their dates that they just had with their girlfriends while others were just talking about how they forgot their homework.
A few of them glanced at me, some of them had a look of discomfort as though they thought that I was checking them out while others merely gave me a glance before turning back to what they were doing.
I had barely opened my locker where my duffle bag was only for me to hear the sound of familiar footsteps heading in my direction. I pushed the locker door away from me and noticed that Julito was heading towards me. His deep Italian skin added a contrast to the lights above us, and he waved hello to the guys that were around us.
When he reached me I didn't have time to say hello, instead he automatically spoke, and "Haiden is almost here," slipped out of his mouth
"Did he talk to you during lunch?" I probed to him and he nodded his head, "yeah. To be honest he kind of deserved it. I mean, you're right. He could be scarred now, not wanting to even think about dating for a long time, or even having feelings for another person."
I sighed and pulled out my duffle bag before sitting it on the wooden bench that was in the middle of the locker room. I turned and put my backpack in the locker, making sure to hang it by the metal hook that was in the middle of the back of the locker. I turned to look at Julito.
"Rae was saying how I should distance myself from them, Haiden and Kendall. Do you think that I should do that?" I couldn't help but ask, my eyes flickering behind him to see when Haiden would come entering the locker room.
"Yeah, I think that you should. Rae usually is right when it comes to her advice; it's kind of creepy how accurate her advice is."
Julito almost shivered at the remembrance of the accuracy that Chloe-Rae was known for when it came to advice, she almost always gave the best advice that would cause no problems anymore.
The door that led into the locker room opened and we were soon greeted with Haiden entering the locker room with his pink hair looking disgusting under the florescent lighting above us.
Some of the guys around us acknowledged Haiden while I tried to ignore him. Julito rolled his eyes at the pink haired boy, before he opened the locker that was next to mine—he too seemed as though he wasn't in the mood to actually deal with Haiden either.
I quickly changed out of my school clothes and into the random gym outfit that I had picked out for the week; I left the locker room before Haiden could corner me and ask me why I was being dramatic. Or maybe he actually had common sense and would apologize to me for the way he treated Noah.
Coach Ulster acknowledged me as I entered the gymnasium again, his hazel irises showing nothing more than satisfaction that I had actually had gym clothes. There were too many teenagers that just decided Gym wasn't what they wanted to deal with, so they would just sit on the bleachers with their school clothes on.
It didn't take long for Haiden and Julito to arrive in the gymnasium, having left the locker room with each other. Julito had a poker face, which assured me that he wasn't going to tell anything to Haiden if the other teenager wanted to know more.
Especially if Haiden was going to ask which side Julito would be on, because there was no point in actually asking that due to the fact that Julito preferred me over Haiden.
Chloe-Rae was standing on the girls' side of the gymnasium, stretching with a flexibility that had some of the boys flush. She had actually done yoga with Mom, but other than that Chloe-Rae never really went out of her way to be all buddy-buddy with my parents (she wasn't even buddy-buddy with her own parents).
Kendall stood next to her, trying to stretch like our odd friend, but could only do minimal stretching like most teenagers. Her eyes flickered away from the dark clothed girl to me, her eyes scanning over me with irritation.
Her lips were pressed together in a flat line but then she turned her attention away from me. She must have decided that it wasn't worth staring at me any longer. She and Haiden were going to come and confront me soon enough.
Both coaches decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to have us go out to the track this afternoon so that we could walk around. I knew that with the girls able to mingle with the boys it meant that Kendall would be able to confront me with Haiden, instead of it just being Haiden that was confronting me.
Julito stuck to my side as we walked out of the gymnasium doors that led to the outside, the autumn leaves around us crunched as soles of tennis shoes stepped on them. Hair blew from the strong wind that was whipping around us, sending more of the dry heat into the air.
Haiden and Kendall jogged over to us, Kendall's hair pulled in a high ponytail. Her pretty features were calm now, but she obviously wanted to see what would happen next. The girl was a leech when it came to confrontation. She wanted the attention on her, or someone that she knew, so that she could explain things in her point of view (even if what she said happened didn't actually happen).
Kendall and Haiden reached us while Chloe-Rae hovered behind them. Her band t-shirt, dark gray cotton shorts, and black tennis shoes gave off the same contrast as much as her other type of clothes did. Kendall on the other hand had on a neon athletic outfit that looked as though it was just worn for show and not because of the fact that she wanted to actually exercise.
Haiden wore only Nike branded exercise clothes, while Julito was wearing hand-me-down clothes from some cousin of his. There were a few holes that were on his t-shirt and his shoes were a little more worn out but other than that his outfit actually didn't look too bad. Luck was on his side when it came to this, at least.
"So want to explain to me why you've been ignoring me today?" Haiden started off, his eyebrow arching upwards as he folded his arms against his muscular chest. I sighed, "I'm just not in the mood to deal with this today. I didn't get any sleep last night."
Kendall studied me for a moment, "yeah, so? I don't get a lot of sleep either but that doesn't excuse me when I'm being a bitch—"
"You weren't there," Julito spoke up, surprising Kendall and Haiden by how he interrupted her, since it was obvious that Kendall thought that Julito would never show any type of backbone to her—it was apparent that Julito was done with being silent around Kendall because he wanted to stick up for me.
"You're also a bitch most days," Chloe-Rae added on, I brought my hand up and placed it on my head, contemplating the thought of telling Coach Ulster that I was getting an amorism from my friends.
I knew that he wouldn't believe me, or he knew how annoying Kendall and Haiden were but he knew that dealing with this kind of shit meant it should be building me character. Like I needed to hear that for the thousandth time already, since that was what my teachers had told me when I had outed myself.
"Excuse you!"
I groaned at them, "please shut up! This is why I didn't want to deal with you earlier today, look Julito is right. You weren't there Kendall, so you have no right to act as though you were there as a witness. Rae, you are allowed to have your own opinion towards others but please don't make comments like that when I'm in emotional stress. Or at least say it when I'm not there."
They all blinked at me with widened eyes peering at me seconds later, well except for Chloe-Rae of course, and they waited patiently for what I was going to tell them. I appreciated that at least it had calmed a little bit, because I would have probably screamed so that I could relieve this stress that was building up in me. It would have to be torn down eventually.
"We should walk or else Coach Ulster will come over," I grumbled, our eyes flickering over towards the middle aged coach that was looking at us with interest. I knew that it wouldn't be too long before he would drag himself towards us so that he could ask us why we weren't doing a simple thing like walking.
Our soles of our shoes hit the concrete that made up the track field. Some of the teenagers were flocking around the football field despite the coaches telling us that we were going to be on the track field. The only ones that I knew would get away with it were the ones that were on the football team, and even the track and field team. Other than that the others would be ushered back onto the concrete track field.
One of the football players was throwing a football to his friend, since he must have either gotten it from his locker in the locker room or he had snatched it out of the utility shed that was near the football field. He was quite handsome, and although I looked at him a second more than a normal straight guy would, I decided that staring at pretty boys could wait a little longer.
Turning back towards my friends, I sighed, "Look, I wasn't just being dramatic earlier or asking for attention. I really did have a bad night's rest. I snipped at my parents, which is really rare to be honest. We both know how pacifists my parents are...anyway, just you snipping at Noah aggravated me Haiden...
"We've been friends for so long but I feel as though we've been distant from each other for a few years. All I know is that I need some time away from you and Kendall..." I expected for there to be screeching, instead I paused and turned to find that Kendall and Haiden were staring at me with uneasiness upon their faces.
Haiden reached his hand up and rubbed it against the nape of his neck. Kendall looked as though she was going to search in her pocket so that she could find her phone. She held onto that phone like it was her life line, so much like the other teenagers in my generation. Her fingers tapped against her athletic shorts, and I internally rolled my eyes at her twitchiness.
"Is this seriously happening to us?" Haiden didn't ask anyone in particular but I knew that he was openly asking for anyone to hear. I could tell that this felt surreal for him.
He had so many friends and he must have thought that he wouldn't lose me. He thought that I had dealt with his shit and I would continue to deal with this shit for the rest of our lives, which was not what I planned on.
"So why am I being attacked too?" Kendall folded her arms against her prominent chest, pieces of her hair were loose and they swayed from the wind that hit us. Sunlight shimmered down and hit us at odd and awkward angles, making some of us flinch from the sudden blaring.
I took a deep breath before I spoke, "it's kind of obvious that you are a package deal, I can't be in anymore healthy friendships if I have you still here because you'll have Haiden around you despite you saying that you won't have him around. There's also the fact that you have a friends-with-benefits thing going on."
Kendall blanched at the statement that I had just made, "Ah...um...that's a private matter...you shouldn't just..."
"Everyone knows Kendall, it isn't just Icarus," Chloe-Rae's voice broke in, and Kendall's face became paler at the truth that was being shoved in her face.
She must have thought that she could sneak around with Haiden, especially since in many cases she was the other woman (yes Haiden still dated other girls even if he was sleeping around with Kendall).
"Don't worry, I don't resort to blackmail," I assured her, knowing that she might think if she tried to run my reputation into the dirt I would tell people how long she had been sleeping with Haiden. I knew that they had been sleeping with each other for about a year and half.
She also knew that I didn't add the little truth of, "unlike you," because I knew that it wouldn't help anything. If anything it might make me look as bad as her, because I didn't need to point out something that was easy to see.
She shifted awkwardly and turned to look up at Haiden, he was calculating something in his head before he glanced down at me, "I'll be fine with this if you don't hate us. If you do, then I won't just accept the fact that you were friends with us even when you have hated us."
I snorted inwardly, "Are you seriously thinking that I hate you? I don't hate you two, I hate how you act. So don't worry, I don't hate you. I just know that we've drifted apart and it's time to say goodbye."
Julito and Chloe-Rae were off to the side; in fact Julito was conversing with one of the football players while Chloe-Rae was playing with the football that the guys had been throwing to each other. A boy was waving his arms around, as though telling her that he was open, but he never expected that she would throw it perfectly. He groaned as he fell backwards once the football hit him square in the chest.
I knew that I would be fine with those two. These two that were in front of me had been here longer than those two. Those two would be there for me through thick and thin, yet as I peered at Kendall and Haiden I knew that they wouldn't be. It just wasn't destined for us to be together like this.
I headed over to Chloe-Rea and Julito while Haiden and Kendall watched me leave, only to chuckle when the guy finally got up from the football field and blinked at Chloe-Rae with an impressed smile. "Dude, I think I'm in love."
Chloe-Rae didn't look amused, but both Julito and I snickered at the fact that she seemed to have a new admirer. It just assured me that I was meant to be friends with Julito and Chloe-Rae, not Kendall and Haiden.