"What did you hear?" Trent asked as he drove me back to my house.
"A-all of it," I stuttered. Trent let out a heavy sigh, and hit his steering wheel, which caused me to jump and whimper.
"Gray, shit I'm sorry I scared you," he apologized. I wasn't sure if it was for hitting the steering wheel, his dad coming home, or both. "I didn't think he would be home till late, I just didn't want him to catch you there. I also didn't want you to hear that."
"H-how come?"
"Because that part of me is something no one knows about. Not even Brayden."
"He seems to not know a lot of things," I muttered under my breath.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Shit.
"H-he was asking m-me about u-us," I admitted.
"What about us?"
"Like, wh-what are we?" He sighed, seemingly reluctant to answer which had my nerves on end.
"We are... something I am not ready to label yet."
"I-I get it. I've been o-out since junior high; you're just figuring it out n-now."
"Like I said before, I don't know what I'm feeling. And if my Dad found out before I had this all figured out it would be... well let's just say he wouldn't be too happy."
"I u-understand."
"I have never been good at feelings, especially after my mom, I haven't really felt them. This is new, especially with someone like you. I haven't really talked to Brayden about it because I'm scared to."
"I think you should." I told him. "He just wants to know; he just wants to help."
"Maybe I will. This is you." Trent says as he pulls up to my house.
"Can you just stay completely still for a second?" I ask, and he looks confused but nods. I take a deep breath and before I can stop myself, I lean across the front seat and place a gentle kiss to Trent's cheek. I see his cheeks flush and he smiles. "Thank you, for opening up to me." I say before I jumped out of his truck and ran into my house.
"Grayson?" Mom called as I closed the door.
"Yeah Mom?" I answered as I entered the living room.
"Where have you been?"
"You probably won't be happy with the answer."
"You were with Trent," she stated.
"I told you, I'm not going to stop seeing him."
"Dinner's going to be ready soon, you should go clean up." She said, completely ignoring what I had just said. I rolled my eyes and went upstairs to put my bag away and prepare for what would no doubt be an awkward dinner.
"Grayson, you remember Adam, right?" Dad asked about halfway through our otherwise silent meal. I froze, my fork dropping from my hand and crashing onto my plate, the sound of metal against the China causing me to jump.
"Um, y-yeah. Of course." I weakly replied.
"He called to say he's going to be in town next week. We invited him to stay with us."
"What?" I squeaked.
"Well, we haven't seen him since you were like 13, Gray. He is your dad's best friend after all." I felt a weight crash against my chest as my mom spoke. I could not have him staying under the same roof as me for a week. Before I went into a full panic, I excused myself from the table, running up to my bedroom and locking the door behind me. Once I was safely inside, I began to let out my choked sobs and gasps for air. When I couldn't calm myself down, I turned to the razor, but even that couldn't calm me down tonight. Instead I spent the rest of my night hyperventilating in my bed, until I just passed out from sheer exhaustion.
Awaking the next morning I felt like I had been hit by a bus. I struggled to even shower and I groggily stepped out the front door, ignoring my parents and walking straight toward Trent's truck. Trent instantly looked concerned as I got in the truck.
"Gray, are you okay?"
"No. And I d-don't want to t-talk about it. Okay?"
"Yeah, sure." He let the conversation go, for now. I had a feeling he would be bringing this back up later though. But if it kept me from having to spill my darkest secret now, that was fine.
Trent drove me to school, mostly in silence. The radio played in the background and I just focused on the music. I didn't sing along with the songs, but I sang them to myself in my head, to keep other thoughts out. Trent kept glancing over at me while he drove, no doubt trying to figure out what was going on. I wouldn't look back at him, but I could feel his gaze on me throughout the drive. When we finally got to school, he had me wait in the car with him until Brayden arrived.
"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" He asked while we waited.
"Y-yeah," I muttered.
"Your stuttering is really bad this morning, it's like you took one step forward and then five hundred back, Gray. What's going on?"
"N-nothing!" I shouted. "There's B-Brayden, I have t-to go." Before he could stop me, I got out of the truck and walked up to Brayden. He looked at me concerned and then looked to Trent sitting in his truck.
"Hey Grayson, everything alright?"
"C-can you j-just walk me to class, p-please?" I asked. He nodded and we walked through the halls in silence. Brayden tensed up as he saw Kyle, Jacob, and Ian walking down the hall in our direction. They locked eyes with me, and I instantly froze. Brayden turned back and noticed I wasn't moving.
"Come on, I won't let them touch you." We both started walking again and Kyle and his friends got closer.
"Brayden Turner, Trent have you looking after the charity case now?" Kyle mocked as we got closer.
"Fuck off, Kyle," Brayden spat as we kept walking. Jacob and Ian got closer to me and I froze. "Back away from him. I'm not going to hit first but if you touch him, I will have no problem beating the shit out of all of you." Kyle and Brayden were standing face to face now, squaring up to one another. "And you know I can," he spat. Kyle's face hardened and he looked for a moment like he was about to hit Brayden, but then he backed away and we continued walking to class.
I spent the day in a familiar numbness. The thoughts racing through my head were too much to deal with. Adam would be staying in my house for a week. Suddenly possibly getting beat up by Kyle didn't sound so bad, I almost welcomed it, wished he would just put me out of my misery.
"Hello, earth to Grayson!" Nat's hand waving in front of my face broke me out of the trance I was in. We were at lunch; I was pushing food around my tray and Nat and Brayden were having an animated conversation about God knows what.
"W-what? I'm sorry."
"What's up with you today?" Nat asked. "You've been a total space cadet all morning," Nat look at me with concern.
"I just... got some bad news last night is all." I admitted.
"What happened?"
"N-nothing," I lied, stuttering around Nat for the first time possibly ever.
"It's definitely not nothing if it's got you this quiet. What happened?"
"I don't w-want to talk about it."
"Grayson, you know you can tell me anything, right?"
"I know. I'm just n-not ready."
"This doesn't have anything to do with Trent, right?" Brayden asked.
"N-no. We're fine."
"Good. He came over last night, he was super upset but wouldn't talk about it. I thought maybe it was whatever you were upset about." I just shook my head and didn't say anymore. I knew Trent was upset about his dad, but if he didn't tell Brayden about it, it wasn't my place to say anything.
After school Trent picked me up like always, Brayden escorted me out of school, Kyle and his friends left me alone, and I felt the relief wash over me when I got to Trent's truck. This nightmare of a day was almost over.
"Hey," Trent smiled nervously. I couldn't help but blush at the thought that I was making him nervous.
"Hi," I gave a weak smile back. Trent frowned but didn't say anything else and started driving. We soon made it to my house and Trent followed me into the house. This time, instead of sitting in the living room I took Trent up to my room.
"Grayson, what's wrong?" He asked after we sat in silence on my bed for a few minutes. I tried to think up a good lie, something, anything but the truth. I knew that I looked so scared and depressed that he would never believe whatever lie I came up with. I racked my brain searching for a way to put the truth into words. I had never spoken about what happened to me before.
"I-I don't know how to s-say it," I admitted, close to tears. Trent's expression softened and he started to reach for my hand but then pulled it back fearing I would panic.
"Just try, I'm right here, and I will be no matter what."
"M-my parents f-friend A-Adam is coming n-next week," I said as a tear spilled from my eye. The weight was back on my chest and I began gasping for breaths.
"Gray, you're okay, I'm here. Take deep breaths with me okay? In," Trent took a deep breath in, "and out," he slowly let out the breath he just took. He repeated it until I followed along with him, my breaths shaky, almost like hiccups at first. But after a few minutes I was able to take smooth deep breaths. Before Trent could say anything else, and before I could think about what I was doing, I reached my hand out and interlaced our fingers. I continued taking deep breaths until I felt comfortable, even comforted, by the feeling of my hand in his. "Grayson, what did Adam do to you?"
"He... he r-raped me."