Hey guys, Sorry its been a while. Here is the next installment. Please let me know your thoughts at Tylersaysgo@yahoo.com
When I woke, Mitch was gone. This wasn't unusual, some days the football team had required early morning gym sessions, but today it felt different. In a moment of weakness caused by just having him close, I pushed my body next to his just to feel his skin against my own. Mitch and I always slept in the same bed when he stayed over or I stayed at his house, we have done this since we were kids so it was just normal, but I had never purposefully gotten so intimately close. I could kick myself for being so weak and stupid. I am jeopardizing a friendship with my closest friend because I can't get a grip on my damn emotions.
I sighed and sat up in bed, not wanting to face the day. I checked my phone to see if I had any missed texts but opened my phone to see no notifications. I was expecting that, but it still caused my stomach to turn. I slowly dragged myself out of the bed and headed to the shower trying to get myself motivated to face today.
As the water ran over me I continued to think about the events of the previous night. How could I have been so stupid? Mitch and I were as close as two friends could be, but consciously pushing myself against his mostly naked form in my bed was so overtly intimate in a way that could only be interpreted one way. I sighed and placed both of my hands against the shower wall and let the water run off my head and down my back washing off all of the suds off my skin wishing it would take my stupid decisions last night with it.
As I was pulling on my pants my phone made the alert sound that indicated a text message. In my haste to get to my phone, I hadn't quite remembered that my pants were only about half-way on, and as a result, I didn't make it across the room before falling onto my bedroom floor. I flopped over onto my back and shimmied my pants up around my waist to button them before darting up to my phone's location. I flipped the phone open with more gusto than necessary to open the text.
`You have used 70% of your available data. To increase your data plan, please contact your service provider'
"Ugh," I sighed loudly and fell back onto my bed. I lay there staring at my ceiling and thinking about the best way to approach Mitch. Mitch was a bit of a mystery when it came to emotions; sometimes I couldn't get him to shut up, and other times it was complete silence for days. It looked like this time it was going to be the latter. I turned my head over to glance at my alarm clock groaning as I read the red blinking numbers displaying `7:23am.' I pushed myself off the bed and finished getting dressed for school.
When I headed downstairs I was surprised to find my dad up and walking around already dressed. "The only day you are up before 8 am is Christmas, and the last I checked it was August," I say pulling down a glass from the cabinet. "Staff meeting," my dad groaned out around a mouth full of an everything bagel. After swallowing, he followed up with "Mitch left out of here in a hurry this morning, he didn't even try to steal my coffee."
I sat my glass of orange juice down on the counter and holding it around the brim and rotating the cup around in a circle on its base. A few silent moments passed between my father's question and I couldn't think of a witty retort to brush the question off.
"I see," he said.
"Teenage angst," I reply trying to keep it lighthearted. He walked across the kitchen and came behind the counter and grabbed me into a hug kissing the top of my head. I leaned into his embrace. My dad wasn't as emotionally perceptive as my mother, but I knew he was there for me for anything if I wanted to talk about anything. I haven't told my parents I am gay, but it wasn't because I was scared of their reaction, it was because I don't think I am ready to admit it to the world myself. Sometimes I have thoughts about just being a normal teenage kid and being able to just let go and not have a care in the world, not have to constantly think about if this seems too feminine or if this was too gay in order to prevent other people from finding out. It is exhausting.
My dad lets me out of his embrace and squeezes my shoulder and moves to the other side of the counter to pick up his coffee cup and walks out of the kitchen. I put my orange juice glass in the sink and walk over to the door to pick up my bag and head out to walk to school.
I manage to walk in the building with a few minutes to spare before the first bell rang signaling us to get our asses moving to first period or face lunch detention with coach Kay. Lunch detention was our school's way of `punishing' us for being late, but all it is, is a small room manned by coach Kay during your lunch period and sit there quietly for 10 minutes and then went to lunch. The idea was to take away your social time at lunch as a deterrent for being late, but in reality, it was a way to get through the lunch line without having to wait in line for the amount of time you would have had to sit in lunch detention anyways.
I didn't see Mitch in the lobby with his football friends as I usually did when I arrived at school on the days we didn't walk over together. I continue to walk in further into the lobby and I see Andrew waving me over to the group of football guys huddled around the back wall. I head over to the group greeting Andrew as I walk up to the group and nodding my head in a quick uptick, the nonverbal expression for straight guy `sup' to the rest of the guys. No one else really acknowledged me except Chris, who did a slight head nod of his own; which I suspect was more of a reflex at this point than an actual acknowledgment of my greeting.
"Hey man, how are you," Andrew asks as I slip the backpack off my shoulder setting it down on the ground. "I'm here," I retort without a lot of conviction. "Have you seen Mitch?" I try to ask casually, but knowing he will see through my sad attempt at being nonchalant. As I await his response, he goes on a facial journey immediately telling me that I wouldn't like the answer. Andrew started his answer to my question softly as if worried I would explode and he needed to keep me calm, "He came in about 20 minutes ago and grabbed Morgan and said they were skipping today." My heart twisted in my chest and my face fell. Andrew immediately tried to amend his statement in an attempt to make me feel better, "There's a big game coming up this Friday, I am sure he just needs to blow off some steam to get in the right headspace for Friday. Do you want me to text him to see where he is?" Picking up my backpack and already walking away I answer, "Don't bother."
I walked down the hall to my first-period orchestra class but as I walked my heart kept beating faster. My breathing started to become faster and more rapid as if I couldn't get enough air. The periphery of my vision began to blur and everything sounded as if it were underwater. I slowed my pace down and began to stretch out my arms as my vision began to fade to feel for the wall to lower myself to the ground. I finally feel the cool hardness of painted cinderblocks and slide down the wall and put my head between my legs. I was having a panic attack. I had never had one before, but of course, knew about them as both my parents insisted I have basic medical knowledge. I can hear my mom's voice in my head, "you never know when someone will fall out on the street or get choked in a restaurant." As my mind raced, I began to think of what she had told me to in the event if someone had a panic attack.
Carbon dioxide. I'm blowing off way too much carbon dioxide. I need to slow my breathing down or I am going to pass out in this hallway and I will never live that down. I still have three more years in this place. I try to control my breathing taking slow deep breaths in and holding it for a few seconds and doing a controlled exhale. As I was trying to bring myself back from the edge I hear mumbling getting louder and louder until I felt a pressure on my back. It took me a second to realize it was hands. I look up to see Juliette kneeled beside me rubbing my back and her lips moving, but I couldn't focus on what she was saying. I try to collect my thoughts and piece together a sentence, but I only managed to get a few words out. "Need. Out. Please." After a few moments, I feel her hand slip under my arm to help me stand up and she helps me walk a few steps down the hall to the back double doors of the school that the marching band used to take their equipment out to the football fields for practice. She guides me down the hill behind the school down to the sports fields, she takes us down to the baseball field and sits me down on the dugout bench.
She is quiet for a few moments, the only sounds are my exaggerated breathing and the sounds of cars passing by on the highway in the distance. After a few minutes, my vision clears, and I begin to come back to reality. "Are you okay?" She asks. "I don't know," I reply truthfully. I feel like an idiot. This is not the first time Mitch has ditched class to hang out with his girlfriend, but this time it felt different. Personal. Like a statement directly to me. Disengaging from my thoughts I look over to her, "Thanks for back there," I say softly. "Of course, you are saving me from a dreadfully boring class discussion on `Wuthering Heights' with a bunch of imbeciles who can't even spell the title correctly, so I should be thanking you," she says jokingly. I bump her shoulder with mine and give her a smile as big as I could manage.
We sit there for a while maintaining light conversation, but not really discussing what happened, for which I am thankful. I don't even know how to process what happened, much less explain it to someone else. Especially the sister of the person responsible for the said breakdown. We finally decide that we need to head back inside and face reality when we heard the bell signaling the end of first period and the five-minute transition period to get to second period. I stand up and grab my backpack extending my hand to Juliette, "We better get back," I say pulling her up off the bench. We walk arm in arm back into the building to attend our respective classes.
I finish out the day on auto-pilot, a slave to my thoughts. When the bell rang ending fourth-period I collect my things and walk out of the room and don't even bother stopping by the orchestra room to practice since I missed class this morning. I just needed time alone, without the possibility of running into Mitch. Which seemed like a non-issue since he seemed to be preoccupied with other things and avoiding me. I try to rationalize my thoughts that spending one day with his girlfriend does not mean he is avoiding me, but my mother is a firm believer in trusting your gut and has hammered that ideology in my head, and I can't help but follow it now. I thought about sending him a text and pull out my phone to compose a text, but my fingers freeze over the keys. "What do I even say?" I thought to myself. "Hi, Mitch. Sorry for making it awkward between us. I'm gay and in love with you and if you could love me back that'd be great, thanks!" I sigh, and close my phone and slip it back into my pocket.
I continue on my way home and make my way up the front porch and head into the house dropping my backpack by the front entrance. I slip my shoes off and walk down the hall to the living room and turn and fall backward over the arm of the sofa landing on my back with one arm across my eyes and the other across my chest. I lay there for a few minutes thinking about damage control and what I needed to do next. `I should send a text,' I thought to myself. I should just ignore it and try to move past it. If I pretend it never happened things will go back to normal.
Delusional, party of one?
I pull my phone from my pocket and flip it open, pausing while staring at my background screen. It was a picture caught in the moment by my mom of Mitch, Juliette and I last summer in the pool having fun and not a care in the world. I was on Mitch's shoulders and Juliette was mid-air from jumping in from the side to tackle me off his shoulder. My mom caught it at the right moment and it was my favorite picture of us. I rallied my focus and pulled up my texts on my phone and began typing out a text to Mitch.
I stopped, deleted, and restarted at least 700 times. I finally ended up with, "Hope you had a good day ditching, Sk8r Boi." It was just sarcastic enough and mildly provoking with the Avril Lavigne reference for him to know I was kidding and to start a conversation. I sent the message and laid the phone on my chest waiting for a response back. About fifteen minutes pass, and I had received nothing back. `He's probably still with Morgan," I think to myself.
I get up off the couch and head up to my room backpack in tow and start my homework for the night. Around 7 pm I hear my parents come in and decided that it was time to take a break from my studies to check my phone for a response. I open it; and nothing. I slam it shut with more force than necessary and toss it across the room onto my bed. I walk downstairs to join my parents and help prepare dinner.
Hanging out with my parents as we cook took my mind off the current situation at hand, and I laughed as I watched my mom and dad be sickeningly adorable together as they cooked. My dad would put extra sauce on my mom's nose and she would fuss about how she can't afford to have clogged pores as a dermatologist and spray him with the detachable faucet used to clean dishes. I smiled from across the island at their antics and turned to head into the living room to find something to watch while my parents finished up.
After dinner, I help my parents clean up and they say their goodnights and witty comments about how I'm their favorite child. I roll my eyes as I head upstairs. I walked into my room and eyed my phone laying on my bed and began to have an internal debate about at least maintaining some semblance of dignity and waiting at least 15 minutes before checking my phone. I lasted maybe 27 seconds.
I walk over to my bed and pick up the phone and open it to see one new text notification. I open my texts to see a new message from Mitch. I open the message as fast as my oversized thumbs would allow.
"ha"
Ha? He couldn't even muster up `Haha?' He was definitely still weirded out about last night and I decide to not respond and just give him space. I shut my phone and plug it in and make my way back to my desk and finish my homework for the night.
Tuesday came and went. As did Wednesday and Thursday. I did not stop by Mitch's house each day because I was trying to give him space, but this is the longest we have been without talking to the other. Usually, when he gets in his head space he comes back around after about twenty-four hours and apologizes for being weird and we usually end up in some kind of horseplay wrestling match. This time was different.
On Tuesday, he saw me come into the lobby in the mornings, and as I walked up he said he would see the guys later and walked off. I stood there for a few minutes, catching Andrew's eyes and seeing the pity in them. I walked away.
On Wednesday, I sat down at the lunch table with everyone as I usually did, and he got up and moved to Morgan's table making a lame excuse about needing to talk to her about Friday nights plans after the game. I tensed my jaw because I knew this was intended to hurt me. It was tradition that he and I always hung out after Friday night games. I sat quietly, jaw clenched and actively avoided Andrew's gaze.
On Thursday, I didn't see him in any of our usual before class hangouts or between class transitions. On my way out of the building through the junior and senior parking lot, I saw the back of his form walking down a row of cars. I followed the direction he was walking with my eyes and saw Morgan sitting in her silver Jeep Liberty putting on lip gloss in her rearview mirror. I started walking towards him and began a slight jog. I quickly realized I wouldn't reach him in time and yelled his name. I saw him falter briefly as I called his name, but he didn't stop and continued down the row of cars to Morgan's car. I yelled out again "Mitch, wait!" He turns his head slightly to see me about 50 yards behind him, and turns around and keeps walking. I slow my pace down realizing he intentionally ignoring me. I came to a stop and watched him get into the passenger side of her Jeep and pull out of the parking lot.
I felt sick.
I walked home with my stomach in knots and tears in my eyes. I hate myself for ruining the best friendship I have ever had. By the time I reached my house, my sadness turned to anger. My thoughts transformed from `woe is me' to I at least deserve a fucking explanation. It wasn't like I kissed him. I slid my body next to is in a weak moment where I was looking for comfort. Sure, it was a bit outside of what we normally did when the other was in need of comfort, but he was supposed to be my best friend, no matter what. I continued to stoke the burning flames of anger that rose in me, and by the end of the night, I decided I was going to confront him.
I tossed and turned all night, trying to sleep, but I was too full of emotion and couldn't turn my brain off. I rehearsed what I was going to say in my mind a thousand times. I prepared a conversation for any response he could give me. Subconsciously I knew I would not be as articulate in the moment, and end up stumbling over my words, as I was not a confrontational person, but I was determined and nothing was going to stop me.
I was up way before my wretched alarm clock went off, and I was even out the door before my parents were up. I headed to school early to make my way to the practice rooms to work off some nerves. As I was playing I realized I didn't know how I was going to get him alone. He would see me coming and walk away like he has been doing for three days now. I continued playing the Bach Concerto, but neither my head nor my heart was in it. I slammed my fist down on the keys and packed my sheet music up and decided I was going to go find him right now. I headed to the school lobby where everyone gathered before classes started to socialize to look for him. I saw him against the wall with his football friends and Morgan. He and Morgan were a little off to the side of the group. Her back was against the wall, and he had one arm resting next to her head their faces almost touching. My heart squeezed in my chest and I felt sick. I turned and walked out of the lobby losing all resolve I had.
The series of bells rang shortly after signaling us to get to first period. I made my way to the orchestra room defeated and empty. The day continued on and I was physically present during class, but mentally I was checked out. The bell for lunch rang and I hung back not really wanting to go to lunch because I didn't really feel like I had a place anymore with the group so it was uncomfortable sitting at the table, and I didn't know anyone else well enough to sit with them.
I head out of the classroom a few minutes after all the other kids rushed out to get into the lunch line, I sighed and got up to make my way to grab a bottle of water and head to the library for my lunch period. On my way out of the classroom, I was fiddling with the clasp on my backpack as I walked out of the classroom door and bumped into a solid mass and stumbled backward. I look up from the clasp on my backpack to see Mitch. His face was set in a hard line as he looked down at me. I looked up at him for a brief second and it registered what was happening. I finally had him alone. I collected myself and said, "I need to talk to you." He maneuvered around me while saying, "I don't have time right now." He continued walking down the hall into the open area before the entrance to the cafeteria. I catch up with him and say his name with emphasis, "Mitchell." I stopped walking and he stopped a few paces in front of me, slowly turning around to face me. "Don't push me right now, James." With that, he turned and made his way into the cafeteria. I stood there in disbelief. Mitch has never been angry with me, and it hurt. However, I quickly forgot about the sadness and the fire began to rise back in me. I didn't do anything. He was being a dick, and I was going to let him go.
I enter the cafeteria and spot Mitch standing in line with Lucas, Chris, and Andrew laughing at some dumb thing Lucas had said. How could he act like everything was normal around everyone else while I felt like my world was collapsing. Had I meant that little to him? The anger in me surged again and I lost all rational thought.
I stormed across the cafeteria walking right up to him and his football goons and grabbed him by the arm turning him around, "I need to fucking talk to you," I said. The immediate area got quiet as I caused the scene. My rationale mind screaming at me to let it go and walk away, but I was too far gone.
He jerked his arm out of my grasp looking at me as if I had grown three heads. It didn't take but a few seconds before I saw the anger flare on his face. "I said NOT. NOW," he bellowed out in a loud voice silencing the whole section of the lunch room where we were as people looked on.
"What the fuck is your problem, I haven't done anything," I say loudly, pushing him to finally tell me what was going on.
He looks at me a moment with an intensity in his eyes I didn't quite recognize before answering, "Get the fuck away from me."
I stood there with everyone watching me as Mitch turned away from me to turn his attention back to his friends. I felt completely lost and disoriented, and I could feel the reality of the situation coming down on me.
"I love you," I whispered to his retreating form.
He paused his movements, and turned around with that same intensity in his eyes and growled, "What did you just say to me?"
The realization of what I had just done hit me. I had told Mitch that I loved him in a fucking high school cafeteria as 300 students watched. I felt like I was going to be sick, but there was no going back now.
"I said I love y-" I was cut off by the intense pain on the left side of my face. I fell to the floor with barely enough time to register what was happening so I could catch myself before my head smacked the ground. I opened my eyes to see the hideous black and grey specks in the cafeteria floor with a few dark crimson spots on them. I realized it was blood. My blood. It was coming from my nose.
What felt like minutes, but in reality was only a few seconds, I realized what had happened. He punched me.
I bring my hand to my nose and back out into my line of sight. Yeah. Definitely blood. I look up to see Mitch standing over me inhaling and exhaling deeply as Andrew's arms were around him keeping him contained. I looked into his eyes and didn't recognize the person looking back at me. All I saw was anger, rage, and something else I didn't recognize. The lunchroom was completely silent as I brought myself back to my feet.
I stood completely up, and looked him in the eye one final time, and nodded signaling that I understood what this meant. I turned and walked out of the cafeteria careful not to make eye contact with anyone and I walked out of the front of the school and away from Mitch.