Endless Summer; Never-Ending Love

~Chpt 21~ Uptown Fucked Me Up

I am on the treadmill when Lia walks into the gym. She's wearing black and pick running shoes, black shorty shorts, a neon pink sports bra, and a think black headband.

I look at myself in comparison. I have blue, grey, and black running shoes, grey gym shorts, and a blue Under Armour wicking shirt.

I stop the treadmill to get a drink of water. "I'm sorry I called dad. It was just a precaution." Lia said to me as I sat down next to her on the bench.

"It's fine." I said "But I wasn't sick. I was nervous. And I got nervous really quick."

"Why? You were fine before we got into the hot tub."

"I was going to tell you something." She looks at me. "Then I chickened out."

"What was it?"

I felt my lips moving, but no words came out. I kept trying to say it, but my mouth wouldn't let me. Finally, I gathered the courage to say "I-I can't say it out loud." I grabbed my phone, and went into iMessage and texted Lia.

C: I
C: I'm gay

"What the fuck?" Her comment was instantaneous. "Why are you telling me this?" She had this disgusted look on her face. "Why aren't you saying this out loud?"

I looked at her, tears swelling up in my eyes. "I-I don't know. I just am having these thoughts that you know, what if I am?"

Lia has this look of betrayal, and disgust on her face. "What the hell? We tell everything to each other, and probably the biggest thing EVER, you keep to yourself!?"

I am almost the verge of crying. "Lia, there's a lot that you don't know about me."

"Like what? Hmm? Next thing you know, you're jealous of me and the number of followers that I have on Instagram! Or that in bonding more with OUR brother more than you!?" I am balling "WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?" She is screaming at me so loud, that the people walking through the hall are stopping and staring.

"Lia. I don't kno-"

"NO. DONT EVEN SAY THAT. WE HAVE BEEN THERE FOR EACH OTHER OUR ENTIRE LIVES. WHY WOULD YOU KEEP SOMETHING LIKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!?"

"I don't need any shit right now. Not from you, not from them," I pointed up "and certainly not from my head. I've gone through enough bullying to last 4 life times, and I've had it!"

I stood up, and got on a treadmill. I put my head phones in, and turned on Pandora. Then turned the machine up to a jog.

I saw Lia get up, and start using an elliptical. I turned it up even more, then tripped on my shoe lace and fell off of the belt.

In pain, I stood up and got a drink of water. I went to lay down on the floor.

~idek how much time passed~

"Collin, it's time for the gym to close. It's 10:40." Lia said as she helped he up. "I cooled down and I'm ready to listen to you."

"You're not going to flip out on me?"

"No."

"Promise?"

"Promise"

"Ok" I said as we walked out of the lobby. "In 5th grade, I made a joke saying 'hey, what if Brady and I were dating?' And some of his friends heard me say it, and back in the room, they came up to my desk telling me that I was so gay that I would date myself." Lia looked at me as we walked up the stairs.

"You never told me that." She said really confused.

"I never told anyone. About any of the times anyone bullied me."

"Why not Collin? You should've been able to get that off your chest."

"I didn't care until 7th grade. Then you started YouTube, and you were famous. I was trying to live up to you."

She look at me. "Collin, I thought you were kidding every time you said that. That's why I kept doing them. I'm sorry."

"And the reason that I don't like Sammy, is that he is 10 times more famous than you, and I got shoved that much farther back."

"And that's why you can't stand him." She said. She started tearing up, but turned away. Im only supposed to have seen her cry maybe 10 times in our lives.

"Then it all went down hill from there." I said. She had this look like she was getting her first taste of reality in the life of Collin. "Like on the bus, you always sat in the front, and I sat in the back."

"What about it?"

"You remember Bret?" She nodded. "He would always ask me if I was gay because my voice was too high to be straight, and he would ask if I had a dick, vagina, or just a 'curly mass of pubes', and he would sit with me, and dry-hump me and all this other stuff."

"Oh my God Collin. Why didn't you tell anyone?" Lia was crying now. I guess this is number 11 where she's going to 'let me' see her cry.

"It was right during mom's chemo and everything. I didn't want her focus to be on me instead of her getting better." I had to pause. When ever I think about mom I start crying, let alone talk about her. And I've never told anyone about Bret or ever getting bullied.

"So you just let it slide? You never told anyone?"

"No one. Not even the bus driver. But then it got worse. Bret would unzip his pants, and make me touch him in ways I knew I shouldn't and then when I did, he called me gay, fag, an all the other names under the sun that no one wants to be called."

She looked at me in horror. "And his friends didn't do anything about it?" She asked. We were both crying, tears running down our cheeks. Eyes as red as a lobster.

"No, they cheered him on. Getting off that bus was the best thing that happened to me every day." I wiped my tears away with the hemp of my shirt. "If I only had the balls to tell him to stop, or even to tell anyone, I could have stopped it" I start to ball my eyes out "and I would still like girls."

This was my first taste of reality:

There's

No

Going

Back