Stuck Between The Pages

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN: FADE-AWAY

If you like nerds, raise your hand. If you don't, raise your standards.
-Violet Haberdasher

Keagan's

Sand sledding was fun and staying up late with absolutely zero responsibilities was even more fun.

I've said it before, but it feels nice to act like a real teenager without having to fake a smile.

After we were all tired out from climbing up the sand dune, the three of us got on our respective floaties that we tied together and swam out until only I could really touch the ground. It was the perfect time for all our feelings to spill out.

For once I didn't bother to mask any of them, they wouldn't judge me.

I tell them things I haven't said aloud, not to anyone sober enough to listen anyway, and things I was scared to admit to myself that was real anyway.

How I don't want to be my sibling's dad but how I'm scared of our real dad being home more to take care of them, how I'm scared Hope and Julian- -my step-sister, and half-brother from my dad's wife Bianca- -will become another one of my responsibilities. 

That I'm worried I won't be able to go to college when I want to because I'll have to be around for the kids, that I'll have to give up my sport and academic scholarships because of this.

And how I'm willing to do that, and that fact scares me.

Nell opened up about how she thinks her dad is cheating on her mom but she doesn't have any real proof, so she's never said anything.

Robin actually opened about about Joey not wanting to be raised in a homophobic household but not really having any options, and about her poet and how she's questioning everything.

I didn't know how to react and honestly wasn't that helpful, but even Nell couldn't do much because when she asked her best friend why, she couldn't answer.

A big part of me is thankful for that.

But another part of me feels bad, like the only good and true version of me that I've shown someone is being rejected. The thing they don't tell you about rejection, even if it's only in your head, is that it makes you feel isolated.

I hate it.

Later in the night when Roby crashed and the little nerd went back to Nell's car, Nell herself told me that I should tell her.

Of course, she's told me this before and it's become a frequent thing after I cut back writing to Robin, but this time she was much more intense about it.

Her insistence didn't stop me from feeling like I was about to fuck everything up.

Like my Birdie would start to hate 'her poet' because he's me, and she'd definitely hate me for keeping it a secret for this long.

When I asked Nell about the reaction she thought her best friend would have and if she'd get mad at me, it was all she could do to shrug and say she didn't know.

Hell, she even told me that Robin might not even believe me.

I find that concept hard to believe now that we both know that we slept together but whatever.

Nell told me to- -she literally demanded it- -make my decision by the time the clock hit midnight today.

Apparently I have three options, according to Penelope Alcott: