Love on the Other side of the Rainbow

Students Taking a New Direction

Chapter 17: Students Taking a New Direction

Thursday started up with me waking up with a feeling of relief and stress free. I was relieved that I would be able to take a day off of the academic world of school, and stress free because I would not have to confront Dave in class after what happened on Tuesday. Dave’s honest and truthful outburst has been on my mind stressing me out. It felt nice to know what side of the rainbow he was on, but the way I found out was not the way I planned on figuring it out. Granted, I never really did have a “set in stone-plan”, yet I couldn’t get over the fact that I had to make David upset with me to find out what team he played for.

When I arrived at the school, I parked by the auditorium and walked towards the main doors since the outside doors to the auditorium were locked. Once inside, I headed down the hallway by the gym and then towards the performance arts center. “Today is going to be a Dave free day.” I thought.

Ethan was already inside setting up the soundboard and hooking up the wireless microphones. The junior high school was not there yet. I talked to Ethan as we hooked up the microphone receivers to the soundboard.

When the bell for the first period rang, the junior high arrived with their two instructors. Both of the junior high teachers were ones that I had back during my junior high school years, which made the day a little more relaxing since I felt more comfortable around them. I knew if I made a mistake or had any questions that they would be easy to approach.

Once we caught up with our old teachers, Ethan and I were told that it would be an hour or so before we were needed. The two of us decided to sneak out the side door of the auditorium to leave and go get some doughnuts from the local doughnut store not that far away from the school. We left a wedge in the door so we would be able to get back into the school.

I was driving since Ethan was a junior and did not have a chance to get a parking pass. There were usually police cars by the entrances to stop cars and ensure that students were not ditching class, but there were none today. On the way there, I talked about my job and co-workers. One of my co-workers was openly gay and I was telling Ethan about how much I admired my co-worker for that.

“Gay people don’t really bother me either.” were the words that came out of Ethan’s mouth as his response to my blabbering.

I nodded and told him, “There is no reason why anyone should be bothered by them.”

After I said that, Ethan agreed with me as we pulled up to the doughnut shop. I could not stop thinking about coming out of the closet to Ethan while getting out of the car. I really wanted to tell someone else that I was gay because telling people I was gay makes me feel more comfortable with myself, yet telling another person my true colors would just add to the risk factor of someone telling the whole school. Not everyone needed to know my sexual orientation; only the people who I felt like I can trust with that information had the right to find out.

Once we got our doughnuts, we made another stop at the local dollar store to buy some extra batteries for the wireless microphones. Ethan and I just figured the school would reimburse us the money later. Either way, it was not a total lost, considering the school was paying us ten bucks an hour to do our lights and sound services.

When we arrived back, Ethan and I hung out by the sound booth talking about basic things. We mostly talked about the problems with the school’s auditorium and what could be improved about it. One of the teachers from the junior high asked us if the school had a storage room for the props and stage sets since they were looking for some.  We told them that we would go get the key to the catwalk because there was a storage room upstairs connected to the catwalk.