The Fate of Our Hearts

Chapter 43 - Confession

Warning: This chapter depicts a traumatic scene for Gio with mentions of harassment, bullying, and thoughts of suicide.

Gio

An invisible clamp around my chest is tightening. Fuck. Why did I want to tell her this? Ren sits down on the bare mattress, and I follow suit. I rub my sweating palms on my joggers.

My heart pounds, one reverberating beat at a time. "Um..." my voice quavers, "Remember the other girl you heard about from my sister?" I pause to look her in the eyes, and she nods. "That was Heather. She...um... had to do with why I stopped coming to school for a while last semester."

Ren raises her eyebrows, "Oh?" 

I swallow, trying to moisten my dry throat; then I pull in a big breath, and everything just pours out.

"Aayla introduced us when I was hanging out with Adam downtown a week before school started. They were taking photos of each other with this hecka-sick professional camera Heather's dad had given her for her birthday. She wanted to take photos of me for some sort of photo project she was working on. She told me that she takes photography as her elective and is into journalism. She also told me about wanting to be a model after high school. After I told her about Kiki being a model now in San Francisco, it came out that I did too." I shiver as I remember the way her eyes lit up when I said it and how they raked over and devoured me whole like a snake. I shake my head and the memory away and continue.

"She started flirting with me really hard at school." I pause, leaving out how Alya and her would find me and insist I eat lunch with them, practically fucking dragging me with them, giggling. Heather would hang on me and touch me all the time, even if I tried to scoot away from her. "She snuck me down to the photo lab at lunch to show me stuff and..." Make out. I don't say that out loud, either. Ugh, it so hard telling Ren all this! My gut feels seasick. I deflect, "You know about the darkroom in the school's basement?"

"No!" she shakes her head wide-eyed. "My locker was in the basement my freshman year, but I haven't been down there since."

"Yeah, well... it's pretty cool." I shrug and then take another big breath. "Anyway, after a few weeks of that and smokin' up with her and Aayla occasionally after school, she drove me back to my house one day and... umm." 

I pause again to check in with her. My heart is now pounding full force in my chest, and my knee is bouncing like a jackrabbit all on its own. I suck in more air and blow it out, rubbing my hands again on my pants. Fuck, here we go. 

"She had leftover E from a rave—got us totally lit, and... well, stuff happened, and at some point, she pulled out her camera. She convinced me to take photos of us... kissing." I swallow hard. "But then..." my voice breaks high. Fuck.

"Sorry. This is so hard for me to tell you," I grit, looking down at my hands, twisting and rubbing my fingers, picking my scabs from hitting the wall on Saturday night.

"It's okay. Take your time," she soothes me, taking my fucked up hand in hers.

I breathe out a ragged breath and then continue with an unsteady voice. "Then she suggested I... take... naked photos of her."

I see Ren's eyes go wide, and I pull my hand away.

"I'm sorry, Ren, I swear it wasn't my idea! We were totally wasted, and I wasn't thinkin' straight. I swear I'm not some creepy pervert like some of the kids at school still call me."

My words start rushing out again, "I couldn't believe she suggested it. She said she'd develop the film herself during lunch and give me some photos of her to keep. I was beyond excited by the thought of that. What can I say, I'm a fucking guy. It was so hot in the moment. I've never been behind the camera. I felt like I was on the set of Playboy or something.  But in hindsight, she knew exactly what she was doing. I was an idiot. I mostly took photos of her, but..."