Love But It's Always 5cm Away

𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 7.

Theo Lenior. It had to be him. He had to be the one causing the searing pain on my scar. He was my ex, and he probably has seen Hayden and I. It's not like that, I swear. Maybe he wanted to sabotage our relationship so we.. we could never be close friends. This thought popped in as I was having lunch with Hazel. I fumbled out my phone furiously and tapped on Insta.

Mommy_Mai: "theo, meet me after school at 4:00 pm sharp in the music room. we need to talk. btw, it's not a yes or no question. it's a yes or I can tell everyone how u dumped me without a reason" - 12:05 pm.

Theo._69: "yesss mai whatever you want... [nervous sweat emoji]" - 12:08 pm.

Hmph. That son of a bitch sure is bold, pretending to be innocent while he has blood beneath his actions? Time to expose him.

...

I've asked Mr. Carnell, the music teacher, about renting the music room for a few minutes after school since band practice was the only club not taking place on Mondays. The room was in a more secluded area so no one would hear me rat Theo out.

As school came to a wrap for today, I bounded straight from my APHG class to the music room. I approached the wooden door with the placard with the shiny font, with "MUSIC ROOM" engraved on the surface. I twisted the knob and entered. It was my first time being in this room, so everything that came into eyesight was new. Various instruments like trumpets, violins, and guitars scattered across the room, all of them asleep, waiting for someone to perform their lovely tunes. The reflection of them glistened beneath the chilly December sun, which was penetrating through the misted windows.

The long, silver hand of the clock struck fair and square at 4:00 as I saw Theo's figure approaching my location. As soon as he stepped foot in the room, I reached over and shut the door abruptly behind him. Theo muttered under his breath. That gesture made me want to slap the shit out of him, but I'm well mannered, so that's out of the question.

"Theo. Were you the one that messed with my scar? Did you do something to keep me away from Hayden?" I tried keeping my voice calm, although there was an unfriendly edge to it.

"Your scar? How would I mess with it? What can I even do?! Mai, I haven't seen you since the day at the locker." Theo explained but couldn't even look me in the eye.

"Theo, LOOK AT ME. Did you mess with my scar so we could be together again? Well, I'm telling you, that's never happening, so cut the crap on whatever you did. " My eyes bore into Theo's, trying to dig for the truth, and hear it roll out of his tongue.

His eyes met mine with an equally fierce stare. "No, Mai. I did not. I'm not looking forward to us being a thing. Remember, I broke up with you. Not the other way around." How Theo looked at me explained everything. I knew then it wasn't him, and that's both a relief and stress. However, there was still one lingering question floating in my brain. To be exact, it's been sitting there for years, almost rusted.

"Why did you break up with me?"

I glanced at Theo expectantly. To me, I deserved to know the answer more than anyone, since I was the one left with a broken heart. I braced myself for a long tune of silence.

To my surprise, Theo answered almost immediately. He probably kept the answer locked up for ages, waiting for a moment like this to finally spill it out to me. The answer hit me like how a car would accidentally hit a pedestrian.

"Mai, I'm homosexual."

Those three words had me stunned to silence, as if I got severely electrocuted. Theo's gay?! The words were stuck in my throat, unable to formulate a response. Man it must've been hard, and yet I was so focused on myself to even care about him. Whatever our past relationship was, Theo's still my friend. However I've treated him terribly, and I felt ashamed for accusing him and him having to tell the truth like that.