Flowers for Florence [HIATUS]

02 . Joshua's House Party

TW! This chapter depicts sexual assault.

The week was coming to a close. In our town Stonewall, this meant that everyone was looking forward to getting home as fast as possible. It was a mountain area, and the weekend meant that we wouldn't be forced to go out all the way down to the center of the town, where the clinic, school and businesses were at.

This Friday I had two events I was supposed to look forward to; my birthday and Joshua's party, I looked forward to neither. No one ever remembered my birthday anyways, not even Hayley. And as for my aunt, all we did with Janice was eat a cake from the store. I didn't expect anything different today.

When I arrived in school, it was loud more than usual due to it being Friday. As expected when I met Hayley and Joshua by the lockers, neither of the two remembered my birthday. Perhaps there would be a surprise party.

Don't be so stupid. I told myself.

"Tonight's going to be awesome!" Hayley exclaimed, mainly to Elisa and Rayne, her other, closer friends. "I made sure that Joshua had everything set." Geez. Why was it called Joshua's party if Hayley was doing everything anyways? Besides providing a place to have the actual party.

The more I thought about the party the more I wanted to cancel on it, but I knew that it wouldn't be quite possible. As the conversation drifted into other topics, I quietly left them to it and headed to the class, where on my desk a bouquet was waiting me again.

During the last week I had gotten flowers almost every day. The notes had been short but sweet, the most memorable being the one where the sender had signed off with a C. Perhaps it was their initial. Still, however many flowers I received, I was happy to see one in my day.

This one had a sticker of a confetti on the edge of the card.

'Happy Birthday Florence! Here's to a happy 18.
Are you still looking for a prom date..?

-C'

I smiled and put the card in my backpack, with the others. The question was a rhetorical one of course. There wasn't a way for me to send a reply back. But the implications were there, for a prom date. That moment I realized Elle's surname is Crawford. Was she the one sending the flowers? Perhaps I should be asking her out to prom.

I looked over at her desk and sure enough she was there, talking with her twin brother Ethan. (Their parent's seemed to love names that start with E... considering that their names were Evan and Eva)

That moment, seeing Ethan next to Elle, something clicked in my head. What if all this time I was thinking of Ethan when I meant Elle? All the times I had felt any kind of attraction to Elle was when she was next to Ethan. I was far more confident when talking to Elle in comparison to Ethan. And I was definitely stalking Ethan's socials more than Elle's.

Was I... gay?

No, right? I've never felt this way towards others before. And I've definitely had genuine attraction to women before.

There's something called bisexuality, dingus.

Admittedly, I had always been researching about queer topics, and taking the signature 'Am I gay' quizzes, but I never had concrete evidence to anything. I was simply a supporting heterosexual.

My brain was fried from the revelation that I may not be as straight as I had imagined. I stood there, baffled. Yeah, I wasn't going to ask anyone out to prom, not as long as I was confused on my own identity.