Deviation (Book #2 of the Taylor Series)

Afford No Time

I think about Mrs. Celeste's expression through my next two classes. In English, it was no big deal because Mr. Chavez is the chillest dude I've ever met. He's so chill, in fact, that I wouldn't even be a little terrified if I was walking home alone in the dark, and he was trailing quietly behind me with a knife in one hand and a chloroformed-rag in the other.
That is how much I trust his vibe.

 
He explained that we were going to be studying Romantic Literature, which at first made me gag. Because who am I, Lauren Taylor?

I couldn't care less about any romances that our mormon school in Utah might permit us to read. They're all the same! Pages and pages of yearning for a Christian boy, only to end up with a measly peck on the cheek. And, I'm as gay as a two-dollar bill (as they say) so there's absolutely zero pay out!

But then he explained that it's not that kind of romance. I choked out a gracious sob and he plucked a towelette from a knitted tissue-storage, and handed it to me as he passed to the other side of the class to shut out the lights.

"This kind of romance—" He clicked the remote belonging to the active board and thus his presentation started, lighting up the entire room with the darkest sketches I'd ever seen, "—is actually horror."

I dried my tears with the towelette and scoffed, "So is the other kind of romance."

In Physical Science, there was no way I could zone out and ponder theatrically whether I'd actually encountered homophobia—if the teacher I'd come to admire and even genuinely care about had actually been disgusted in me.

 
Mr. Wooten has a thing for making me look stupid in his class.

Basically last year, after I came out as a flaming homo (also commonly known as a Fairy, a Mary, AND a Friend of Dorothy), his super hot wife put the moves on me in church, he caught us, and he blames me for the entire ordeal. But, it's seriously not my fault that I'm perfect in every conceivable way and MILFs want me!

The whole class was spent with him calling on me for every question—even though I was clearly having an internal monologue about my confusion and own internalized homophobia— and then him not buying any of my antics.

Any time I would raise my voice even an octave, he'd roll his eyes and say, "Let's save the dramatics for the theater, Miss Taylor."

And I'd say, "That's just my voice, sir."

And he'd laugh as if he'd just thought of the most perfect way to humiliate me before saying, "I'd get that checked out." And he'd turn bright red as he choked on his laugh.

All I could think was that it was so nice of him not to leave me wondering why his pedo wife is always on the hunt for an affair. Which was I, anyway, the third? I knew at least two people in my grade alone that had been taken advantage by her.

Then, that class period was over, and here I am, staring wistfully into the distance as I wait for my sister or any of her friends to inquire about my mood. For at least five minutes of me doing this and them blabbing on about art projects and how watery the mashed potatoes are today, I finally pull out my spare brown paper bag and start hyperventilating again.

Lauren stops feeding Danny a chocolate-covered strawberry and turns to me with a sigh, "What is it, Julie?"

I shake my head, tears flowing freely down my cheeks, and pull the bag away from my lips to gasp, "Oh, it's too horrible. I can't say it." The quartet stare at me for a second before shrugging and going back to their boring lives.

I choke, "Emmy—Emmy, you were there. You tell them what happened. It's just too hard for me." Emmy looks up from her sketch of a beautiful witchy girl with a potion in one hand and an herb in the other.