𝐈 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮

Althea

I could feel their eyes on me, all of them. Everyone was staring, whispering, and pointing. I wanted to curl into the soft blankets of my bed and disappear. I didn't want to be here, at this school, in this classroom, with these people.
  The entire weekend had been worse than I imagined. Friday night had been especially hard; the first night without her. Her side of the room had been just as it was the day we left for Waverly's; her bed still unmade and several sheets of music tossed over the unkempt covers.
  Her food was still in the fridge. Her shoes in the organizer hanging over the bedroom door. Her hoodie was still folded in between my clothes.
  I didn't go to dinner with my parents. I was too distraught to muster up enough energy to deal with them and their condescending comments. I just needed one night alone before I faced them.
  After showering, I had pulled on her hoodie and slipped into bed, curling myself up into a ball. The hoodie still smelled like her despite having had orange chicken sauce spilled on it and taking several trips through the washer.
  Sandalwood. It was strong and musky. Comforting.
  I didn't know when exactly I fell asleep but I was awoken abruptly by my phone's non-stop ringing. I had fourteen missed calls from my sister, two from Aiden, and one from my mother.
  Zero from Jonesy. That was to be expected but what wasn't was the fact that none of our friends called. Our. I was still using terms that would allude to us still being a couple.
  They were never my friends, only hers. Except Gemma; I had really come to love being able to call her my friend and now during a time where I could use the company of a friend, she was nowhere.
  Not even a single text or voicemail.
  Taking a shaky breath, I opened the voicemail from my mother. "Althea Amoriah Beckett." I knew I was immediately fucked the moment she used my full government name.
  "You missed dinner. Do you understand how rude it is to tell someone you planned on meeting them at a certain time and place on a certain day and then to never show up? Without an explanation?
  "That doesn't matter, we will meet for dinner tomorrow night; this gives you plenty of time to come up with an excuse as to why you won't be there if you decide to not show up. We have much to talk about."
  The voicemail ended with a click. Not even an "I love you" or "I hope you're okay." I'd be stupid to even wish to hear those words.
  I groaned and listened to the ones from my sister. She had left five in total, all pretty much saying the same thing, her voice actively growing more hysterical with each one. I could hear Mom and Dad yelling at each other in the background.
  She wanted to know if I was okay and if I had spoken to her yet. My heart lurched at the sound of her name and I quickly stopped the voicemail.
  I didn't even think about going on social media; it was all over, plastered everywhere. That awful video. I had already seen it, it had been shoved in my face the moment I walked into the locker room after the show.
  People had pestered me with questions while others had given me scowls and dirty looks, telling me I should be ashamed and embarrassed of myself. As if I was already.
  Saturday night I went to dinner with my parents and Vinny. Mom didn't look me in the eye for the first several minutes and Dad tried to start up a conversation by asking me about my studies. I had given him several one word answers while picking at my bread.
  Finally, I just couldn't take it anymore. "Just spit it out, Mom."
  My mother set down her glass of wine and wiped her fingers on her napkin. "Lower your voice, Althea, it's impolite to yell."
  I laughed and repeated myself, this time an octave lower. "Just spit it out, Mom. All of those things you so badly want to say to me. How disappointed you are, how angry you are; just say them."
  Vinny swallowed and Dad cleared his throat, placing his hand on Mom's arm. "Althea, your mother and I-"
  "Do you know how this is going to look in the news? You know how people talk back home." Mom blurted out. "We will never hear the end of this."
  Back home, gossip spread like a wildfire; my parents would no doubt be the social pariah of the year.
  "A gay daughter," she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You aren't gay, we would've known. You weren't gay last year, and now all of a sudden after changing schools, you are?" She took a sip of her wine. "It's like it's trendy to be gay now."
  She made air quotes with her fingers. "It's 'in.' Being gay is the new fad."
  I scoffed and shook my head. "It's not 'in,' Mom. It's who I am, who I've been trying to be for the past few years." I inhaled deeply, trying to keep myself from digging my nails into my palm. "It was the reason I ended things with Davis; he didn't make me feel the things Jonesy does-did."
  Mom scoffed and twisted her mouth as if she had eaten something sour at the sound of Jonesy's name. "Her...kissing you like that in front of so many people." A shudder ran down her body. "She should have saved it for afterwards, for when you were alone. You could tell she was one of them. Gay. It's written all over her."
  Mom shook her head and sipped her wine. "She should've saved that though, for when she was in the privacy of her own home. I don't care what the gays do behind their closed doors, but it shouldn't be shoved down our throats like that. I shouldn't have to see it."
  I was floored and disgusted. Mom avoided eye contact with me for a minute, letting the silence soak in before finally speaking again.
  "You're not gay, Althea. You're-you're simply confused. You're experimenting. You've had your fun, now it's time to find a man to marry."
  Wow. "I wasn't experimenting, Mom, and I'm not confused! She is what I want. I like girls, Mom, but I love her." I could feel the sharp sting of my nails breaking the skin of my palm as anger surged through me.
  Mom still didn't believe me. She still didn't get it. "What about all those years you were with Davis? You have always liked boys, baby."
  I shook my head. "No, that's what you wanted for me. You wanted me to date the right boy, to marry into money, and give you grandbabies. You hated the idea of me wanting to do something with my life that differed from the plan you and dad had mapped out for me. You wanted me to stay close to home and live off you so you could hold it over my head in order to get what you wanted."
  My heart raced but I wasn't done. I had had enough, I had already lost Jonesy so what else did I have to lose?
  "You wanted to fit in with the moms back home because suddenly we had all this money and became a part of "New York High Society." You decided that Vinny and I were supposed to be like all the other children of politicians.
  "You saw how all the boys were following in their father's shoes, taking over family business and filling their spots in congress. You saw that the only thing expected of the girls was to be pretty; pretty enough to catch the eye of a rich politician's son or a CEO's nephew. Did you ever think about if one of us wanted to catch the attention of someone's daughter?"
  I was breathing hard, my eyes analyzing the expressions on my mother's face. She held her glass of wine in the air, having been in the process of bringing it to her mouth when I had started my speech. I was tempted to knock it from her hand.
  "I've been like this my entire life, Mom. I was simply never given the space or privacy to figure that out. Since moving schools, being away from you, I have been able to do that. It made me think back on different times in my life where I had acted strange or felt something that I couldn't explain for another girl.
  "In the seventh grade, when I suddenly wanted to join the drama club, it was because I liked Cassie Johnson and the way she made me feel. At ice camp, when it was my turn to spin the bottle, I purposely sat across from Livy Madison because I was hoping that by some miracle, I would be able to kiss her. Every time I felt this way, I would always chalk it up to "it's just a joke between friends."
  "When Makenzie Landers invited me to her birthday sleepover, I couldn't figure out why I was so upset that it was going to be co-ed. I didn't want the boys there."
  Mom stiffened. "You didn't want them there because boys had germs. "Cooties" as you would say back then."
  How was she still not getting it? How many more examples did I have to give her before she finally understood?
  "I didn't want them there because I was gay, Mom!" I exclaimed in exasperation. I could feel my patience running thin and the urge to take her hand was strong. "I didn't want them there because when the thunderstorm came, I wanted Makenzie to ask me to sleep with her in her bed and hold her hand when she got scared."
  Mom's face was flushed as she stammered "But-but..." I could see she was trying to find the appropriate words, or any words in general. "You can't be gay, lots of girls want to kiss their friends, that doesn't mean they're gay."
  "Mom!" I was baffled. She really was adamant that I wasn't being serious. Did she need me to get more graphic with my examples? Did I need to tell her about all the times I had let Blake fuck me in the back of my car?
  "I am, and that girl who kissed me, that I humiliated in front of thousands of people, she is the one who finally made me realize that this is the kind of life I want. I don't want to be scared of you anymore, you can't control who I love, and I love her."
  Mom was still shaking her head, Dad was standing several feet away on a phone call; I hadn't even realized he had left the table. My sister was in what I could only assume was shock; no one had ever stood up or raised their voice at our mother.
  I finally took her hand, feeling the overwhelming need to comfort her. "I don't want this to change things, Mom. I'm still the same person I was, you just know me a little better now."
  Mom tried her best not to appear disgusted, as if I had the hands of a leper and carried some incurable disease. As if being around me would make her gay too.
  "No child of mine will be a homosexual," she said through gritted teeth and rose abruptly. Dad followed her, trying to calm her and tell her to not be so dramatic, but her mind was already made up.
  "We're leaving now, Lavinia!"
  Vinny's face paled and looked at me sympathetically. I knew she was torn, she didn't want to leave me but she also had a better chance of talking to our mother. I nodded at her and she gave me a small "I'm sorry" before following after our parents.
  Sunday morning, I woke up to my pilates instructor telling me my last check had bounced. Knowing that couldn't possibly be true, I called my bank and they informed me that my mother had withdrawn all of my money and frozen my credit. I had less than $50 to my name.
  And now here, Monday morning, with the entire school's eyes glued to my head, I walked to my first class. I tried my best not to let their withering looks affect me, but I really did not want to be seen.
  Since all of my classes were assigned seating, Gemma was still seated beside me. She didn't even look in my direction as I sat down; she had an air pod in her ear, the music so loud I could hear the faint guitar notes.
  "Wow, Gem, you're really not going to talk to me? Or even look at me?" I muttered, opening my textbook. She heard that and gave me a lazy, faux smile.
  "Hello, Althea. You backstabber." There was a faint hint of a laugh in her words and I smiled before Daria shot her a glare from three rows in front of us. The glare she sent me was worse.
  Gemma and I didn't say another word to each other but the air between us felt lighter. It wasn't until three minutes before class ended that I found the note she had slipped in between the pages of my book.
  "Your place. Noon. We need to talk."