COMING OUT IS HARD!

Chapter 1

Ariel is on the school bus being driven to school, she listens to her Harry Potter and the Cursed Child audiobook,

"Those that we love never truly leave us, Harry. There are things that death cannot touch. Paint... and memory... and love." -Albus Dumbledore

Ariel wipes the foggy glass and gazes out of the window of her bus seeing the blur of gum trees blow past.

"UGH! I wish I could bring one of my jumpers to school it's so cold out and the jumpers that I have at home are so much warmer than this one!" Ariel complains to herself freezing on the bus.

The noise of the year 12's cussing in the back of the bus makes her laugh for they were arguing about stupid topics. As the bus gets closer to the interchange at the other school the bus slows to a halt the other kids from different schools line up in the cramped aisle and creep along until they get to the end and leave. When they all get off. The kids from her school, Springfield Catholic Secondary College, jump on, sit down and listen to their music, and games or watch Youtube. A familiar silhouette walks by not sure where to sit.

Ariel jumps up from her seat and shouts just enough for the silhouette to hear "Hey Brendan, over here! I've saved a seat for you!" she lowers her bag to the floor so that the seat is not occupied anymore for Brendan to sit on.

He rushes over to the unoccupied seat that Ariel gave up for him before the bus can move so that he doesn't trip (If so, that would have been the 10th time that week) he squishes his bag in between the chair gap and lays back to relax.

"What lessons have you got this morning? I've got science and woodwork." He asks and smirks, knowing that she doesn't know.

She smirks back and says "Well for your information I've got double sessions of English! Take THAT!" she looks at him trying hard not to laugh and he looks at her with disbelief and sheer embarrassment. The bus starts to come to a halt and all the kids start to pour out of the bus and thank Garry for taking them to school.

"See ya, Brendan!" She exclaims, "Gotta go to Homegroup."

"Yeah yeah, bye." He says in a beaten voice slugging his way to his locker.

She starts to shove her bag into her locker and grab her things, but silence is cut short by the racket of girls screaming and complementing someone,

"Honestly can this school be silent for one second!"

Then she saw why there was all this noise, this girl with dark tan skin, and curly brown hair (it looked black, but you could see the difference between black and brown in her hair) rocks up to school in a rainbow headband, rainbow socks and pride badges.

Thump, Thump, Thump.

Ariel's heart started to feel a way that it had never before. She started to feel a warm and fuzzy sensation overfill her body, her chest ached, and her head was in a different place...

Thump, Thump, Thump.

She now knew the feeling, Love.

"No, no, NO! This can't be happening; Dad will kill me! NO!" She forgot that feeling in an instant because the bell and music fired off.

Bring, bring "Everybody, yeah~ rock your body, yeah~ everybody rock your body right"

Everyone rushed to their homegroups and grabbed their things, but Ariel just stood there not knowing what to do.

"Ugh Hurry up you're so slow!" moaned Crystal chewing her bubble gum which you weren't allowed to have "I swear this happens every day!"

Ariel had enough of this girl talking to her like this every day,

"Oh, will you shut up for once! And have you heard of this thing called 'patience' because I think, no I know you don't have any! Plus, you take as long as I do probably longer due to the fact that you need to cover up that face of yours in 10 layers of makeup! And can't you fit your butt down beside me or is it too small of a gap for you? If so shut up and wait!"

That definitely did the trick because Crystal stepped back and grunted. Ariel closed the locker door and locked it feeling accomplished about standing her ground and shocked about this 'crush' of hers. With a posture of a broken monkey, she makes her way to her home group.