Are You Afraid of Musicals?

Chapter 6.5: Handling It

Gabby's pov:

It's been days, almost two weeks since the video, since she dropped me again, since the talk with my mom, and things are... not going well.

Things in high school couldn't be more...weird? I don't know, but Big Red's presence just makes me feel awkward and so awful.

I know it was not my fault, all of my friends made sure to tell me and convince me that Big Red decided his fate by himself, but seeing him so changed, so serious, so alone... It makes me feel like I could've done more, like this could've been avoided if we had talked things through.

I tried to approach him once, he was sitting on the stands during my soccer practice and when it ended I went to talk to him. He wasn't watching practice or whatever, he was just there, looking to the empty side of the soccer field with his earbuds on and when I approached him, he just sat up and left without even looking at me.

He didn't want anything to do with me and it wasn't hard to receive the message, I already knew before even approaching him to talk, but I had to try and... Freya saw us.

She saw how I went to the stands instead of going to the changing room and she decided to gather the practice material as she waited for me, so she was there to perfectly see Big Red ignoring me.

I didn't realize that she had stayed to wait for me until I made it back to the soccer field, probably with a sad or thoughtful expression because when I finally raised my head and saw her, she was already looking at me with slight concern and confusion in her eyes.

This happened shortly after that practice where I literally flew, and in that moment I was not really ok. My doubts about Dani were already making themselves room into my head, my side still hurt a little and I was nervous about  tryouts week and all the mess with Big Red was only making things worse, so when I saw that Freya had seen the whole thing, I just started crying.

She guided the both of us to an empty bathroom so I wouldn't be crying in the middle of the field and there she hugged me, she was there for me and when I managed to stop crying, she listened to what I had to say.

And talking with her about what had happened with Big Red was the best thing I could've done, because she was not there when it all had first happened.

I never talked about it with Dani because I knew what she was going to say, just the same as Gina and Hanna. Every time I tried to talk to them about it they would tell me that it was not my fault, that he made his decision and that I had to remember how he treated me, the horrible things he implied about me.

Them both are very protective of me and I know that they were trying to help, I know they were right, but even hearing all that, even remembering what he did, I couldn't help but feel bad.

But Freya was not there, Freya didn't know what had happened and when I told her, I told her everything.

I told her about how he implied that I wanted to take advantage of a drunk Dani, I told her how he insulted me and shoved me when I tried to help him, but I also told her how he felt left out when I joined their group, how Jave had been bullying him since forever and how it got worse when he saw that Big Red was no longer part of Dani's group, I told her how he disappeared after that day at the cafeteria and never came back until this year's first day...

I told her everything and how it made me feel, and listening to someone that didn't automatically invalidate Big Red's or my feelings and had a more neutral opinion helped me much more than I could've ever imagined.

Freya and I have only been friends for a month and a half now, but we're already really close and I'm honestly so glad to have her by my side, even when that means that people can take every interaction we have and turn it into something that it's not.