A House But Not a Home

Chapter 4

That Monday we got back to school, during lunch Michelle and Charlotte were talking about the incident that happened in the party that night.

"Where were you in the midst of this?" MIchelle called out to me from afar.

"What?"I replied confused.

The girls at the table scooted over to give me space to sit.

"She was there but wasn't there when it had happened." Charlotte went on.

At the time I didn't know the full story of what had happened, so I asked her about it and Michelle explained everything, paraphrasing with her usual insight.

"...But my question is, where were you?" Michelle said, as if the problem was all my fault.

"I wa-was with Lani. She invited me to go with her."

"Go where?" Charlotte looked at me.

Everyone else on table looked at me too, and for an instant I felt guilty; there wasn't a point in lying, and even if I did, I'd feel guilty about it.

"She took me to a room." I finally said.

The moment was really awkward, but shortly after the bell rang and most of the girls in the table left.

I got up to go back to class. After I got up, Michelle called out to me from behind.

"Shakira! Wait!" as usual.

She came up to me to whisper. "Are you gay?"

A funny feeling crept up to me. Like as if she figured me out or I just made it too obvious. Whatever it was, I hated that feeling.

"Why do you want to know?" I defended.

"Just want to know man. I mean I just figured, everyone's high, or drunk, or both. And a mysterious girl like Lani, you could just tell there's sex in her eyes. Not only that, a girl calling another girl to a room, like what are they gonna do? Each other's make up?"

"No." I said quietly and began walking faster.

I managed to avoid her after taking a few strides. It rattled my cage that day when she figured me out. It was always a secret that I was ashamed of, I never knew how to tell anyone about it.

I took that whole week avoiding everyone, sitting in the library, hiding from everyone. At least here it was a bit more quieter.

***

Weeks would pass before we would all get together again.

"Thank you." Me and Michelle said to Carlin after shutting her car door.

"No problem." she replied then drove off.

"This is it, my house." Charlotte said emotionless.

I had never gone to Charlotte's house before, this was a first for me, and a third for Michelle. By the looks of it, it doesn't look like she gets a lot of visitors.

Her house was small, one storied, and by the looks of its location, it was worse than my neighborhood. Only not everyone was outside having a ruckus, here everyone that was outside looked like they belonged to a gang. The sound of a helicopter overhead was even there to make it authentic.

"Well come in you guys." Charlotte went.

"I'm going behind Shakira," Michelle said abruptly.

Michelle took off her shoes and hid behind me before the door.

"What's going on?" I asked all confused.

"Ohh, it's your first time here, don't worry." Charlotte went on.