Our Rebel Love Song

3-Secrets Are Eating Me Alive

I walked home with Dylan.

“So do you want to hang out some time this weekend or something?” he asked as we walked along the old sidewalk. I shrugged and looked at the ground seeing my black lace-up Vans sneakers as I walked. I’d rather look anywhere other than his face because the truth was that I was going to hang out with Ashley this weekend.

“I’m, uh, busy with my parents and all.” It never gets less shameful when I tell him a lie. Ever.

“Oh.” he sounded disappointed. “You’ve been really busy lately with homework and your parents and stuff.” He stopped and put his hands on my shoulders. I was surprised. “Can you try to make some time for me, Andy?” He paused. “Please?” He begged. I looked into his gorgeous blue eyes. I could see that this was really hurting him and it really broke my heart to see my best friend hurt like this because I don’t make enough time for him.

“I’m sorry Dylan. I can cancel some plans so that we can hang out.” I gave him a smile and hugged him. We started walking again. I could see a familiar car rolling down the road and I smiled. It slowed down to us and I saw Ashley and his friends. He waved to me and I waved back. Then he zoomed off down the road. How sweet of him to do that.

“Who was that?” Dylan asked. I could feel the horrific guilt arise.

“Just a friend from the other school.” I quietly told him.

“Oh! You mean Holton school?” I nodded. I wasn’t telling him an entire lie. I had to convince myself that this was okay in some way.

I sat on my porch steps and took out a cigarette. He sat next to me and leaned on the first step.

“You want one?” I asked Dylan as I lit mine up. He shook his head and laughed.

“I said I wouldn’t smoke yesterday. So I don’t see how that would change today.” I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe you wanted to join in on my bad decisions or something.” He just laughed again and rolled his eyes. I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. I took it out and saw that it was a text from Ashley.

It said r u busy 2mrrw?.

I looked at Dylan.

“So what day are we gonna hang out?”I asked and he thought for a few seconds.

“Maybe Sunday would work out best because my parents are leaving tomorrow to Hawaii. So we’ll have the house all to ourselves if we wait until Sunday.” I nodded and smiled at him.

“Okay. That’ll work out then.” I texted Ash back. No. y? My phone vibrated again. I read the message. I want u 2 come ovr 2 my house 2mrrw

That message made me incredibly nervous. Did he tell someone? Did he tell his step sister? He was really close to her. Maybe he did. But he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. What if someone in sees me go into his house and they get suspicious. Someone’s going to find out. Oh my god.

“Hey Andy. Who are you texting?” I looked up at him.

“N-No one, Dylan.” he gave me one of those ‘yeah right’ looks.

“You’re acting really anxious right now. Something’s wrong.” I shook my head.

“Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.”

“Andy! Please tell me! Why are you doing this to me? You’ve been thinking a lot, spacing out, anxious and nervous, and you aren’t telling me anything. Come on Andy!” He sat up and gave me puupy dog eyes. I sighed and partically gave in to his begging.

“Okay. It’s just that the person I’m dating wants me to go over to their house tomorrow and I’m nervous because they haven’t told anyone about it yet. Neither of us have.” He gave me the oddest look.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” I shrugged.

“Because we wouldn’t know how other people would react.”

“Hm. Well I’m sure that she’s just fine. Is she from Holton.” I swallowed. My throat was dry and I was sweating. All that was going through my head was he said ‘she’. He said ‘she’. He said ‘she’. He said ‘she’. I couldn’t help but burst into tears. All I thought was he won’t accept me for who I am. He doesn’t really love me. I can’t trust anyone. I didn’t think that I was overreacting at the moment. I ran into my house and slammed the door behind me.

“Andy! Andy wait!” Dylan yelled as he opened the door and chased after me. I fell onto the couch and stuffed my face into the couch pillow as I cried. He sat next to me and rubbed my back. I heard him sniffle. It probably upset him to see me cry since I don’t too too often.

“Andy. What’s wrong?” he whispered to me. I collected myself and sat up after a few minutes. I held his hands.

“Dylan.” I looked into his eyes. “ I Promise I’ll tell you when I’m ready. I promise.” We just stared into each other’s eyes for a few minutes. He finally got the message that I should just leave him alone. He nodded and gave me a big hug.

“I love you, Andy. Just remember that. There’s nothing in this world that would change that.” I knew that, but I wasn’t sure if he’d love me if I told him I was gay. This has really been eating me alive lately and I don’t know why, but I just can’t trust anyone with it yet.