Ticket Outta Loserville (Trames au)

Chapter 20- Tristan's POV

I can't cry on the bathroom floor forever, so eventually I decide to pick myself up and try to carry on with my day as normally as possible. James ran off after he kissed me when I was crying, and now I'm feeling totally alone. The worst part is that I enjoyed it, even though I know I shouldn't have. He's like the most popular guy in school and I'm about as far from that as I can get, so nothing more than friendship is ever going to happen between us. Even though we've cried in each other's arms and slept cuddled up together, things still aren't right between us and definitely won't be now.

Why can't I just have a normal life? Why is it that whenever anything good actually happens to me for once, something has to come along and ruin it? I'm now wandering down the corridors, grateful that everyone is still in lessons. It's going to be fun explaining all this to Brad and Connor- they don't even know I'm gay yet, let alone what me and James have been getting up to. Luckily, it's lunch next so I can talk to them. 

I head to the bench where we always sit, and Connor is already there. "Hey!" he greets, then changes tone when he sees my tearstained cheeks. "What happened?" he asks.

I sigh. "It's a long story. I'll tell you when Brad gets here." 

When Brad does show up, he looks almost as surprised as Connor did to see that I've been crying, as I rarely do in front of people. "What's wrong?" he asks sympathetically. Shakily, I begin to tell them the whole story, right from the start. Interestingly, neither of them seem that surprised when I finally manage to tell them that I'm gay. "And?" Brad asks. "Why would we care?" I swear he winks at Connor then, but maybe I'm just seeing things.

I then tell them about the chaos on Friday night. "So after the events of the day, when James came out to me and we both ended up crying and so on," I begin, "I was walking in the evening when I bumped into him, then I invited him over to mine because he had nowhere else."

"Why?" asks Connor curiously.

"His dad had a real problem with him coming out so he pretty much ran off." I explain. "Then I let him sleep with me because he was scared, then I cuddled him when he had a nightmare." 

"Sounds tough." says Brad. "Poor guy."

I nod. "Then I told him I was gay the morning after all this. Anyway, this morning I walked out of RE because we were discussing homosexuality and people were being horrible, then he followed me and kissed me when I was crying."

"Seems like you've had a busy few days." Connor jokes. "Why didn't you tell us about it?"

I shrug. "I was nervous. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." says Brad, smiling. "What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know." I sigh. "It's not really fair to James if this gets out, he'll never live it down, but equally I don't really want to pretend that nothing happened."

"So he ran off," says Connor slowly, "Do you have any idea where to?"

I shake my head. "No. I would have followed him if I did. I could have done anyway but I was too shocked."

"Fair point." agrees Connor. "I have no useful advice but I hope you sort things out. You wouldn't want to waste a golden opportunity."

"What's that even supposed to mean?" I laugh. We talk about random stuff for a while, trying to take my mind off the crazy situation I'm in. Never ever did I think I'd be in a dilemma about what to do after kissing the most popular guy in school. Despite Connor and Brad's best efforts, it's still in the back of my mind. I physically flinch when one of James' teammates walks past, and I can't believe how nervous I am. 

It only gets worse when I see James himself emerge from the changing rooms. I feel a pang in my heart at my desperation to sort things out. "Tris, stay calm." Brad whispers, but it's too late for that now.

"Go and talk to him." Connor encourages. "Seriously, now." I take a deep breath then start to walk over to James. Unfortunately, he heads to the main building before I can catch him, so I have to rush to keep up. I'm probably getting lots of weird looks, but right now I'm past caring. 

"James." I say, hopefully loudly enough that he can hear me, but he either doesn't hear me or he ignores me. "James." I repeat, and this time he turns around. 

We make eye contact, and I see that his eyes are just as red and puffy from crying as mine are. "What?" he asks shakily. 

I'm trying to think of the right thing to say, but I'm panicking and my brain's gone blank, so all I manage to say is "I need to talk to you..."

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Yet another rubbish cliffhanger 😂 I also felt like I needed Brad and Connor to be in this a bit more, so here we are. Let me know if you enjoyed this!

Taylor Swift singlehandedly saved my 2016 yesterday by just causally dropping a new song (it's got Zayn in and it's actually so good), plus she came back to tumblr after like 8 months. I know trump is still president and we've still brexited, but things are sort of ok in my world now 😂