Thorns

1 - Whitney

Can't believe it. Again. It's really not possible how stupid these people are, how ignorant.

"Just get the bleach" Dad said, his blue eyes sad and angry, though he'll never say a word about it after we clean the stupid word.

"What does it mean?" Carlie asked me; her blue eyes were so big it hurt to look into them.

"Just grab a brush and clean" I mumbled, patting her thin shoulder.

"But what does it say?" She asked again, frowning "I can't read Spanish, genius!"

I ignored her. My sister doesn't need to know the names they call our Dads. I probably should tell her. She'll look it up in a dictionary, anyway...

I know why Dad wants us to clean it fast. 'Cause Daddy - that's what we call dad Greg - will be getting up in a few minutes, and he'll see it. And Dad - Tom - doesn't want that.

I left Carlie at middle school on the way to my high school. Portia was already waiting for me in the parking lot. She waved energetically and I smiled; she frowned. Yeah, I must look like hell, today.

"What happened?" She immediately asks, as she gets inside my Ford "You look upset."

"Someone wrote the word 'Maricón' in our garage door" I told Portia, and she gasped.

"That's just mean." She whispered, as we walked right to our lockers "What did you do?"

"Carlie and I cleaned it up. Ruined one of my favorite shirts with the damn bleach." I mumbled, picking my books "The one you got me for my birthday. Sorry..."

"Don't worry about that. Are you ok?" She asked, her chocolate brown hand touched my hair, and I nodded fast, so the tears wouldn't come.

"Let's just not talk about that, deal?" I asked, and her brown eyes were starting to tear up as well "Stop it."

"Sorry." She quickly checked her mascara in a small hand mirror "We're late for Mrs. Walker's class."

We took our usual seats, and Darren and Ian greeted us with a smile.

"Ready for the party, tomorrow?" Darren asked, smiling at me with all his perfectly white teeth.

"We're super excited." Portia said "Especially for the shopping spree!"

"Women." Ian said, his brown eyes smiling at his girlfriend "I can't even guess how many shoes you have."

"Well, I know: not enough" She says, throwing him a quick kiss with her hand, making him laugh.

"I'm not even gonna ask what you would save first, if your house was on fire." Darren teased, and I punched him lightly in his hard shoulder "Ouch! Careful not to break your nails, babe."

"Idiot" I mumbled, but smiled.

Darren has been my friend ever since we were in elementary school. He was the first person to ever come to my house and meet my Dads. They loved him. He was a nice, smart, a sweet guy. And hot. Yeah, Daddy said that once, that he was hot. It was weird, but I laughed. Everyone thought we would end up together, but that would never happen, because Darren was still struggling with his own secret: he was gay.

Yeah. The captain of the football team, the pride of our school, was gay. He was afraid to get it out, for everyone to know. And knowing what happens to my parents, he gets more frightening every day.

"You gonna tell them?"

I looked up at Portia. She can be a real pain in the butt, sometimes. She's lucky she's my best friend.