Book One: Love Is Legal [CURRENTLY BEING REWRITTEN]

Chapter 10- Beginning of the End [EDITTED]

Chapter 10

I COULD FEEL MY EYES INSTANTANEOUSLY MOIST, THE TEARS THREATENING TO FALL ON MY HOT CHEEKS. The faces I am looking at around me morph and blur behind the wet sheath over my pupils. The world I stand on seems to have dropped from beneath my feet, and now I stand forsaken- helpless and deplorable. Time slows down, and the timer starts to tick inside my soul. I am a time-bomb, threatening to explode in a magnificent frenzy of emotion and furious pain. It is an intricate process that my body is too familiar with. I begin by hyperventilating, my heartbeat rising at a dangerous pace. The laughter, the voices, the madness invades my ears. Louder. Stronger. I try to muffle the noise with my hands as best as I can to separate myself from the inevitable, like I always have my entire life. 

The life around me ceases to exist. Tick, tick, tick. . . I detonate. 

I spurt down the hallway as fast as my legs could carry me- not caring who is in my way- to find my exit. The panic floods my lungs, as water would to drowning life. My vision is fuzzy around the edges, and I need a way out. 

Deep down inside of my heart, I know who deluged the school with my darkest secret. For some odd reason, I hate myself for these posters. I am not the one who caused my pain; I was never the one who was causing my pain. And yet, I will always view Eric Johnson as the main antagonist of this horror show. I am the one to blame.

Jacob Coleman. His name alliterates itself inside of my head over and over. Where is he? How could anyone be as heartless as this? It was an elaborate plan to out my sexuality- the kiss- a twisted cosmic joke if you will. His cunning personality is precariously incompatible with my naive, broken soul. All I wanted was love, but I have long ago realized that I am incapable of being shown affection. Oh God, I'm going to die alone.  

The sad realization sends an icy stab to my heart. I am a slave to my own demise, continuously destroying all of the existent light and glamour in my life until there is nothing left to live for. 

Posters are plastered everywhere my vision touches: the floor, the lockers, the classrooms. I could even see some of them peeking out of students' lockers as they pull them open. 

A tenacious hand latches onto my shoulder, lurching my body backwards. My bottom hits the vinyl composition tile flooring with a solid thud. 

"Jesus, Eric. I am so sorry." Jacob's deep voice sounds from behind me. His arms loop around my body and pull me gently back to my wobbly stance. I whip my body around, expecting to see a face filled with malice- one that is adept to commit an evil act such as this one. To my surprise, his expression is urgent. 

"Are you okay? I have to take you home- away from this." he says slowly after a few seconds of silence passing. His eyes dart to the pictures all around us. 

I fear that if I speak, my words will come out as a jumbled cluster of sounds and syllables. 

"Come with me. I am going to bring you home, Eric." he says again, locking his grip around my wrist. Somehow, I have the strength to break free of his hold. I plant my feet into the ground like cement and harden my expression as best as I could manage. 

"How could you do this to me, Jacob?" I ask, struggling to sound angry. Instead, my voice is uneven and sufficient with pain. 

His facial expression turns sour, contorted with agony. "You think I did this to you? You think I did this to myself?" he challenges me, gesturing to his face on the poster. 

"I trusted you, not only with my heart and my secret- but with my dignity. You were the only person in the room with me that night, Jacob. How dare you think that I am that senseless." As I finish my sentence, the river of tears streaming down my face turns into a waterfall of broken sobs. 

"I would never-"

"I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to hear your apology. I want you to leave me alone." I spit at him, cutting him off mid-sentence. His manipulative eyes become glossed as he tries to gather words to respond to me.

I did not recognize how vociferous my voice was until I barred my speech. I was not talking; I was screaming. Our classmates laughter ceased to exist, but instead their eyes were loud onto Jacob and I.

"Cute prank, Jake. You should've told us all about it; we could have made it a little more. . . Interesting." Jacob's ex-girlfriend sing-songs, breaking the silence. Her long legs transport her to his side, and she casually places her delicate hand on his broad shoulder. He stares at her with a blank, bewildered expression on his face. I do the same, shuffling my glance between the both of them. 

"You can leave now. He's done playing with you." she commands, biting her plump lip sluttily. 

"Please. . . " is all Jacob finally says, shrugging Chelsea's hand off of his body. My eyes sting, inflamed from the poison dripping from my heart. My head feels as if it is somersaulting its way to insanity, threatening to conclusively shut down. 

"Goodbye, Jacob." I whisper. 

I turn around and break for the nearest exit. I only look back at him once before I finally free myself from the prison surrounding me.

* * * 

I lay on my bed that night, a perpetual cascade of thoughts and feelings cycling through my mind. Would I dare be able to face Jacob again someday without feeling the deep pain he caused me today? The answer is a complex 'no'. I have always been the type of person that with enough incentive, I am capable of forgiving the utmost cruel act committed. However, it does matter how pensive the act is; I will never forget. Every human interaction I have is permanently integrated into my memory, whether it is positive or negative. For once in my sorry life, I don't think I could forgive. 

But what if he was not the culprit of the crime? It is a thought that my naturally curious mind can't help but conjecture. Sure, it isn't very logical, but it is certainly possible. We were the only two souls in the bedroom, and the air was cool and crisp that night, so the backyard was comprehensively void. I can't wrap my mind around the possibility that it could be anyone but Jacob. Although reality was a harsh slap-in-the-face, nothing could cease my heart lusting after the prospect that it could someone else's making. 

This brings me to another question: who? If not Jacob, who would have the incentive to destroy my teenage life? What incentive would Jacob have to want to do such a thing? My head aches from the puzzling questions I knew I had no answer to. 

On the bright side of this day, there are outcomes of this that I positively knew for sure. My parents have a decent probability of being exposed to my homosexuality. Residing in a rural area, gossip is alive and breathing. If my own parents won't accept who I am, who will?

My life is a scratched record disc, an atrocious series of events doomed to repeat into timelessness. This brings me back to square one. One step forward, two steps backward. Perhaps ending my life is the most logical decision- the only decision.

The sound landscape of nature halts my train of the thought. 

Crack. 

The noise audibly does not sound of natural causes, but of something living. My eyes squint as I endeavor to see through the thick darkness and brush that lies outside of my house. My logic knows it is most likely an animal, but my paranoia says otherwise.

"Who's there?" I stammer out my window. 

Silence.