“Charlie? What’s your opinion on this matter?” Mr. Hobbs asked me.
We were talking about sexuality. It didn’t make any sense because sexuality had nothing to do with The Great Gatsby. The whole discussion was brought up because one of the guys was eating a banana and one of the girls thought it was funny. He wasn’t even supposed to have food in class, but the teacher didn’t care.
"I don’t really have an opinion,” I lied. I didn’t want to tell the class my opinion because I knew they would all hate me for being pro-LGBT.
“Finley?” Mr. Hobbs asked him.
“Love is love,” he said back quietly.
“How could you approve of that sick lifestyle?” one of the girls asked him.
“They’re people too,” Finley voiced loudly.
“Sick people is all they are,” the girl yelled back.
The whole time Finley and this girl were going back and forth Mr. Hobbs said nothing. He just stood there. I bet he was enjoying this heightened discussion in class. I think he had a similar opinion to the girl who was bickering with Finley, but felt he wasn’t allowed to voice his opinion, so he had the other kids do it for him. It made me want to punch a wall. Why was this such a big deal to people? They had rights too. I was infuriated. It was absolutely ridiculous how Mr. Hobbs and the students were acting towards Finley.
Other people joined in with the girl, saying all sorts of things to him.
“I thought you were cooler than that Finley.”
“Finley, are you a fag?”
“I bet Finley sucks cock.”
That was when the teacher drew the line.
“Enough! It’s alright for him to have a different opinion than you guys. I’m not saying he's right, or you guys are right, but let him have his opinion. I can’t believe I even brought up something like this. You guys took it out of hand.”
Then the bell rang. I got out of there as quickly as I could, I was so angry.
“Charlie!” someone called from behind me as I was walking down the hall towards my locker.
I turned around. It was Finley.
“Those people are fucking assholes,” I shouted.
“I know. I can’t believe the teacher let them do that,” he said angrily.
“Surely he can get in trouble?”
"Don’t know. I’m not very good with legal stuff,” Finley said, rubbing his head.
We didn’t know what to do. I mean, what could we have possibly done? We were just kids. Our opinions didn’t matter to the school board. Majority of this school was full of homophobic assholes anyway. I could feel the rest of the school year was going to be hell. I just had that feeling.
