Confusion. // Jyrus

Chapter 16

"I don't want to go!" I yelled at my mom with a mouthful of cereal.

She was frantically went around the kitchen, grabbing everything she needed for work. "You have a civics test and perfect attendance."

She grabbed my bowl from off of the table and dumped it into the sink. I groaned and grabbed my backpack from off of the ground beside me and pushed past the door out to the car.
Once we got to the school, I gazed out my window at everyone roaming around, laughing with their friends. I slowly got opened the door and slid out of the car, gently closing the door behind me. As I walked to the doors, several heads turned. This time, instead of greeting my with smiles and waves, they gave me disgusted faces, flipped me off, or laughed while whispering to their friends. I pushed the door to the school opened while even more people inside looked at me. I tried to quickly walk to my locker, but some kid pulled be back by my backpack. As I wriggled around, trying to get free, they thumped me on the back of my head. Once I got free, I heard laughter behind me, followed by footsteps chasing me down the hall to my locker. Once I got to my locker, I turned to face them. It was TJ with some of his buddies behind him.

TJ leaned into me, his face right into mine. "You running to your boyfriend?" he asked.

"What?" I asked in response.

TJ laughed and rolled his eyes. "Cyrus. You guys are so gay for each other."

I felt a wave of anger rushing through me. I gritted my teeth and squinted, looking at him dead in the eyes, saying, "I'm not gay."

His smiled fell into a frown. "What did you say?" He spat.

"I'm bisexual."

His frown intensed and he grabbed a handful of my shirt, lifting me up off of the ground and pinning me up against my locker. I grabbed at him hands and kicked my feet, but his arm against my chest was too strong.

Buffy came up from behind and pushed TJ out of the way, with me tumbling to the ground. She pushed him against the lockers beside mine and starting shouting in his facem using her hands to express the degree of what she was saying. I felt a hand in mine and I looked up to see Andi, She brought me to my feet and into a hug. We stood behind Buffy, urging her to stop, pulling her back, but neither of us were strong enough to stop her.

Suddenly, Dr. Metcalf's voice came booming down the hall, yelling, "Miss Driscoll!"

Buffy peeled herself off of TJ, slumping herself in front of the principal. TJ smirked at me while shrugging, and walked away with his stupid little gang of basketball jerks. I looked over to see Buffy being escorted to the principal's office.

Buffy got sent home and had detention the next day for assaulting a student and disrespecting a teacher (I guess she yelled at Dr. Metcalf.). For the most part, TJ left me alone, except for snickering when I walked by and shoving past me. Xander kept throwing pencil lead, bits of erasers, and crumpled up pieces of paper at the back of my head in English. Sophie and Paige were the really religious ones, and Sophie gave me pamphlets to her church and conversion therapy and camps while Paige kept telling me all I was doing wrong in math class.

In science, when Cyrus came over to give me a hug, some kids laughed and yelled things like, "That's so gay!". Walker just stood over Cyrus with a disturbing, mocking smiled on his face. Buffy, Andi, Cyrus, and Walker were all in my lunch and I usually sat with Buffy and Andi while Cyrus and Walker went to the library. But today, it was just Andi and I.

I picked at my food while Andi rambled, trying to get my mind off of everything happening around me. When people walked past my table, they'd dump their trash onto my tray and walk away.

After school, I was dreading practice because I knew that nobody would be there, and the people that were there would just make fun of me. I decided to give it a shot, though, as a chance to clear my head and went to my locker to get my stuff. When I opened my locker, I saw my green frisbee staring right at me, coated in rainbow patterned paint with the word, "FAG" painted across it in big, black, menacing letters. Behind it was my Space Otter's jersey, with "Condor" crossed off the back and "Gayboy" written in its place. I held the items in my hands, my mouth dropped open and tears in my eyes. I closed my locker to see Cyrus standing beside it.

"Um, so there isn't practice today, right?" he asked. I simply blinked and he got the message, walking away saying, "I'm just gonna go."

I stood there for a minute, the items still gripped in my hand before I tightened my grip on them and ran. I ran out of the school and into the street, running and not thinking about anything but running until I opened the door to my house. The second it opened, my body caught up with me and I felt my cheeks turn red, my breath start to quicken, my legs start to give, and the tears start to fall. My mom looked up from her book and saw me standing at the door looking at the ground with tears slowly dripping from my eyes and my ruined jersey and frisbee in my hand. She stood from her chair and walked over, and this time I went to her, dropping my head into her chest and crying.

She was shocked, but she wrapped her arms around my head patting my hair and shushing me. My arms were still limp at my side and I looked up at her wearily and said, "M-mom? I'm bisexual."

She gave me a sweet smile before rubbing my head once more. She said, "That's alright, hun," before I burst into more tears and dropped what was in my hands, and wrapped my arms around her. She watched the items fall and released me, Bending down and picking them up. "What happened?" she asked

And I told her. Everything that had happened starting right from discovering that I liked Cyrus to me sitting on the couch telling the story. She sat with her cup of tea, listening intently and rubbing my knee occasionally. When I was done, she pulled me into another hug and then laid me down on the couch beside her, turning on TLC and holding me like I was still a baby.