Zora

Chapter Seventeen

Everyone in the living room was left confused. No one knew what to make of what just happened. Why did she run out of Spencer's house? Why was she beaten up? Who hurt her? Why was she wearing a man's shirt? No one knew what to make of the situation, and everyone was too stunned to move a muscle.

"What happened at your house?" Terrance asked. Though he knew Spencer would never hurt a fly, he had a feeling he had done something anyway. Even if it was an accident.

"We were talking, and...I admitted that I liked her. I asked her out on a date, and she proceeded to call me a liar before she ran away," he softly explained.

"I told you-"

"I like her," he stated. "I do."

Heaving a sigh, Terrance pointed toward his door. "I'm sorry, but I need to deal with this on my own."

Nodding in understanding, both Spencer and Denise quickly left the house. "Please let us know if she'll be alright," Denise pleaded.

"Will do."

After Terrance shut the front door, he ran up the stairs to Zora's bedroom. Not bothering to knock on her door out of fear of what he would find on the other side, he gasped when he saw her siting on the floor, leaning against her bed, and screwing the cap back on her bottle of pills. "No!" he exclaimed as he ran to the bed and pulled her in tight to his chest.

All she wanted to do was cry. Zora wanted to break down and cry over all the pain and misery she endured that evening. But with the pill running through her system, she couldn't. So she shifted in his arms so she could properly hug him back. His fearful tears soaked her shoulder, and though she attempted to comfort him, it was proving to be futile. There were no emotions in her actions, only unenthusiastic pats for comfort and a stoic glaze coating her eyes.

Zora held Terrance in her arms while he cried. She ran her fingers through his hair, attempting to calm him down. "Why?" he whimpered. "Why would you take a pill?"

"It's been a shitty evening."

"What happened? Talk to me!" he begged.

"After I ran away from Spencer's, I was attacked by a mugger. Tiffany found me and gave me this shirt since we had to rip mine to cover my arm. I need to wash them before Monday, though," she blandly responded.

Grabbing Zora's arm, Terrance pushed the shirt sleeve up to reveal her cut bleeding through the fabric. "Oh-"

"It's not deep."

"How do you know?"

"Because this isn't the first time I've been cut by someone."

Terrance choked out a sob as he ran out of the room to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit above the sink. He hurried back to the bedroom, find Zora sitting on her bed while staring blankly out the window. He sat beside and pulled out a rubbing alcohol wipe. She didn't make a face, but her arm twitched as he began to clean the cut.

"You could have talked to us- to me."

"After everything that happened, I needed to feel numb."

"Taking these pills is not good for you," Terrance calmly argued. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I've already been hurt, don't you get it? It's why I take the pills in the first place," she nonchalantly replied.

"But you are human. You need to feel emotions. You can't go around feeling numb all the time," he scolded.

"I only take them on the bad days."

"That's what my mom used to say," he chuckled dryly. Zora stared at Terrance as he sat up and faced her. "My mom wasn't very reliable. She did a lot of bad things before she knew she was pregnant. It's part of the reason my dad thinks I'm gay. She would do ecstasy, bath salts, cocaine, you name it. She was a mess, and it eventually took her life. It was only my dad and I for about a year. He moved on pretty fast. He found Helen and married her. She became a real mom to me.

"In the fifth grade, I realized I was gay and had a crush on one of my classmates. When I told my dad, he told me that I was a disappointment to the human race. A couple weeks later, he left." Looking up at Zora's blank face, he could spotted the slightest bit of surprise in her eyes.

"My dad planted it in my head that being anything other than a non-transgender heterosexual was an abomination. He said it went against human nature. I was sure that if I could turn myself straight, then maybe he would come back home. I kept up this perfect image of me being straight in hopes he would come back to his now normal family.

"I wanted Helen to be happy, and I thought the only way to do that was by bringing my dad back." Tears fell down his cheeks, but he smiled up at her. "But then you came back, and you made her happier than my dad returning ever could. And honestly, if I had to pick between you and my dad, I'd much rather pick you."

She grabbed his hand and held it tight.

"I want to be like you, brave and out in the open, but I'm terrified. I want to walk down the hallway with a man that I love, but I am too afraid to do even that."

"I get it," she assured. "It's hard to be out in the open and proud of who you are when people knock you..." She fell back onto her bed with a yawn. "I'm sorry, but these pills make me drowsy."

"That fast?"

"It hits you like a brick." Closing her eyes, Zora softly began to snore.

Rolling his eyes, Terrance shifted her to lay comfortably on her bed. He hated the fact that she was still wearing the men's shirt, and he wanted her to wake up in something she would feel more like herself in. Rather than doing it himself, he sighed in relief when he heard his mom shutting the front door. Quickly calling out to Helen, she ran up the stairs.

"Can you please change Zora? I don't want her to wake up in that," he said as he pointed to her on the bed.

While Helen changed her daughter's clothes, he walked into his own room and sat on his bed. He blamed himself for everything that happened that night. Because of his big mouth, Zora was left heartbroken and beaten. If he would have stayed in his room and kept playing video games, nothing would have happened. Yet in a strange sense, he was glad he talked to her. He finally openly admitted to someone in seven years that he was gay. And he finally accepted it himself. It was out in the open, and he wanted to be as well. He just didn't know how. But something she said resided in his head, something that he knew she would be right about.

Or so he hoped.

Entering Terrance's room, Helen stared at her son in confusion. "Denise called while she was heading home. What in the world happened to her?"

"Mom?" he whispered, looking up at her from under his eyelashes. "I'm gay."