Chasing Jacob (Jacob Whitesides Fanfiction)

For the Better

Kota was right about one thing when he left. Everyone forgot about me supposedly breaking up Emily and Jacob. The new story was all about Kota being gay. When he texted the baseball team to say he was leaving, the first question they asked was "Why?" and apparently Kota didn't hesitate to come out to the entire team in one mass text message. All I could do was wonder why he decided to come out that way. He was so scared when he told Jacob and I, but suddenly it didn't seem to matter to him.

Of course the fact that Kota was the new topic of conversation among the student body didn't mean people weren't talking about me anymore. I became "The girl with the gay best friend". People made a lot of stereotypical and offensive comments about Kota. I was asked if he helped me pick out my outfit because it was cute and a list of other things that just generally ticked me off.

Even though everyone was talking, I still wished Kota was at our school because all of the people he liked and trusted before were on his side. Evan got completely isolated from the baseball team again after he made some jokes about it and I don't think there was a thing about that first day without Kota that made me happier.

I was happy that the baseball team seemed to accept the news about Kota even though there were a lot of other kids that didn't. I guess that was to be expected though. It's not like there were a lot of other kids in our school that were openly gay. As far as I knew there actually weren't any, so the fact that anyone was accepting of it was incredible. Given a day or two I'm sure Kota would've been totally fine going to our school, but he wasn't there.

Jacob and I stuck together as much as we could, but it was still a pretty "me against the world" sort of situation most of the time. With the exception of lunch where Jacob and I moved to a smaller table in the corner of the cafeteria, I was pretty much on my own and people liked talking. For the most part I wasn't approached outright with comments about gay people and being a homewrecker, but I heard the whispers during class.

I learned quickly though that for every dozen people who whisper, there's at least one person who doesn't; like Emily. "Ya know, I'd started to forgive you for trying to break up me and Jacob," she said to me in history at the start of class, "After watching the way you were around Jacob, I starting thinking that maybe you weren't actually a bad person. I was thinking that maybe you just actually love him, but after hearing about Kota I think I might have been fooling myself. You're such a horrible girl that you turned Kota gay."

I was stunned. I wouldn't have put much passed her potential at that point, but that was one step farther than I thought even she would go. "Excuse me. What?"

"Well obviously he doesn't like shopping or gardening or Brett Walker's butt like any other girl or gay guy would, so obviously he wasn't always gay. Julia explained everything to me. You-" I cut her off.

"Of course Julia did. She explains everything, doesn't she? It's amazing that after all those years her and I were close, she knows absolutely nothing about Jacob, Kota, and I."

Emily narrowed her eyes at me and carried on like I hadn't even spoken. "You used to like Kota and Kota used to like you, but you never wanted to be with him and suddenly he's gay. That seems a little suspicious to me."

"You're being ridiculous. Kota never liked me, so there was no use wanting to be with him. There's no way this was my fault. You and Julia have no idea what you're talking about."

Emily shrugged. "Then maybe Evan's right. Maybe Kota isn't gay at all and he likes you so much that he put himself through all of this just to get the attention off of you. Wouldn't that make you feel like an idiot for chasing after Jacob?"

I rolled my eyes. "You're all pathetic. This has nothing to do with me. This is who Kota is and was going to be whether I knew him or not."

She shook her head and smirked like she'd just won a big victory. "Well for the record, if I was you, I would've been chasing after Kota when I had the chance. There's nothing all that special about Jacob. He's not even a good kisser, but I could only imagine what Kota's lips could do."