Love Song (LGBTQ+) (COMPLETED)

23. Clinger (Interlude 3)

Nathan turned off the engine as he pulled into the schools parking lot.

Silence. He didn't say a word as he watched several cars follow him in and find their own spots while he appeared to gnaw on the knuckle of his thumb. About a half hour earlier, Nathan took me to my house so I could change my clothes. I snuck in through my window and changed into whatever I found before I grabbed a few things and went back out to his truck undetected.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" Nathan finally looked my way. "I can't hide you from my family forever."

Two days had passed since that day with Courtney, and I only went home to get clothes. The two nights following that day were spent with Nathan, in his room and in his bed. I never really thought I would've ever shared a bed with anyone other than Grace, but it happened, and I would've been lying if I said I hadn't welcomed it. He was another source of life, a person to hold onto in her absence. He was what kept me from feeling alone, he was what helped me drive away the darkness that came at night.

I would later come to learn that he meant so much more than just that. He was what kept me alive when the darkness finally got its way. He was who held me when the nightmares came crawling back. His ears were what heard my feelings, my demons, and every last word that left my mouth. He was what I leaned on when I felt dizzy. He was what I used to dry my eyes when I inevitably came back crying. He was my lighthouse when I was lost.

"Girlfriend?" I shrugged my shoulders as my chin buried itself into my palm. "Everyone thinks I'm dick-hopping my way around the football team anyways."

Nathan lifted a roach from his ashtray and brought it to his mouth, frowning ever so slightly. "That'll work. I'll just make up the rest as I go. And what about your parents?"

"What parents? My dad hates his dyke of a daughter and avoids me at all costs, and my mom's been buried in work. . ." I watched Nathan light the roach as the bitter words rolled off my tongue. "I walked into my house half-dead that night, and all she said was 'hey'. I mean, I didn't even want her to know, but I kind expected her to know that something was wrong, at the very least."

He exhaled the smoke of the roach and passed it over to me. As I brought it to my lips, I was hit with the smell of hairspray and some kind of fruity soap. I'd smoked a few times before this, both with him and Grace, who wanted to try it. So, we ended up traveling to this exact high school and finding the skateboarders which sort of naturally led us to a dealer. We went to a park and smoked for the first time. While it was weird at first, calmness smoothly took over my brain and everything became slightly different, from the way things appeared to the intensity of the music she had on.

Nathan himself didn't actually do or smoke anything other than weed, and even then, it seemed to be rare. His health was a thought in everything he did, whether it was eating dinner or sitting around and watching something, and that was only from being around him a couple days. It was always hard for me to remember that Nathan was a football player, for whatever reason. It was like he was too sensitive to play such a rough sport - or maybe too nice was a better fit?

"Do you think she would care if you told her what actually happened?"

"Probably?"

She probably would have, or at least I wanted to pretend that she would. As I had told him, I didn't want her to know at all, but maybe there was a small of part of me that did want her to know - a part of me that was too scared to tell her. Maybe there was a small part of me that expected her to know that something was wrong, that something was off. I, myself, had been under the assumption that a mother would see that in their own child. But I guess I was wrong. Maybe crying had become so commonplace for me that she just brushed it off as another episode about Grace.