Cyrus v. the Homosapien Agenda

10/15/21

"Yo, Cyrus!"

I look up from my seat in Bio to see Reed D'Or. Ugh, he's such an annoying kid.

"What do you want, Reed?"

He drops his voice, "Well, I was using the library computers yesterday and I opened gmail. And guess who was still logged in? You."

I stare at him, "Why the fake name?"

And there goes any hope he meant my actual email, not my secret one that pays homage to Queen. Suddenly, my hate for Reed duplicates, as well as the school's laziness at not making a server where school accounts auto log-off after five minutes. He rambles something about his brother being gay. Or his cousin being gay. I don't really know, and I really don't care.

"What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing. Just, I have a cousin who's gay, Lester? He just came out this year."

"What's your point, Reed," I ask, getting more pissed by the moment.

"Oh, just that I screenshotted the emails you sent this Jet kid. And I'm really into that new girl you're friends with, Andi? If you help me get with her, I'll delete them. Or else..." he says.

"Whatever, I'll go along with your plan," I say, just needing to get this conversation over with.

He smiles, "Good."

Thankfully, the lunch bell rings. I rush to the cafeteria and get a burger, chocolate milkshake, and baby taters. I used to hate the food here, but now they've got some deal with our favorite diner, The Spoon. I'll pay as much as I can just to have those heavenly baby taters.

Once I pay, I make my way to our table. There's six of us that sit there: Buffy Driscoll, my best friend since we were in 1st grade and varsity girl's basketball player, Jonah Beck, my best friend since 3rd grade and varsity Ultimate Frisbee player, Andi Quinn, who just moved to Shadyside in August but has already become one of my best friends and is an art aficionado who's part of the play with me, and Marty duFête and TJ Kippen, Buffy's basketball friends. TJ's the captain of the varsity team. Everyone, including myself, thought he was a bit cocky at first when he transferred to Grant. Then we met in freshman year, and he was actually really nice, so I asked him to join the group. Now we're all friends.

I'm engrossed in a conversation with Andi about the play (Oliver) when I notice I am short one baby tater... one I didn't eat. I look up to see TJ popping it into his mouth with an unapologetic grin, "Underdog, if you didn't want anyone to eat the baby taters, you shouldn't have kept them where everyone could have them."

"Well, if you really wanted baby taters, you could've just bought your own, Kippen," I shoot back.

"It's more fun to steal them from you," he says, plucking another one from the basket, "Besides, the lunch lady gives you twice as many as everyone else."

"That's because Cyrus' the sole reason The Spoon stays in business. He buys about 60% of the baby taters they sell," Buffy jokes.

"Not true!" I protest.

"Okay, 70%," Jonah quips and everyone laughs.

I mean, as long as no one figures out my secret and hate on me for it, it's good, right? Now that there's someone who could very well out me, I understand why Jet wouldn't want to be out to even me. It's scary, knowing that those voices laughing about something silly you did could so quickly turn into them laughing at you because you're a stupid gay. Not that I think that way about myself, but Midwest isn't super liberal? If my parents accept me, that's good enough. Maybe I'll move to Silicon Valley or something, in that small nest of California where people are actually majorly Democratic (the Bay Area is one of the only areas that votes Democratic in California but it's one of the reasons California votes Democratic as a whole).

"Underdog, it's time for English," I hear TJ say.

I look up from my mostly finished lunch to see the cafeteria nearly empty. Thankfully, TJ waited for me to walk to English like we occasionally do, "Must've got too lost in thought."

"Yeah, but at least it allowed me to steal most of your baby taters," he smirks and I punch him playfully.