Turning ✔️

Chapter 1. The Beginning

BEEP BEEP BEEP

My eyes flew open, frantically searching for the cause of the noise in a slumbered haze. When my eyes finally found what they were looking for, my hand slammed down on the alarm, silencing the disturbance to my dreams. The screen read 6:00. I groggily let out a groan, slipping my bare feet from underneath the warm shelter that was my covers and placed them onto the cold hardwood of my bedroom.

I silently padded my way over to the bathroom adjoined to my bedroom and took a glance at myself in the mirror. My brown hair was a mess, sticking up all over the place and my facial hair was a bit too scruffy for my liking. I had bags under my gray-blue eyes, but at least I didn't have any acne on my face. I decided to take a quick shower and shave before braving out downstairs for breakfast where my family awaited me.

I hastily undressed my scrawny body and turned on the shower faucet as hot as it could go before turning on my radio to my favorite station. Once I saw the steam rising from behind the shower door, I stepped in. I let the heat of the water overtake me and washed up, singing along to the music softly.

With a sigh, I finally got out of the shower and dried myself off. I then wrapped the towel around my waist and shaved my face making it silky smooth once again. Afterward, I walked back into my room and my closet deciding on what my outfit for the day would be.

I have school today, so I want to look cute, I thought to myself. My hand trailed along the row of hanging clothes until I found the perfect shirt. A deep blue v-neck T-shirt.

What to pair it with...how about my gray skinnies? I held them up to each other, judging if I liked the pairing before finally deciding that I liked it and would wear it that day. I got dressed and looked myself quickly in the full-length mirror to make sure it looked okay. As I was doing so my stomach growled.

I guess it's time to go eat now. With that thought, I headed back out of the closet. If only I was actually out it in real life. That's right, I'm gay and I'm deeply closeted. I know that my parents would love and accept me no matter what. It wasn't why I didn't want to come out. I was afraid. I didn't want to be gay, I felt like a freak. No one in my town was gay or even talked about gay people ever. It was like they didn't even exist.

I made sure I had all of my homework and put it into my backpack. I grabbed it and my cell phone and wallet off of my side table and walked out into the hallway. One of my sisters, Eleanor's room was directly across from mine and my other sister, Genevieve had the room to the left of mine. I walked past both of their rooms and went downstairs and into the kitchen. My mom was there just finishing brewing up some coffee. When she saw me, she smiled.

"Good morning Nathan. Would you like a cup of coffee? I just finished making it."

I nodded immediately, she smiled at that. "Morning mom."

I wasn't much of a talker in the morning especially. She knew that and respected it. It was one of the many reasons why we were so close. I'm pretty shy, so I really don't talk all that much in general though. Sure, I had some friends at school, but even then we were really only friends at school. Not so much out of school. I kind of kept to myself, but I was happy nonetheless.

I glanced over at the clock on the wall and saw it was only 6:30, so I had a little while before I had to catch the bus. I sat down at the table and my mom brought over the cup of coffee. I sipped at it slowly when I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. I looked over at the stairwell and saw it was both of my sisters.

"Morning!" They both said in unison. They too sat at the table with me. My mom also poured them a cup of coffee while they all chattered on about the different activities that they had for the day during which I zoned out. My thoughts drifted to this boy in my class that I thought was perfect. He was my secret crush that nobody knew about.

"NATHAN!"

I shook my head, coming back to reality. Looking over at Eleanor looking at me expectantly.

"Yes?"

"It's time to catch the bus!" She giggled at my confused face. I peered at the clock again. It read 6:48. It was indeed time to go. I grabbed my backpack again and stood up, walking towards my mom.

"Bye mom," I said hugging her.

"Bye sweetie. Have a good day at school!" She called as I was walking towards the door with my sister, Eleanor, in tow. Genevieve had clearly already left with a ride from her boyfriend. She was one of the popular cheerleaders, an all-American girl, you know the type. A perfect girl with a perfect life and perfect quarterback boyfriend.

Eleanor was more like me, but definitely way more outgoing than me. She had a good amount of friends that she was always trying to make be friends with me too. Sure, it was nice and all but I'm a senior while she's only a freshman so I wasn't really interested in being friends with these kids so much younger than me. I was always as friendly with them as I could muster up though.

Just as we reached the bus stop, I could see the bus coming down the road. It stopped once before it came to our stop finally. Eleanor and I piled in hurriedly, found a seat that was empty and sat down together. We made some small talk on the bus ride to school and before long we came to a halt in front of the building.

Everyone quickly stood up and got out of the bus. While I was walking down the steps of the bus is when I saw the boy from my class that I had been thinking about earlier.

William, or Will as everyone calls him, looked especially gorgeous today. He was with some other boys that I didn't really know, but seeing him made me smile brightly. He stood out to me like he was the only one in the whole school. He had on a tight shirt that showed off his tall, muscular frame and pair of black joggers. The way the sun shone down on him was like the heavens above were pointing him out just for me.

It was at that moment he looked my way and made direct eye contact with me. He smirked before continuing with his conversation with his friends. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest when we locked eyes and my skin felt like it was shooting with electricity. And then, that's when I tripped.