Being gay is a curse when the homophobia you grew up with was so bad that you're homophobic yourself. Especially when you're into unavailable guys like your roommate, whose girlfriend is everything you're not (though appearances can be deceiving). S...
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Jackson had this friend, Andre, a black guy with an explosive afro and a permanent smile, and I'm sure he was great once you got to know him, but as far as our acquaintanceship went, I strongly disliked him. I was fairly certain that Jackson had ADHD or something like that, but Andre was somehow a million times worse, and together, they were a whirlwind of pure chaos. More importantly, Andre knew that I was easily annoyed and liked to see how far he could go until I got fed up.
I usually avoided them, but I was not so fortunate today. I'd taken refuge in the library and the two bouncy balls had chosen this very day and this very moment to come and search for books. I heard them coming in behind me, muttering and snickering under their breath and I ducked down and hid my head under my hands in the hope that they wouldn't recognize me.
"Hey, it's Nate!"
I deflated miserably and before I knew it, Andre was sitting right next to me. He looked at my book and asked, "Hey, dude, do you ever do anything besides studying? I mean, not that I'm judging you or anything—I'm actually kinda jealous—but, like, I literally never see you doing anything else."
"No."
"Come on, Andre, let's just get our books and go," Jackson said, all of a sudden, and I turned around in my seat to see a smile on his face. He even added, "I wanna get this done as soon as possible."
Andre sighed, but as soon as he moved to get up from his seat, someone else appeared by my side. At first, I wanted to groan, because the person in the corner of my eye was simply yet another person bothering me and ruining my peace for no reason, but then I turned my head to see who it was.
"Tavonna," I said by way of greeting.
I'd take her over Jackson and Andre anytime.
"Hi, Nate," she replied softly, glancing at the two guys. "Are you busy?"
"No."
She stood there for a moment, as if waiting for me to say something more, before realizing that that was as close to an invitation as she was going to get and sat down on my other side. In the meantime, Andre finally left and followed Jackson to go find whatever they'd come for.
Thank God.
"Could you... help me?" Tavonna asked.
"What with?"
"Well, you know that assignment we have to hand in before the end of the week?" she started, referring to the biology class we shared. She opened her laptop and turned the screen towards me. "I'm afraid that... what I wrote is complete nonsense. Can you tell me if it makes sense?"
"I'll take a look," I said, pulling the laptop closer, and she nodded thankfully.
I started fixing grammatical errors here and there because I just couldn't help myself, but she didn't say anything about it. She only chuckled softly and muttered, "Oh, right."
