Dye | Tyrus/Ambi

Part 3: Popular Kid Culture

Amber's POV

After leaving the art room, I make a beeline to my locker on the other side of the first floor. I whip the door open and squeeze the back of my pride pin down to unhook it from my jean jacket before tossing it into my locker. I had forgotten that it was on this jacket, but now that I remember, I can't leave it on. 

"What are you doing?" my friend, Iris asks as she walks up. 

"Taking my pride pin off," I answer. 

"Because of your brother? Amber, pretty much everyone in this school knows you're a lesbian."

"But TJ doesn't," I tell her, "and I'm not ready for him to find out. I have no idea how he'll react."

"Don't you think he'll hear about it from someone somehow?" 

I slam my locker shut and latch the lock back onto it, then I turn around to face Iris. 

"I'm hoping he doesn't." I let out a sigh. "Now that he goes here, I can't be so obvious about my sexuality."

"Amber, people literally refer to you as the blonde lesbian from the art room," Iris says. "He's going to find out."

"And I'm going to try to defer that for as long as I can," I respond. 

A cloud of chatter halts our conversation, and Iris turns around to watch as a group of freshmen boys walk around the corner of the hall. My brother is in that group, but he doesn't even give me a glance as him and his friends continue down the hallway. 

He's only been here a week, and he's already known by most of the school. It's always been that way. He's Mr. Popular, the boy girls swoon over, and I'm just me, the blonde lesbian from the art room. The interesting thing about Grant is that, although nobody really knows everyone's names, everybody does know everyone. We just all know of people's descriptions and what room they work in. Names are rarely ever learned unless you know someone personally.  

"Looks like he's making friends easily," Iris says. 

"Yeah," I respond. Then I step around her. "I'm going to go work more on art. I'll see you at lunch."

"Okay," Iris says as I disappear around the corner of the hall, heading in the opposite direction of my brother and his friends. 

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TJ's POV

Thumps echo off the ceiling of the gymnasium as I dribble the basketball. The gym is empty, aside from me. I wanted to get some extra practice in before tryouts, so I figured I'd come here. I bounce the ball up to the net to do a layup, catching the ball as it rolls over the hoop, not making it in. 

I've missed every shot I've taken so far, because my busy mind keeps wandering back to school. The reason why my parents wanted me to come to this school was because of the academic support. There are people here who can help me do math even with my dyscalculia, which makes the subject a lot easier. The problem with that is my friends don't know about my learning disability, so I have to find subtle ways to dip out on whatever group stuff we're doing during the day. Today I told them I couldn't eat lunch because I had to go to a club thing. Lester almost caught my lie by asking what thing, but I was able to make one up. My friends now believe that my sister is in the knitting club and that she's forced me to come to her last two meetings. 

Don't get me wrong; I like my friends. They just expect me to be a certain way. I'm the former captain of the basketball team, and I love basketball, but I never realized the pressure that would come with that title. I need to be cool and slick and charming around girls. Most importantly, there should be nothing weird or broken about me, which scratches out my dyscalculia from the information I am able to share about myself to my friends.