Girls with Pride

Chapter Eight

If truth were to told, I wasn't sure what I actually felt anymore. Was I sad? Was I angry? Was I scared? Was I very easily prone to malfunctioning- no, I already knew the answer to that one.
Unremarkable and downright depressing, the fear of being ousted far outweighed any specific feeling I'd ever actually felt, (before the room filled with intrusive questions, thoughts and feelings), but I never thought it would end...like this? Is that too dramatic? Statistically, 1 in 5 people are LGBT+ so I'm not sure who they thought it would be. Sorry, getting off topic but I can tell you now, humour and rambling were the easiest way to cope with anything life threw at me. Afraid of being literally outed to everyone as gay, afraid of being outed to family and that kill me (in short) and, of course, afraid of being left on the outer ring of Saturn concerning my friends, I panicked. What would happen if they'd never be my friends again, or hated me, or just- the worse of the lot- were just silent? Silence is violent, it controls your mind and convinces you everyone's out to get you, even yourself; if you get left in silence it kills from the inside out. Too dark?
When everything falls at your feet and you're scared as hell, what are you going to do, who are you supposed to tell?
Like the hound at the gates of hell, questions ricocheted around an empty skull at the speed of sound, never giving me a chance to grasp them as they flickered passed sparingly. Yeah, too dark.
'Katy, I don't know what to do, I really don't. I've messed up  and I don't know how I'm supposed to fix it. Paige is upse-'
'No, look at me, your problem is definitely not Paige, or Bella, or Grace. Your problem is you.'
Within the part of my mind that was still sane enough to still be a sarcastic little... thing... I noticed how Katy may have just worded that a little bit wrong. Well, the sentiment was there, and that was all that mattered. Almost.
'Okay, you didn't make any sort of weird snarky comment, so you are 100% not fine.' I smiled weakly despite the harsh pain half way down my throat, she knew me too well. Truthfully, I was about 3,000 miles west from being fine.
'I know you're hurting, but it will get better. Maybe not by a lot, or maybe by a truckload, but it can't exactly get worse. The only way is up.' Steely eyed and completely and utterly correct, Katy proved to me what I'd always known but never really said; everyone needs a friend like Katy. Overly optimistic, ridiculously supporting, and absolutely bleeding brilliant.
As I dragged myself up from the cool, cold floor I had inevitably sank to, I contemplated the words of wisdom and probably some exceedingly positive quote book and ended up at a street corner; turn right and carry on living as some pessimistic, but mostly correct loser, or turn left into assurance avenue and believe everything would be okay and sing 'Hakuna Matata' till I grew old. Screw it, I needed that right now, and someone else needed to get me some bongos pronto. If I was going to be happy, I'd do it my way and in style.
Seemingly out of thin air (again) Grace appeared, peering over Katy's shoulder like Mort and King Julian in Madagascar.
Come to think of it, I'm taking that as a valid way to describe Grace and insult her at the same time. However, now was not the time for petty insults but probably to find out what the hell was happening.
'I'm finding it really difficult to underestimate you right now so if you have something to say, please tell us.' Okay, so maybe Katy didn't quite get the message, but I could easily catch the angle of which she was coming from, I too was particularly peeved at the pair.
'Jesus Christ, keep your hair on. Anyway, I told Amy to tell Paige you like her because you don't want to. Aren't I such a nice person?'
'You did what?'  To keep it relatively short, I was genuinely gobsmacked someone who was not clinically insane thought it was a good idea to trust someone I had spoken to a total of about 12 times in two entire years to tell a person who - at the best of times- was known to freak out at a hair being out of place, something so huge it could ruin our entire friendship in seco- nope she was talking again.
'I told Amy to tell Paige to,'
'No that does not mean I want to hear it again; it means I want a solid reason as to WHY you thought it was a good idea. Oh forget it, this is ridiculous, I'm going to lie here and die. Just go away and let the ground open and take me to hell please and thanks.'
Sighing melodramatically, I decided that this wasn't Grace's fault. Although the both of them upset me a surprising amount by falling under a gratuitous dictator as soon as they showed signs of remorse, I could never actually tell them that. It wasn't fair by any standards to push them away just because they drew closer to another, (that sounded like a weirdly specific Shakespeare quote) and I could easily withstand a few more blows before my walls gave up on my fortress and crumbled I guess.
'Jesus, I wish I'd never told anyone about this.' I whispered, leaning my head against the wall and closing my eyes.
Regret seeped into Grace's eyes as soon as the words left my mouth and I immediately prayed for a second time the ground could open and drop me off to hell. Christ I was an awful human being.
'I'm sorry.' Like a puppy being sent to the corner, Grace said the two simple words that meant more than they were worth with such sincerity , I physically could not refrain from smiling at her. Significantly calmer, I reassured her that it was okay, it didn't matter and before long we were back to being two relatively happy people and a goblin with no sense of how feelings are supposed to work. That was me, by the way.
Apparitions of failure and victory, chaos and tranquility, the morose and the opulent danced in my inner minds eye, both plaguing and curing all the thoughts in their midst as I forged a weak plan of what in both heaven and hell I was supposed to do. Eventually, a rough plan was carved into the sands of disaster and we stepped back to admire our handiwork.
'Right, Alex, you tell Jess about what's happened before someone else does in DT, and Grace you're on distracting Amy.'
'What about Paige?'
'I'll deal with Paige, she doesn't frighten me,' she regarded her words with apprehension, 'okay she does frighten me, but I'll just frighten her back.'
Ready and waiting, we all laughed at the weird seriousness that managed to settle itself over the predicament and hoped my life didn't go down the pan, or I liked to think they both thought that too.
Flashing my eyebrows with impatience, Grace fidgeted with loose threads claiming the cuff of her worn blazer sparingly before finally conveying what we all were thinking;
'I feel like we're making this way more dramatic than it needs to be.'
'Yeah good point lets go.'
As those too disappeared around the corner, I wandered into the bathroom to practise what I was going to say to Jess.
I pushed open the first three stall doors to find the toilet blocked, the next two had no lock and the last door was literally hanging off the hinges. Go to high school, they said, it'll be fun, they said. Soon enough, I was in the forest of whispering trees and paths designed to take you so far off track you'd end up in Canada- although that's not a bad thing.
By the time the bell finally rang, of course, I had forgotten in what direction my path was supposed to stray and was hopelessly lost in my thoughts.
What the hell was I going to do? Jess was my best friend and she'd be rather irked I hadn't told her first so I needed at least a half decent apology for her...
Eh, I'd wing it.