Pride of the 90's

Chapter 10

I should have been home around ten. Instead I stayed out until three in the morning, wandering around, trying to think of anything else except him, but I couldn't. I saw two guys hanging around the downtown area, so close to each other you couldn't take it as anything but gay. They didn't care if anyone saw them or knew what they were. They were perfectly fine just being together and nobody was going to tell them they couldn't.

I wish it were that easy.

Part of me still wants to run back to him and give in, but I couldn't. I was to afraid to go back. To afraid to think of what might happen. To afraid that I might get him hurt or that I would get hurt and it would be Ben all over again. I can't risk go through that. Not again.

When I did finally make it home, covered in sweat, I fell on the bed, exhausted from walking. I walked for hours to get home, but I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about it, replaying the moment in my head over and over again, thinking about how I should have handled it. Was I right in running away or should I have stayed and just kept going? Because no matter how many times I try to pretend the problem isn't there, it just gets worse because it is there and I need to address it. I need to talk about it. I need to tell someone because if I don't, I'm gonna go insane.

And I know just to call.

I know she's miles away, but on the off chance she wasn't, I called her house that morning anyway. The phone rang and her mother picked up immediately.

"Hello, Stein residents," Her mother answered, her voice low and tired.
"Hi, Mrs. Stein? It's Danny," I said, panicked and still tired from not having slept in twenty-four hours.
"Oh, hi, Danny. Haven't heard from you in a while. How you been?"
"Hey, yeah, I'm good. Is Haley there?"
"Oh, well, she's just waking up."

And it will be the last time she ever does.

I quickly hung up the phone and bolted out the door, still wearing the sweaty clothes from the night before. Yeah, it's ten in the morning and I haven't slept or eaten, so I'm a little cranky, but I need to talk to her now. This can't wait. I bolted through the neighborhood on my board, not stopping a single time on the way, cutting off traffic and almost hitting a few people. I think one of the cars was Masons.

Dope.

When I finally reached her street, I sped up. She was on the porch of her light yellow, two story house, checking the mail. As soon as I reached her house, I didn't jump off my board. I jumped off it, slamming it into the porch.

"Danny?" She asked, her face half-dead. I didn't stop, though. I grabbed her hand, dragged her back into the house and up the stairs to her room, slamming the door behind me.

I think that was the last hit of adrenaline I'll get until I'm thirty.

"Danny, what the hell? I think you dislocated my shoulder," She said, rubbing her shoulder. "Well, now I can get out of gym, so thanks." I tried speaking, but I was to out of breath, so I collapsed onto the floor, sweat dripping down my face, breathing so heavily that I can feel my heart ready to explode. When I finally caught my breath, I spoke.
"Haley..." I said, still panting, the sweat slowly disipating. "I'm gay."

And there it was. Out in the open, for all the world to see and point at like a monkey in a zoo and to laugh at like a circus freak. The very two words I never wanted to hear myself say out loud: I'm gay. The idea of it was so destroying, it made her choke in despair.

At least, she better be, because her choking sounds like shes holding back from laughing at me.

"Seriously?" She just choked harder. "Really?" And harder. "I have this huge, life changing revelation about myself, and all you can do is laugh?" And harder, until she couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing. She does this every time. Every time something major like this happens, she laughs instead of taking it seriously. Well, it's not that she isn't taking it seriously, but like I said, life ban on funerals.