Walking on a Tightrope

Chapter 9

"What's wrong?" Skylar asks, worry clear in her voice. That's when I realized I had stopped suddenly on the sand. I stammer and muster out an "Uhh. Nothing..." But she can tell something is wrong. And I know it's no use hiding it from her. As I expected she responds "Blake, I may have only known you for a few days but that tone and expression is not 'nothing'. Now tell me what's wrong please. I want to help." I can't decide if I should lie to her or not. I look up at her and into her crystal blue eyes. I know I could confess anything to her.

"What are you doing here? This isn't your place to be" A voice yells with judgement. That's when I notice we had been staring into each other's eyes like they were large galaxies and we could get lost in forever. While we were busy zoning out the world Jessica took it into her own hands to make herself known. Skylar and I snap our heads to her direction where she is standing in a bikini with one hand on her waist and the other pointing at me. Skye answers with a confused, "Who are you?" and Jessica scoffs before saying "Who am I? I am the one and only Jessica Barnes. Who are you?" The way she talks down to Skylar makes my blood boil. "Jessica don't you dare speak to her like that. Now go hang out with you and your miserable friends and leave us alone." I take Skylar's hand without thinking and drag her away from her. "Sorry about that Skye. She's just some bitch from my school who thinks she is better than everyone else." Jessica yells after us "Don't forget who I am Blake, as much as you want to you know I'll always be one step ahead of you" I roll my eyes thinking of my history with her. Skye laughs "It's fine Blake. But I certainly don't miss high school. Is that what you were focused on a minute ago?". I give an awkward chuckle "Yeah. She and I don't exactly... get along. How about we get back into the water?"
"That sounds wonderful. The water is so calming." She takes my hand in hers and I follow her to the ocean. I know Jessica is watching us but she shouldn't suspect anything. After all the whole school knows I was 'obsessed' with Tucker in and now that I'm fake dating him everyone is convinced I am madly in love with him. I had put all my energy into pretending to like him as a way to avoid the truth that it was never him and never would be him. Once we get out into the water, Skylar playfully splashes me and says "Doesn't the water make everything seem better?". I am still shaken up about Jessica being here so I just respond quietly "Yeah, it does." She just hugs me and says "It'll be alright. She can't do anything that bad, can she?". Those words got me thinking about what she could do. If she found out I was gay and so is Tucker she will expose our secret to the whole school, we would lose all of our friends, I would lose my parents and possibly even her. So my answer should be 'Yes, she can do a lot more than you'd think. She has the power to separate me from everything and everyone I love in my life' But I don't want to tell her about my fake relationship, I could loser her, and her trust. "No, I guess she can't do anything serious." Once again I am lying to her, but its for us, so it isn't to hurt her. It's not going to hurt her, I wont let it.

Everything feels okay when I'm with her. I forget about everything except her, and I just live. I never want to go back to the time in my life when I didn't have her. I could never love a man the way I love her, and that truth is frightening. My parents would kick me out of my house if they knew. I just want to keep everything I have in my life while still being me, but everything is so contradicting that I don't know who I would side with. My shitty parents, or my best friend and girlfriend who I love with all my heart? It seems like the answer should be simple but it isn't as easy as it seems. I have no idea what else my abusive family would do if they found out I was gay. They could do much more than just kick me out and that thought alone terrifies me. I just want to be happy with her. I am graduating this year and if I keep the secret for another few months then Tucker and I can move away from this hellish town and live our lives the way we want to. That's when something else hits me: Prom is next month. My heart says go with Skylar and my brain says go with Tucker.

"What're you thinking about?". My head snaps toward her "Uh, what?". She chuckles and asks again "What's on your mind?" "I'm just thinking about prom next month. Would you go with me?" Shit. Turns out my dumb ass heart spoke for me and took matters into its own hands. She hugs me and says "Of course" We make our way to the shore and listen to our instructions before heading back out to the ocean. But I look towards Jessica one more time, and I notice something is off... She looks, smug? Instead of her usual glare of hate towards me she is smiling in a way that just screams "I'm planning something". I look around to find Tucker, so she doesn't notice I'm closer to Skylar than him. I find him and walk over to him through the ankle length water, grab his hand to face him towards me then I whisper "Jessica is here. Come stand near Skye and I, I want you to meet her anyways. But say nothing of our deal." As expected he responds sharply but quietly so no one hears him "What the fuck? She doesn't know? This could drag us both down!" All I can think to say is "Shut up we'll talk about it later, just please. You know how hard it is to accept who you are. Just help me out today, we'll fix things up after camp." he mumbles a "fine" before following me over to where Skylar and I have hung out the past two days during camp. "Hey Skye, meet my friend Tucker! He'll hang out with us for a bit. I did drag him along with me to this camp, I might as well please my mom and hang out with him while I'm here." He playfully yells "Hey! I'm not that bad!" and the day drags on like this. Me putting on a show and masking who I am for fear of what the truth would reveal.