Growing Pains

Chapter 59 - Nothing made sense anymore

E D W A R D

Everyone who had texted me asking about what happened at the party, had also come up to me and asked it to my face back at school, and every time they did, I smiled, and either lied or told the truth, it didn't matter. I didn't care.

Isaac was ignoring me. He had been ignoring me since the party, and I couldn't sleep thinking he would probably go on ignoring me for the rest of our lives, and that I probably deserved it. The days would turn into months, and the months into years, and I would probably only see him again on the cover of a surf magazine that I would take back home with me and keep in a drawer, where it would collect dust the same way what happened between us in that dark pool house would go on collecting mold.

I couldn't pay attention in class, and at lunch, I couldn't eat. Jack and Finn were pretending to do oral on their beef turkey sandwich to get to me, and everyone was laughing, and then Jacob was getting up, and pushing the sandwiches down both their throats, so hard, they almost choked. I couldn't stop him either, not even if I wanted to.

"Shut the fuck up," he said. It was the first thing he said all day.

Finn coughed the sandwich out, and showed Jacob his middle finger.

Jack said, "It's a fucking joke."

Jacob didn't answer. Instead, he threw his backpack over his shoulder, turned around, and left. The twins turned to me.

"You know it's a joke, right?"

I didn't answer. I was still looking at Jacob walking away. Months ago, he would have laughed at it like everyone else. He would have been the one throwing the punchline, whatever it was, I still wasn't sure. Was it that I was gay? How was that a punchline? Nothing made sense anymore.

Later at practice, I couldn't play either.

"What's up your ass today?" Coach asked.

Liam laughed, "More like, what's not up his ass."

Jason threw a ball at his face. He had gotten his cast off just after New Year's, and was told he could come back to practice if only he took it easy, which he wasn't doing at all. The only reason Coach wasn't screaming at me as much as he should was because he had to keep screaming at Jason.

In the end, when someone grabbed my arm as we were walking into the locker room, I thought it was him. He had texted me over the holidays after seeing what the others were saying in the team's group chat about what happened at the party. I had left the conversations as soon as the jokes turned into spam, so I didn't know how bad it had gotten, but according to Jason's text, they were pretty bad, and he was worried. He was the only one I texted back over the holidays. I promised him I was fine, but maybe he hadn't believed me. Maybe he wanted to make sure in person.

I turned around. It wasn't Jason standing there in front of me, but Isaac, and he was saying, "You need to stop this shit right now cause I can't stand it anymore."

I looked at the locker room doors, thinking of everyone on the other side, making jokes about us, and laughing, and I asked, "What did they do?"

He shook his head, "It's not them. It's you. You're ignoring me."

I swallowed hard. I'd had a lump in my throat for weeks.

"I thought you were ignoring me."

He frowned, "Why would I be ignoring you?"

"Because you were drunk, and you were joking, and I –"

"I wasn't drunk," he said. "And I wasn't joking either."

"You said you were joking."

He frowned some more, "And then I kissed you."

I was sweating more than I did at practice, "I thought that was the joke."

"How was that a joke?!"

"I don't know," I said, my hand reaching for my neck. I wanted to force the lump down my throat from the outside. I said, "Ask anyone. They can't stop laughing –"

"I don't care what they think," he stopped me. "I thought you didn't either."

"And I don't."

"Then what the fuck are we doing?!"

"I don't know."

He looked away, "Was it a joke to you?"

"No." This much I knew.

He looked back at me, "No?"

I shook my head, "No."

He smiled, "So if I did it again, if I –"

He stopped talking when I smiled back at him, and took a step closer instead, and then another one, and another one, and when he was close enough, I leaned in, and so did he, and we kissed, both of us still smiling, and I felt so much like myself then. I could have cried.