Just Friends

Chapter Three - A Double-Edged Sword

Gavin is dating someone. He went to dinner with a girl named Sam the other day, and it confirmed by continued suspicion of his heterosexuality. I haven’t met her yet, but I think she will come to the dorm in a few weeks - it would be nice to know who my incredibly attractive roommate was being whisked away by. He wouldn’t describe her very well to me, so I am anxious to know if she is worthy of his gorgeous body.

The other day, we were talking about dating in our study group. Clarissa and Jamie were talking about their ex-boyfriends and they asked me if I had dated any girls - I said no, which was the truth. They told me that they didn’t believe me and I was too attractive to have been ignored by the entire female population. I just shrugged. I should have told them then, but I simply couldn’t.

I sat in the library twiddling my thumbs as I waited for Clarissa to show up. She was, of course, running late. I started reviewing my own notes and making sure that I understood the inclusion of molarity in our most recent lesson. It wasn’t unusual for me to visit the library to just get away from it all. I had distanced myself from the boy with the emerald eyes, and Gavin was only in the dormitory at night.

I heard a slam of books and the tinkering of pencils hitting the ground to my left, where the circulation desk was located. Mrs. Loch had dropped her things on her way out to her classroom. I muttered to myself about the misfortune of her existence within the school walls, then continued my work. My Chemistry grade had been fine until last week when Mrs. Loch insisted that all tests be taken with a more strict time limit - which eliminated my ability to check my work before the time had run out. My hatred for the class had been growing steadily, rather than reducing itself as time went on.

Clarissa finally began to approach the table from the entrance, brushing directly past Mrs. Loch and towards me. She seemed to be quite well dressed and prepared this morning, a white blouse with lovely frills on the neck line with a gorgeous black sweater over top made her look absolutely stunning, but I was still wondering why she was so overdressed when she arrived.

“Heya, James,” she grinned as she arrived at the table, “sorry I’m late, I woke up and had to throw something together.”

I immediately knew something was strange. Clarissa certainly didn’t just ‘throw’ her outfit together. “You look like you are dressed for quite the occasion,” I mentioned, “why the frills?”

“Ha-ha. I wore this to class like, a week ago,” she defended herself as well as she could, “so don’t make fun of my frills!” She gave a very real laugh as she looked away innocently and pulled out her Chemistry work. “Can you look this over?” she handed me her work, on wrinkled yellow paper.

I started to scan her work. Conversion factors, balanced equations, everything was correct and I was quite surprised to find that even her answers were correct. Not one answer was wrong, and one of her answers even corrected one of my errors on a particularly lengthy problem. My suspicion grew about our meeting, “are you sure you’re having trouble? These are all correct...”

“Can we just cut to the chase?”

“Wh-what do you mean, exactly? I wasn’t implying that you cheated,” I was completely confused and complexed.

Suddenly, she nearly climbed over the table to reach me, grabbing my button-up collar and pulling me in close, “this is what I mean,” she whispered as she leaned in to kiss me.

In a moment of shock I let the kiss linger, before wrenching myself away, “Clarissa!”

“What, do you not like me? I thought this was practically a date - are we here for different reasons?” As smart as Clarissa was in math and science, she wasn’t very good at picking up social signals, a regular “Sheldon Cooper.”

“No, it’s not,” I sighed, resigning to the facts, “Clarissa, I’m gay.”

She stared at me for several seconds. A disgusted look grew on her face, and she looked at the ceiling before hostility overcame her, “this is not funny James. Have fun studying. Make me look like a fool.” I am not sure to this day, but I believe with all of my being that I heard her whisper, “faggot,” over her shoulder as she walked away.

My soul felt like it was quickly sinking in quicksand, being pressured downward and shoved into an endless pit. I had been bullied before, but I had never actually been stabbed in the heart with as rusty a dagger as Clarissa Hearty.

Tuesdays were always difficult for me, I had classes all afternoon into the night. After my Psychology and Intro to Java class were complete and the sun began to set, I still was due to complete my Chemistry lab with Jamie, and as I reached the room, Jamie was already walking back towards me from the door.

“Lab’s closed today, I gotta run, talk to you in Chem!” Jamie, if she wasn’t in class, was always busy with her boyfriend. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find that she had planned the entire closing of the lab herself just to sleep with him before he goes back to Seattle this weekend.

I was able to go back to the dorms early, so I decided some early shut-eye would be a great way to sort out my problems. I reached the room, tested the door, and finding it locked, assumed that Gavin was not in. I took out my key and with a month of practice, unlocked the door in barely any time at all.

I swung open the door, and took in the scene that was in front of me.

Two bodies were bouncing back and forth on Gavin’s bed, and it took me several seconds to understand what I was witnessing: Gavin was having sex with the boy with emerald eyes.