Becoming Brett

29. No One's Business

"Sticking around?" Ms. Nicoll smiles warmly at me as she steps from her office.

She knows I'm 'sticking around'. And I know she's asking if James is coming. Even though I'm not entirely sure, I nod.

James and I have barely talked since the other day in the hall. Since I pushed him away. He's been normal, all smiles and easy going but there's critical things missing.

I realized I've made him mad. Hurt him. I'm not sure which one is worse.

"I'll be back in 30." Ms. Nicoll's says and I know she will. She's very prompt.

My books are still spread out in front of me, an array of subjects as I study and work on things I haven't completed throughout the day. But as I stare at the pages of the textbook, little black letters blurring together until they become a muddled mess, I can't focus.

My thoughts keep drifting, my eyes shifting to the door, then the clock, then my phone on an endless cycle. Like a rabbit hole I'm stumbling down, losing all sense of what is true and what is false, grasping at anything because everything is off. Everything is wrong.

I toss my pen down, ignoring how it rolls down the slopes of the open book and grab my phone. I can't take the silence anymore.

Opening James' thread, the last thing we texted about was meeting in the hallway and the sight of my text sitting there sits sour in my mind.

Why can't I just be normal?

Why can't it be Savannah? Why, at the very least, couldn't I have just pretended.

My life would be so much less stressful. And the only person I'd be hurting would be myself. I could live with that, maybe.

But that's not what I've done. Instead, there I sit, perched on a metal stool in a classroom hoping that my boyfriend will walk through the door. That as soon as I see him I'll apologize and he'll smile and we'll hug and everything will be okay again. At least between us.

I shift my gaze from the door to my phone, still clutched in my hand and open to his thread, typing the words "I'm a fox" into the message box. My thumb hovers over the send button, my mind going back and forth over what I should do and what I want to do.

I'm transfixed by this debate. My mind laying out the pros and the cons. The positives and negatives and what the areas in between are that I can live with or without.

It all doesn't bring me an answer but I do know having James not speaking to me is awful. So I hit send and instantly the tiny little letters under my message confirm he's read it. My heart starts to pump blood through my body harder, faster as I stare at the screen holding my breath waiting for those little dots to pop up.

My glasses aren't crooked or sitting low but I fix them anyway like maybe if they're the reasons I'm not seeing that he's responding but he's actually just not responding.

Tightening my grip on my phone, I silently beg James through the distance that separates us. Please answer. Please forgive me. Please.

But nothing finds its way to my inbox. Tears want to well up in my eyes, that feeling of a broken heart intensifying as I sit alone in the chem room. I can't take it. I can't hold it all in and a muffled sob racks my body. My fingers find their way to the bridge of my nose, knocking my glasses off balance as I pinch, squeezing my eyes shut tighter.

You're not allowed to cry. You did this to yourself.

I'm just about to drop into a pool of despair when five beautiful words ring through the air.

"Then I'm a fox too."

                              ————————

I picked up Ellie and Laurel for movie night, the three of us crossing town to try it out at Josh's house.

Ellie's in the back seat, though she might as well just be sitting in the front as she shoulders herself between the two front seats and asks "so what's his dad like?"

Ellie's been badgering me for information about Wes' dad since Wes said movie night had a change of venue. I was shocked at first, I can't remember the last time Wes went to his dad's twice in two weeks. It's been a while.

I pull out of Ellie's driveway and tell her the same thing I've been telling her every other time she's asked "he's fine".

She's thrown a whole spiel of follow up questions at me all week. All things I brushed off with nothing too precise. I'm being honest, I haven't seen Josh in a while, haven't talked to him in longer.

"But we've never movie nighted there before. Why now?"

I don't know why. I shrug my shoulders, catching Laurel's eye as I do. I'm still not convinced how I feel about her and I'm sure she has a list of questions she wants to ask, either about Wes or his dad or both but she doesn't. And I'm grateful.

I shrug my shoulders and Ellie groans.

"Ugh can't you give me more than that!"
She hollers.

"I don't know what to tell you Ellie, his dad's fine. I don't know why he's already back for another weekend. Wes didn't give me details."

I never asked for the details either.

Ellie tips her head to Laurel's shoulder as I drive, her warm breath hitting my skin as she sighs in frustration.

"When did James and Savannah say they'd be there?" She asks.

My thoughts instantly go to early, James and I in the chem room. For a split second after he said those words everything froze. Time, my thoughts, my heart. I honestly couldn't believe he was there, that he had come. I've given him so many reasons to leave but he keeps coming back. And as time unfroze, then my thoughts, then my heart, my body sent me lunging for him. Desperate for us to be close, dying for his touch, his stability, him. I had slammed my hip into the corner of the chem table but not even that slowed me down. It wasn't until I crashed into James that I stopped.

"James texted me before we picked you up and said they were leaving their house."

By the time we left the chem room, things had returned to status quo. Thank god.

As we make our way through town, slowly nearing Josh's houses, silence engulfs my wagon and I let my thoughts stay on James. On the moments when we get to be with one another. When we're good. Dancing along the edges of a fantasy that wants to over take my dreams of a time when James and I can be us with no repercussions.

It's all shattered through when Ellie asks "Do you think there's something going on with James and Darren?".

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel at Darren's name but they stay tight as thoughts of Darren and James being something more than just friends infiltrates the lingering haze of my fantasy.

James promises there's nothing going on. They're just friends. And I believe him. Mostly. But it doesn't keep the thoughts away.

"James is gay?" Laurel's question opens up a pit of unease in me.

"Beats me." Ellie says. "He's never dated anyone."

All I can feel is their eyes on me, peeling back layers of my skin, layers of the front I've built to protect myself. Sweat instantly breaks out along my skin.

"What do you think Brett?" Laurel's voice is calculated, precise and instantly my worst fear becomes true.

She knows.

If she doesn't, she's close.

I try to calm myself, to keep the front up. Act indifferent but it's too close. Once someone is sure James is gay it's only a matter of time before they link him to me.

Pulling down Josh's quiet well cared for street, I'm aware I've taken longer than I should have to answer but I need to keep myself level. I need to pretend I'm not what I am.

It doesn't come out as easy and aloof as I intended as I snap "I think it's none of our business."

It's supposed to be no one's business.