Pick Up The Pieces

Can't Have Faith In Everyone

Can't Have Faith in Everyone

Being friends is a weird place when you're trying to figure out how you really feel about a guy. It's not like I can't figure out if I like boys. Thankfully, I've known since I was young that I like boys just as much as I like girls, and I have the greatest parents in the world, so they didn't freak out when I got in trouble for kissing my friend in first grade. Not because he was a boy, but because it was at school. They accepted it so easily. My best friend hugged me and smiled, and then we kept playing Mario Kart. I won that game. It was one of the only ones I've ever won.

I think it sucks that loving someone and being accepted for loving someone means that I'm lucky, but while I'm optimistic, I'm realistic. I know that other people didn't have the greatest experience with coming out. I've heard horror stories. Disgusting people saying disgusting things. They have a wonderful habit of projecting. I never let it bother me. I'm good with who I am.

I never let anyone tell me who I should be and who I can and can't love. That's my decision. I'm not about to let them start now.

"I'm just saying, of all people, the football captain?" Addie said when I visited this past weekend, her boots up on her desk. "Like, of all people, you had to choose the football captain? Do you have any idea how many coming of age novels exist for the sole purpose to explain to you why that's the wrong thing to do?"

I snorted, leaning back against the headboard from where I was sitting on her bed. "You should see him. You wouldn't be questioning me."

She rolled her eyes.

"There are a lot of pretty people in this world, Cassie. That doesn't automatically make them good."

"You're only saying that because your last boyfriend was an emotionally stunted asshole," I laughed, shaking my head. He really was. He took years to respond to texts and left her because she was 'too clingy.' She really isn't clingy. Addie is a girl who can look after herself, and she's probably the most independent person I know.

I had missed Addie. She lives about a two hour drive from me, and I don't get to come up here nearly as much as I wish I could. We've grown up together. Our parents are best friends, so we became best friends on principle. I can count on one hand the amount of times we've fought. Not argued, because I've found that we have really dumb arguments about whether or not strawberry and pink lemonade are the same thing - no - or if cheez it's are better than goldfish - yes - but we're never actually mad at each other.

"All high school boys are emotionally stunted assholes," she said. "There are, like, four decent male human beings in high school. You're one of them."

"So is he," I said, smirking at her. "Stop being so stereotypical."

"You barely know the guy," she groaned. "You've been tutoring him for, what, a month now?"

"He's a closeted genius," I said. "It's not even tutoring anymore. It's just both of us doing homework together and asking questions every now and then."

Adrian turned out to be even smarter than I thought he was. He has trouble sometimes explaining his thought process, and how to do certain things, but he gets it so quickly. It's almost annoying. We still aren't close, by any means. I've tried to get him to open up several times, but he just shuts down. We have unimportant conversation about unimportant things, and I was never too fond of small talk. I've gotten to know his little sister, who sometimes sits with us coloring while we're working. She's sweet, and so kind.

And he still drives me home, even though I insist my parents can pick me up. He just shrugs and takes me anyway. Some nights we stop for food, and on Thursdays we'll just eat there before he takes me home.