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I clicked through to the next slide of my presentation. "After solving the riddles of the sphinx, Oedipus..." We were doing oral presentations in English class, on Ancient Greek literature. The topics had been a random draw, so I'd unfortunately ended up with Oedipus Rex. I still tried to do my best, though. I really like Greek myths - most of them, anyway. Not sure how I felt about this play, though, given the subject matter. People had already snickered at the start of the presentation, when I'd mentioned that unfortunate part of the prophecy. Marc was in my English class, which wasn't great. We weren't hanging out much any more. I wasn't making much of an effort, because of how difficult I found it to be around him. Which wasn't fair really on him, but I couldn't bring myself to text him or call him out of nowhere - it felt needy, and desperate, and I'd end up just staring at his number until I gave up put down my phone. He still kept trying, which made it worse. I think he might have been getting bored with Derek, or the novelty had worn off. So whenever he wanted to do something, I'd agreed. I think I did a pretty good job of pretending nothing was wrong. Until one morning when he'd woken me up way too early by phoning me. I don't even really recall what I said to him, but I remember the slight surprise, and maybe even hurt that I heard in his voice. He wanted to play tennis. It wasn't something I'd ever shown the slightest interest in doing, so after I told him that was a weird, stupid question in the roughest terms I could - I'm not a morning person, so I definitely swore - it became clear that it was more of a general invitation to hang out. But by then it was too late, and it was still to early for me to be diplomatic. Whatever he did that day, I wasn't part of it. He hadn't called me to hang out since, not for any reason. It had only been a couple of weeks, but it stung. We'd also been put in fewer classes together that term, and only really saw each other for English, so we barely ever saw each other, and when we did, we didn't really talk. He'd chosen to sit far away from me most days, next to Derek. Despite the rift probably being my fault, I still felt pretty annoyed at him about it. I felt petty, but hurt at the same time. Maybe that's why I got so annoyed at him. Beyond annoyed, even - enraged. When I got to end of my presentation, and spoke about the part of the legend where Oedipus killed his father and slept with his mother, thus fulfilling the prophecy, Derek said something to Marc that made him laugh. Louder than was decent. I saw red, even as Mrs. A shushed the two of them, and I pushed through the final section of my presentation. Once I was about to wrap up, it was Marc making his response to Derek that pushed me past the tipping point. I decided to go off script to wrap it up. "Naturally, a lot of the tragedy loses its effect to a modern audience, who find the situation with Oedipus and his mother a bit funny. As shown by Derek and Marc, who clearly have put a lot of thought into fucking their own mothers." I regretted it the instant I said it. It wasn't the sharp way Mrs. A's head snapped up towards me when I dropped the f-bomb. It wasn't Derek's glare - fuck him, I couldn't care less. And it definitely wasn't the laughter of the rest of the class. God knows I love an audience, and man did they sound amused. Matthew was laughing so hard that he looked like he was struggling to breathe after a while. No, it was the way Marc looked at me. Hurt. Confused. Betrayed. Maybe I was just picturing it. I told myself that I was. He just didn't like being the butt of the joke, that was all. Served him right for making fun of my presentation. With Derek, of all people. I clung to just enough self-righteousness that I could manage to convince myself I'd done nothing wrong. Barely. There would be a reckoning with Mrs. A, though. Everyone was still chuckling, and while I might get away with a proverbial slap on the wrist for swearing, I could tell she didn't like that she'd lost control of her class. After she'd stood up and thundered at them to keep quiet, delivering a threat to give everyone zero for the project to make it stick, she turned her glare on me. "Mr. Newell. Outside, please." I nodded, feeling my stomach drop. "Mr. Georgio." She nodded at Nick. "Please get ready, you're next. I'm expecting great things, since you're actually Greek. I'll be back in a minute." With that, she stormed past me and out of the classroom, and I followed meekly in her wake. We marched in single file like that for a fair distance down the hall, before she stopped and turned around to look at me, a wry grin on her face. That was almost a bit more worrying than the glare. "I can't say I condone your methods," she said drily. "But as for results... I doubt those two boys will be disturbing my classes again any time soon, so I can hardly hold it against you." I nodded, unable to speak. "Are you okay?" she asked, a little more earnestly than I was used to. "Uh... yeah." No. He'll never love me back. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just annoyed that they were interrupting." "Right." She gave me a searching look. "Well, I'm not sending you to the principle's office. But don't let anyone else know that. Go to the bathroom, walk around for a few minutes, and slip back into my class quietly, looking like you've gotten a good talking to." "Yes, Ma'am." I tried my best to smile. I was at least relieved that I wasn't going to get in trouble for it.She nodded, satisfied, and spun around to head back. I didn't need the bathroom yet, so I walked around the hallways first. I couldn't do a full circuit, or I'd walk past her windows, and I didn't really want to walk past other full classes in case another teacher asked me what I was doing. 'Faking being scolded' would hardly be a good response. I tried to put the Marc thing out of my mind. He'd seemed pretty offish with me anyway, and maybe this would make him mad enough to leave me alone for good. That was probably for the best. Being around him hurt too much. It felt so good, but knowing that it was all it could ever be... How was I going to cope with that? Just not seeing him seemed so much easier. Eventually, I ran out of things to do, so I went to the bathroom. Maybe I'd splash my face or something. I reasoned that I should probably still be out of class for a few more minutes before going back. It turned out to not be a good place to bunker down in private. Not for me, anyway. "Heyyyy, it's Jayyy." It was Jamie - the blond, blue-eyed, athletic guy I'd realised I'd also had a vague crush on for years after I figured out what the thing with Marc was. He was sprawled out along a bench across from the door. He hung out there a lot, and I was never quite sure why. It was a nice bathroom, but it was still a bathroom - it didn't exactly always smell great. "Hey! Jamie." Well, that had been a weird way of saying it, but it looked like he didn't notice. "What are you doing here?" Great, more weirdness. Like I was asking him what right he had to be in there. Had I always been like this around him? Probably. I didn't have mushy feelings for him the way I did for Marc, but I'd definitely found myself wondering what he looked like naked, and he had a cocky grin that could make my brain short-circuit. I tried to get a grip while he responded. Jamie grinned. "Puking, as far as Mr. Ashe knows." I laughed. "You're bunking Econ?" "Yeah, whatever. He's hosting a debate on piracy, and it's so not going the way he planned. Everyone on the against side switched, and now it's him arguing with the whole class. Waste of time, as usual. But you know that. You dropped it, right?" He shrugged, and winked at me. Goddammit, I forgot how destabilising it was when he did that. Maybe that was why he was always doing it. "Uh, yeah..." I cleared my throat. "I switched for Computer Science." "Genius, I'm telling you. If only I wasn't too dumb for that subject, I'd be right there with you, man." He gave me his winning smile, and I'm sure I must have blushed. "Anyway, what are you doing here?" "Preserving a teacher's reputation by pretending to be in trouble." "Ah, you said something really funny in Mrs. A's class." "Yeah." I laughed, shocked that he'd guessed it. "Been there." He pivoted around on the bench into a sitting position. "Do you want go to the vending machines and get some cokes? If anyone's around, I'll pretend to be sick again and you can say you're helping me." "Yeah, sure." I shrugged. He got up, and I followed him out. I let myself look at him - his hair, the soft skin of his neck, the bit of chest hair that stuck out from the shirt of his school uniform, that he never buttoned up all the way. My crush on Jamie was different in a way I thought I could handle. I didn't want to kiss him, or hold his hand. I didn't feel the need to know what he was thinking. I just found him hot. Which felt less creepy, because you were supposed to find Jamie hot. Everyone did, I bet. Even straight guys who weren't quite ready to admit it. And beyond that, I was fairly sure that Jamie wanted you to find him hot. Why else would he always be winking at people like that? But Jamie and I didn't have to be friends. We didn't make sense as friends anyway. He had his crowd of jocks, and I either hung out with my fellow nerds or the burnout gamers. We didn't try to force it, but Jamie would nod to me in the corridors, and I'd occasionally email him notes when he needed them. Despite being quite sporty - usually the captain of any tiny, ill-practised team our year could muster - he was holding down his academics pretty well, and even did AP maths with me. Which wasn't exactly easy. As for Marc, he'd very clearly had enough of me. He didn't call, or try to hang out with me any more. It hurt, but a lot less than wanting him and not getting to have him. I hoped that he never figured out why I started acting the way I did. Because I wasn't proud of the way I couldn't be friends with someone I had a crush on. But I didn't try to fix it, because how could I, without explaining? And I really wasn't ready to do that. I tried my best not to develop a crush on anyone else. For the most part, it was easy. The school had stopped getting so many new people, so I didn't need to worry about that, for the most part. The thing with Jamie, I thought I could manage. It was harmless, and it had never started to make me feel bad, the way pining after Marc had. When I was with Jamie, it was awkward and tense, but it fed my fantasies, and when I wasn't with him, it's not like I missed his company. It kind of worked for me. Stuff like that meeting in the bathroom happened a few more times over the year, we'd hang out for a a bit and chat, but we never tried to make it more. But for the rest of the year, that was enough for me - seeing him, indulging in my crush, but never feeling the need to take it further. Never feeling like I had to be around him. It was lonely, though. At the end of the year, I had no one who I really wanted to invite to my eighteenth. So it was just my family, and my neighbour Ellie, whose family was invited by mom to bolster the numbers. It was a nice birthday, even if I could tell the fact that I had no friends made everyone feel awkward. Unavoidable, really. If that was all I needed to endure for the rest of high school, I could do it. I could wait until university, where it was easier to find other gay guys, and be who you were. Find someone who wanted you just as much as you wanted them. I'd gone for so long without even knowing I was gay, and I spent so long moping over Marc, I could wait a bit longer. It's not like it would be forever. Just one more year.
Really enjoyed this... once I started getting your monthly news lol. It was good to get some of the 'pre-history' :)
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