44. Gay and Closeted
44. Gay and Closeted
Garber’s POV
The rest of school hours continued in black noise.
Luis didn’t attend any classes and Mia stuck onto me like half-eaten chewing gum underneath a desk.
Annoyingly infuriating—and to make it worse, this sticky thing could talk.
As if she had just discovered the use of it, she didn’t stop yapping. Or rather, she hasn’t stopped yapping, like a fucking faulty radio, because not a word of what she’s said so far has registered in my head.
Not when I didn’t get a look at Luis’ face.
Not when I can’t tell if he’ll forgive me.
“Babe,” she tapped my thigh as she snaked her hand around it, bringing her feverishly cold palm up to my inner thigh.
“Except you want to have that dinner in the ER, take your hands off,” my voice came out as cold as ice, definitely contrasting the supposed warmth she meant to bring into the room.
Not to be mean, but the air was weird after all her talking.
Did she have mouth odour?
I glanced at her briefly and took an intentional sniff.
Maybe, maybe not.
It would be too early to cast the blame on her, so I simply increased the speed of my automatic air freshener instead.
I’d rather choke on the lavender scent than on bad breath… or whatever that is…
She didn’t take her hands off, as if to dare me, but she definitely brought it down to my knees.
It was still as annoying but much better.
“I was just curious,” now that she had my attention, I couldn’t block it out even if I tried, “you’re not doing this because of my big brother, right?” I wanted to roll my eyes at her and laugh in her face.
Her brother was a gang leader of one of the biggest gangs in the city, but despite all that aggressive power, he was still nothing but a dog to the likes of my mom. Used to carry out their dirty work in the shadows.
“Why would you think that?” I asked instead. As calm as I could manage, but she frowned.
She could tell I was looking down on her for that, when any other person would have tried to curry favour from her.
L.O.L.
“In that case, is it because of what you think I know?” she smirked as our eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“What?” I croaked as I tore my gaze away just in time to avoid colliding into the elementary school pupils taking the zebra crossing with their teachers.
“I knew it,” she withdrew her hand and relaxed into her seat as we waited behind the red light.
My hand gripping the steering wheel tighter than usual as I asked, “what do you mean,” without looking at her.
Not that I didn’t want to look and wipe that sneer off her face.
I just didn’t dare to.
“You know you wear your emotions on your face, right? You really should learn to hide it so that people like me don’t take advantage of our guesses,” every single thing that she said was like a trigger for me.
Instead of asking what she meant, I let the silence fester and heard her shift in her seat.
“Aren’t you going to ask what I mean?” she sounded irritated at this point, her voice doing a pitch higher than necessary.
And as gratifying as that sounded for me, we were on our way to my home, which would also be the worst place to rat me out—especially after all the emotional guilt my mom made me carry.
“What do you mean?”
I asked, in my calmest as the red turned yellow then green.
“I mean your relationship with Luis,” she said and I paused in my breath as we took a swerve.
While she never explicitly mentioned whether she knew about all that went down between us, she hinted at it and I immediately latched onto her.
After all, the saying goes, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
I took it literally—but now that she’s talking about it, I can’t help but wonder what she has planned.
“What about Luis?” my voice dropped another octave when what I wanted to say was tell her to keep his name out of her stinky mouth!
It sounded dangerously low. If she noticed, she chose to ignore it.
“I only noticed you guys once at that bar last term and decided to look into you some more. But of course I found nothing. I would have given up if you hadn’t looked like a scaredy cat when I asked,” she said and chuckled.
A chuckle that would pass for a Disney evil witch’s laugh.
It made me uneasy and my body hair stood.
“You…” I started but paused again as we approached the security of the gate.
“You know what I learnt from this little story? It’s to not act so smug every time, especially if you’re gay and still in the closet,” she said and roared in laughter.
“Hurry!” I honked loudly at the security guard who was startled by my sudden outburst.
“I’m sorry,” he said and I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t him, it was me.
But my anger didn’t allow any guilt or further outbursts. Not when the witch to my left wouldn’t stop laughing.
My chest heaved up and down as we finished the whole process and arrived at my gate.
“Behave when we get to my mom’s,” I said, as a warning. Anything to make her shut the hell up and stop mocking me.
“Also,” I said as the gate of my home was opening, “I’m not gay.”
“I don’t think Luis would agree to that.”
She must have seen him as well.
“Shut up!” I said, more to myself than her. However, the aggressiveness of my tone definitely reached her as she sat up.
The noise in my head that I’d managed to suppress started to reach the surface. And without turning the AC up, I could see her sit still and rub the side of her arms from my peripheral vision.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as she continued to sit up in alert.
“Nothing,” she sounded sick all of a sudden. Oh how I wanted to gloat.
However, my situation wasn’t any better because now my most recent enemy who had a runny mouth knew the secret I wanted to remain hidden the most.
I drove into the porch to see that there seemed to be some situation going on.
It’s loud, and maids and guards and other house workers are gathered in groups while murmuring.
How I missed returning home to silence and nothingness.
Those nights and afternoons I took for granted, but right now, as I step out of the car and look up at the front balcony, I suddenly wish I had a time machine to go back in time.
My two options would be to either cease to exist or never exist.
“Oh my god,” I gasp underneath my breath as my eyes are fixated on my little sister—the demon and source of the whole commotion.
“I want to go home,” Mia’s cold breath came from behind me, fanning my arm as she held my elbow like it would protect her from what was happening.
“It’s too late to say that, babe,” I mutter with pity through gritted teeth as Rina’s eyes meet mine and we both smile at each other.
Both barely reaching our eyes, but having different meanings.
Mine was filled with dread as she took a step closer to the edge of the railings, while hers was filled with excitement as her gaze shifted to the person behind me—like she had found a new victim to prey on.
A BIG SHOUTOUT TO ALL CLOSETED QUEERS.
YOUR SEXUALITY IS VALID!!