"Your friends, they don't get it
And your family will fight to keep it well hidden"

Fin

Day 12

I really don't understand straight boys sometimes.

They're all so concerned about their masculinity sometimes, too an almost ridiculous degree. And other times they do the gayest things imaginable.

Like right now, in the locker room where my teammates are currently wrestling each other in Speedos.

I don't watch because whether I'm gay, bi, pan or whatever I still have standards. Instead I leave the locker room and head out to the pool. The coach isn't here yet since I'm early so I decide to take some practice laps before he gets here.

"Fin, wait!" I turn around and see a girl speed walking after me, ponytail swinging back and forth. It's Lacey, one of the other editors from the school paper.

"Hi Lacey."

"Hi Fin." She blushes right down to her toes, eyes trying to fix on anything but my bare chest. "I was wondering if you were busy this Saturday?"

Oh God, please tell me this isn't going where I think it's going. "I'm not."

"Cool, so maybe you'd want to like, um, go on a date then. This Saturday at Willow's?" She blushes even more till she's pink like cotton candy.

At first I was going to flat out say no but by this time some of my other teammates were out of the locker room, unsuccessfully trying to pretend they weren't eavesdropping on us. I didn't want to be the boy caught hurting Lacey Lowe's feelings. The girl had a reputation for being nice, almost too nice, like candy given human form.

Besides, most of the reason I could think of for turning her down had to do with Cole. I needed to get over him, he obviously didn't like me back, so instead I said:

"Yes."

📚📑📖✒

"Lacey fucking Lowe, congrats man!"

I'm back in the locker room, dripping wet now, and my teammates are trying to congratulate me on 'scoring' a date with Lacey as if she's some kind of prize.

"Thanks."

"Come on man, aren't you excited?" Someone calls out from across the room. I look up, it's my teammate, David I think. We're not very close but apparently when it comes to talking about girls that doesn't matter.

"I guess." I shrug. "She's nice."

"Nice? Are you blind? Lacey Lowe is fucking hot as hell."

"I wasn't talking about her body."

"What else could you be talking about? What more do you need to know?"

I sighed and shook my head, decided not to dignify those question with an answer.

I really don't understand teenage boys.

📚📑📖✒

Day 11

Cole stepped into the printing room, cringing at the sound of gears and metal parts crashing together and stamping ink onto plain sheets of paper. I spotted him from amidst the machinery and called out to him.

"Cole your here! I'll be out in a minute." I waved frantically. "Don't come in any further or you'll get covered in ink too."

I made my way out eventually, grinning widely. I was right in front of him now and sure enough the butterflies are back, making me smile even wider even though I was covered in black and red ink splatter. "Thanks for waiting for me."

He shrugged. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Let me just clean up." I waved at my ink splattered face. "Then we can go."

"Alright doofus."

I ran of to the bathroom with a grin. Once I got there I tried to calm down, no point in looking or acting like a giddy school girl with a crush. I washed of some of the ink, wishing I could wash of my, ugh, feelings to.

I came back and few minutes later, ink only covering my skin a little less.

"Ready to go?" He asked, grinning widely for some reason. Probably because I look so ridiculous. I didn't complain though, because I like seeing him smile.

"Yeah."

📚📑📖

Day 10

Cole looks pissed about something and I have no idea what's wrong.

He's gripping tightly onto the steering wheel, speeding down the road like he's being cases by the devil himself. Thank God the roads are mostly empty.

"Cole are you okay?" I reached out to touch his shoulder, squeezing tightly and trying to ignore the butterflies in my stomach that dart acting up when I touch him.

"I'm fine, just stressed about my literature paper." He answered and even though I know that couldn't be all I went along with it, mostly because I was tired of talking about my impending date with Lacey. Literature definitely wasn't his thing, he was better at math.

"I can help." Because literature was definitely my thing, meanwhile I couldn't understand even a bit of math. "What's it about?"

"I have to analyse a play, poem or prose through the lens of a marginalized group of people." He sighed. "Thinking of doing Beloved."

I shook my head. "Too common. Half the people in our English Lit class did Beloved." And they'd mostly just came up with the same ideas.

"They did?"

"Yeah, you just skipped school that day, or rather those days. I'm glad you're getting back to normal now. Remember-"

"-if I'm ever ready to talk you're here." Was I really that predictable? "Trust me you'll be the first person to know."

"I better." I smiled slightly, feeling a blush creeping up my face. I wish I didn't blush so much. It's so embarrassing. "How about you do The Great Gatsby?"

"No offense but I thought that story was just full of rich white people, maybe I could get something from Daisy though?"

"Yes it's full of rich white people." I conceded. "But it's so obvious Nick Carraway is gay for Gatsby, like glaringly obvious. Plus there are all sorts of questions about F. Scott Fitzgerald's sexuality that still haven't been properly answered." Poor Nick, stuck loving someone who could never love him back.

"You sound like you've been thinking about that a lot."

I shrugged. "Wanted to do it for my project but my other teammates didn't want to even consider the idea." Apparently they thought that people would think we were gay if we did. "But luckily for you you're doing the project by yourself so you won't need to worry about other people."

"Yeah, lucky me. I have to do a four thousand word literary analysis by myself in two weeks."

"Don't worry. You've got me, I'll be your unofficial partner." Anything to spend more time with him.

"Thanks gor-goofball." What was that about?

"Anything for you." I paused, realized just how... gay that kind of sounded. "You're my best friend after all." I added hastily.

"Alright The Gay Gatsby it is."

"Sounds like a book I read once."