Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:12:28 -0500 From: kssb98 Subject: Journal About Nothing Special Chapter 3 Disclaimer: Do not copy my story without my permission. Don't read it if you hate the gays This is a true story. I'm going to continue this as long as it isn't weird... Be assured that I'm honest about everything. You'll find this story a lot different than any other one here. Maybe too many things will happen at once or too many details are introduced, but the way I see this going, it will draw together very nicely. There will be at least two more flashbacks in the coming next couple of chapters each dealing with something important that happened that has an impact on the present. I know some people might now want to read it, but this one is not strictly a love story. I have a fan fiction I wrote last year as well on fanfiction.net called Finding in the Off*Beat section. It is recommended to anyone who enjoyed the graphic novel Off*Beat. Enjoy chapter 3 Journal About Nothing Special Chapter 3 It was not because I was too tired that I didn't get out of bed next Friday morning. It was more about the pointlessness of class and my reluctance to do anything in general. My first class was something important alright. Jet and Rocket Propulsion. As intimidating as that sounds, all we have talked about so far was review from two or three years ago. As my clock showed me that I had fifteen minutes to get a shower and walk across campus, it really didn't seem worth it to arrive late or go to class dirty and smelly for the rest of the day especially if Adam was going to be sitting right next to me again. I gave myself another hour to sleep. My second class was Vehicle Performance and Design. Also intimidating sounding and it sure as hell was. I failed the shit out of that one one summer back and now I was retaking it but as I stared at my clock again, I had almost overslept for that one too. Adam was in this class. I had every good reason to go. I was becoming a very bad student. I was never this bad. I had always tried to go to every class no matter what time or how pointless it was. Now it was the second week of school and I had managed to skip most of the classes so far. I would call myself lazy and I probably am, but laziness is not something that you catch all of a sudden .I had every good reason to go to performance. I was not even sleepy anymore. Why don't I just get up and go? I had only seen Adam once all week at this point. He slept through performance on Monday, I did it on Wednesday. I skipped French on Monday and on Wednesday we were put in different groups so really weren't able to talk. After a whole week of sharing six classes we hadn't had the chance for one conversation yet. I was really starting to dismiss the whole thing at this point. He's not that good looking, I lied to myself. He's not gay, I convinced myself. Whatever, I'll see Adam in French. I went back to sleep. French was at noon. Half a dozen cosmetics and a perfect combination of clothes later I was five minutes late to class and I could hear the professor teaching some new phrase and the class repeating it all the way down th hall. Whatever. Whatever, it was my answer to everything nowadays. "Only sweat the big things and guess what? Everything is small," was something my grandfather told me many years ago and I told myself that every time things got too much to handle when I was young. Now that had shortened to "whatever" and I applied it to just about everything. Adam was there and I gravitated to an empty seat near him. He was beautiful. There was no denying that. There was no way to exaggerate his looks. "Hey, Simeon," he said to me picking up a binder. He's talking to me? Why would anyone that cute call my name? What could he possibly want from me? "Whats up?" I asked and he said something softly that I didn't hear. He looked almost shy. "What did you say?" I asked. "We had some homework in performance," he repeated. Oh shit. "Was it due this morning? I asked. "No, its due on the 25th. I think he assigned it on Wednesday. Do you want to see it?" He opened his binder and held it up for me to copy the homework assignment. It was so sweat looking that I hesitated a second before I realized I should probably take the binder from him. "Cool, thanks." I took it from him and jotted down the problems and the page number. "Thanks Adam." "No problem," he said taking it back from me. So he was thinking about me enough to realize I wasn't in class and was thoughtful enough to tell me about the homework. Cute, but it doesn't really mean much. The class went on normally and he and I grouped for the language practices with girl next to us. She was cute too. I was curious how he'd react to her now that we'd have to work together. I quickly noticed that the whole time we were working together, he didn't hold eye contact with me or talk to me directly. He'd laugh and joke with the girl and she would laugh when I made a joke, but he and I never spoke directly. What was going on? My first thought was that he was just more interested in the girl than me, but then again, I was making plenty of eye contact with him so he must have been actively avoiding me. Why would someone do that? He was getting along great with the girl. As I looked around, we were surrounded by girls and our class was bout fifty-fifty boys and girls. They were obviously crowding him for his looks. I knew I was. He was sweet and funny from what I could tell so far too. That means that if he was straight, having a girlfriend would be as easy as wanting one. Then again, I got along great with girls too. They didn't crowd me like they did him of course, but they were friendly with me. I'd always get free things in stores and restaurants if I flashed a smile or told a joke. They always sat next to me on the bus and started talking to me out of the blue. So was that what was going on? Was he shy or was he picking up my signals and trying to send me a message that he wasn't interested? It was then I noticed then that they were both looking at me now. "Sorry, I was somewhere else." I glanced into his eyes long enough to have us both look away. I realized that we both defaulted to looking at her. I quickly scanned the book for a noun and chose the first one I saw. "Je vais prendre un sandwich au jambon. J'aime le sandwich au jambon," I told her. Silly food exercise. I told her that I'd take a ham sandwich and liked it when I could have easily said something much simpler to pronounce. The class ended right then and I walked up to the professor to tell her I was late and not to mark me as absent. Something made me want to leave at the same time as Adam. He was still getting his things together when I was done with the professor so I stared idly at a map of ancient Italy hanging in the room for a few seconds trying not to be too obvious. When I saw him start to leave out of the corner of my eye, I walked out ahead of him. I was not sure why I was doing this and I really did not have anything I wanted to say to him. I wasn't sure what I expected, but I guess the best case scenario was that he'd call after me and we'd talk about something. Impossible. It would never happen. "Simeon," he called after me and walked a little faster to catch up to me. At this point I really think I loved the way he said my name. Most of my friends just called me Sim so I rarely heard the whole thing. Even the way he said was sort of shy and uncertain which ranked of cuteness. "Yeah?" I answered and slowed down allowing him to catch up. "Do you live in Home Park?" he asked. He just asked where I live? All we have talked about was me missing homework and that he'd see me in French and he wants to know where I live? "I used to," I answered. Which is weird, did I meet you when I was living there? "Oh. Why don't you live there anymore?" he asked. Conversation? He just wants to talk to me in general? "Thats a good question." With a long complex answer so I wont go into it. I shrugged at him. "Where do you live now?" he asked. "7th Street Apartments," I answered. We were walking up to a fork in the hallway and it looked like he was going the other way. "I'll see you later," he said. I felt like I missed the point of the conversation and stopped. "Hey, so you live in Home Park?" I asked. "Yeah on Coiller's Street." "Cool, I was on Ethel." "Hey, we're having a party tomorrow," he said scratching his head. There it is. Awesome. "Oh yeah?" I still need more information dammit. "Yeah we're trying to put something together tomorrow." He was fidgeting a little now and it was making me a little awkward. Not to mention screwing up my thought process. "Cool. And you're on Coiller's?" I asked. "Yeah between 10th and Ethel. See yah later." He was so shy and cute and either gay or really friendly, but I wasn't going to find his house on street alone. "Whats your house number?" I asked. He gave it to me and we parted ways. It was only after the initial glow wore off that I realized that I should have asked for his phone number. No matter, I was elated. I held it in for as long as I could so he wouldn't see me but I was literally skipping with a big dumb grin on my face. I pranced to the campus student activity area where my friends were every Friday and found them playing pool. By now I was replaying the conversation in my head trying to determine how it sounded. I knew I sounded awkward and I knew he sounded the same. I figured we were both feeling a little embarrassed and it wouldn't be weird if I showed up at his party, but I knew now that didn't want to do it alone. I sneaked up and hugged my roommate's girlfriend, Alice, from behind which freaked her out and left us laughing. I gushed about Adam almost immediately then and told them what happened. "So you guys can come if you want to." "Nope." it was my roommate. The one who I had a fight with the week before. I honestly did not really want him there. Not that I was angry at him or that I would try to stop him from going. It has just been weird between us and besides, he has not been one to enjoy parties recently. "Why?" he could at least explain why not. "I have to go home." he lined up his cue and shot. That was it. Rejected. "Can you come?" I asked Alice. "I think so maybe. When is it?" Hell if I know. "Night, I was thinking I'd show up around 10:30 11." I told her. "Sure, I'll go." Sweet. She, unlike her boyfriend, loves to party. It's a plus too that she's a girl. At least I wont be sending extra gay vibes in case I was wrong about the whole thing. I have to see the guy six times a week after all. "Awesome." The grin was back on my face. "I'll see you guys later." One more stop. This one was at the counseling center. I got it now that I was depressed or something like it. I know when it started too. I was dumped by someone I was really falling for two months ago. Things went very wrong since and even though I was over the relationship, I still wanted to talk to someone about it. I remembered being told that there was a group for gay teens a while ago and I thought I'd give it a try. Worst that would happen is that I would meet some gay people I could be sure about. I walked up to the desk. "Hey, I'm interesting in joining one of your counseling groups." "Okay, which one," asked a pretty twenty-something secretary. Wow, you just never do stop coming out of the closet do you. "The GLBT one." I mumbled. "Which one?" "GLBT," I said louder. Now I had 'gay' posted on my forehead for everyone in that room to see, but I shouldn't care right? "Oh. Alright, just jot down your name and student number and the counselor will give you an email." I did and left the center still felling pretty good. It was a little like the last time I left counseling six months ago. All smiles. I even caught the bus back to my apartment waiting for me as I left the building. It was not until the bus was pulling away that I realized that I was sitting right across from my ex girlfriend. I came into college with her. It was so new and exciting. I was happy with the new college experience and all its independence and freedom. I was so independent and free that I realized I was gay about three months in and told her, ending our relationship. Was she angry? No. Did we stay friends? No. Did I run into her a lot? Constantly. Now I had long hair, cared about the clothes I wore and went to Pride during the summer. If I felt like I had gay posted on my forehead before, I had a flaming rainbow on my forehead now. "I see your hair is growing," she said. "Yeah it does that," I said. I knew it was probably messy at the moment, but everyone liked my hair. Well everyone except her. It was her running comment every time she saw me.. That was all she was going to say too. She started talking to her friend at that point. I was in too good a mood to leave it at that though. "What have you been up to?" I asked after it got quiet between them. "Not much, class and stuff," she said. I set her up to ask me the same whether or not she wanted to. "You?" "Pretty much the same. When I ran into you on Tuesday, we were having a meeting," I felt like bragging a little for some reason. "I'm president of a club now." Actually wait, thats not true. "Really?" "Actually I used to be president, we gave it to a freshman this week," I clarified. By "president," I mean co-president and by "gave," I mean I pretty much took a demotion to treasurer. So here we were talking about something other than my hair which was the first time in at least a year. I even ended up buying a homemade cake from her friend for an AIDS charity. When I got home I found Adam's house on Google while eating one of the best slices of cake I'd ever had. This weekend was going to be awesome. I could feel it. Questions? Comments? kssb98@aol.com Please tell me what you liked and what you didn't like. I really need some feedback on this.