A loud sound on the desk I was placing my head on woke me up from my sleep. I lifted my head and my heart skipped a beat when I saw Mrs Uchenna standing in front of me with a long cane in her hand. A snicker erupted from the students who were also turning back to look at me. I felt so embarrassed.

"Why are you sleeping in my class?" Mrs Uchenna asked and I was tongue tied. I couldn't come up with a valid reason for sleeping in her class. As usual, my night was short. I went to bed very late because I was copying my math note and I woke up quite early to do the house chores. But I couldn't possibly tell her that, so I kept mute instead.

"Can't you answer?" She shouted and I jolted. "Stand up." I did as told. "Aren't you the new student that came late to my class the other day? And now, you're sleeping in my class. Remain standing till the class is over." She said and made her way to the front of the class. I was relieved that she didn't flog me. Was it that most of the teachers in this school like to give standing punishment to students like it was a big punishment?

While standing, something told me that Peter was looking at me and I decided to look towards his direction. My instinct was right. He was staring at me with a wry smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes at him and faced front to the teacher.

As at the moment, it was break time and as usual most students had gone out of the class to get something to eat or just play with their friends, except for few students, Adam and me. Throughout today, Adam and I had not really said a word to each other, except for the greeting we exchanged this morning. Asides that, he had been silent and quite moody.

"Adam, what's the matter? You seem quite off today. Are you sick?" I decided to ask. I had not forgotten about the paper I saw in Adam's math note yesterday. In fact, I planned on confronting him about it today, which I was going to do now.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks for asking." He said, smiling. Wait, was he expecting me to talk to him first?

"Uh... Adam, I actually want to talk to you about something." I said and immediately, he adjusted himself on his seat, such that, he was facing me.

"Go on, I'm all ears." He narrowed his eyes and nodded his head in a gesture that means I should continue.

I took out the paper from my skirt pocket and gave it to him. "Read it."

He looked at me in confusion before opening the paper. His face immediately changed to a surprise one as he read the content of the paper.

"Care to explain that?" I asked, leaning forward as I placed my right elbow on the desk and fixed and my eyes on Adam. He looked so awash in embarrassment.

"Uh... How did... How you find this?" He stammered, his voice quivering as though he was nervous. I could already see beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"I saw it in your math note. Now start talking."

"I thought I threw the paper away." He mumbled under his breath, but I heard him crisp and clear.

"What did you say?" I sat up straight, pretending not to have heard his last statement.

"Nothing." He replied immediately, shaking his head.

"Adam, are you gay?" I asked in a low whisper.

"Tone down your voice." His voice was so low that I almost could not hear him audibly.

"Just answer the question Adam."

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yes, I am."

Ouch.

I don't know why the revelation stung me so much. Not like this was the first time I was hearing of someone being gay, it's just that to hear such revelation from one own friend was quite shocking. I would have never guessed that all along my seat partner was gay. For a split moment, I was almost crushing on him. I was almost crushing on someone that was attracted to guys. Insane right?

Although I wanted to be mad and just flare up at him, I couldn't. I couldn't possibly be angry with him just because he was gay. Gays were also human and they deserved to be treated the same way, not condemned and rejected.

Adam expression morphed into a sad one as he confessed his sexuality to me and for some reason, I pitied him.

"How? I mean, when did you discover that you were gay?" I asked.

"Can you just keep your voice down? There are people in the class and the walls have ears." He sounded angry as he said that. With the way Adam was doing, suffice it to say that his sexuality was something he wouldn't like the world to know about.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just really curious." I mellowed down my voice.

"Can we leave this class and talk about it someplace else?" He asked, "I don't know, I just feel like someone in this class is listening to us."

"Sure." We both got up from our seat and walked out of the class. He led me to a secluded part of the school and there stood a big mango tree. Under the tree were two cemented benches rooted to the ground. This was my first time coming here and I loved it. It was more like a solitary place in the school where one could come to breath in fresh air.

Adam and I had our seat on the cemented bench and it was so cold on my butt.

"I didn't know there was a mango tree in the school." I broke the silence between us.

"It has been here ever since I came to the school." Adam said, looking up at the tree branches. I mirrored his action.

"Are students allowed to pluck fruit from the tree?" I asked, taking my eyes away from the tree and looking at Adam.

"Yes, sure. But I've never done it before."

"Thought as much." I shrugged my shoulders, "So back to why we're here."

"Okay, I grew up that way." Adam said, glancing at me and I narrowed my eyes in confusion.

"You grew up being gay?" I asked for clarity.

"Yes I did, although I was abused when I was little. Please let this be our secret. I've never told anyone before."

"Sure."

"Yeah, thanks." That said, Adam remained silent as he stared into space and I waited for him to say something.

When it looked like he wasn't going to say anything, I spoke up. "Okay, so I'm waiting. What's the secret?"

"I was abused. That's the secret." He gave me a duh look.

"Anyone can be abused. It's how you were abused that's the real secret, so tell me how?"

"Ah, that's a big one." He said, shaking his head and looking away from me.

"Just tell me Adam. I'd keep it, I promise." I touched his thigh and looked at him reassuringly. He looked at me as though he was contemplating on whether to tell me or not.

"I don't know if I can say it. We don't really know each other, you know?"

I was slightly hurt that he said that but I tried to overlook it.

"Try." I persuaded him.

"I've been made to believe no one is to be trusted. No offence though."

"Please just trust me this once. Whatever you tell me remains with me."

He let out a sigh of hesitation before saying, "Okay, I was abused by a guy... I was very young then and ever since, I've been trying to suppress the thought and forget it."

"Such things can't easily be forgotten." I said, "So tell me, how exactly did it happen?"

"Uh... The man that abused me is actually my uncle and on that day, he took me to a room and he had carnal knowledge of me. He kept touching me, and then he gave me a blow job."

"Carnal knowledge? What's that? Could you explain that?"

"He did the nasty with me."

We remained silent for a while and I took that time to take in everything he had just told me.

"You say it as if he did it only once. Did he?" I broke the silence between us.

"No, he did it like thrice. I was so young."

"Like how old?"

"I can't really remember— probably five or six."

"Whoa!" My eyes almost bulged out of its socket in surprise. "You were really young. So tell me, didn't you feel the need to report him?"

"I was scared to report. How could I even explain it to anybody? I was still very young. Who would have even believed me?" When he said that, he kicked something, I guess a small stone, on the ground. "Later, the guy traveled abroad for a long time and when he came back last year, he started asking me if I remembered him. I was too scared, so I told him I didn't. He kept trying to remind me, but I kept pretending."

"But wait, for the fact that you were abused by a guy, isn't that supposed to mark your displeasure for the male population?" Constructing such sentence, I felt proud of myself. "I mean, I've heard stories of girls being raped by guys at a tender age and most of them tend to hate the opposite sex because of that."

"Well, mine wasn't rape because I enjoyed every bit of it."

"Okay, so you're saying that from then, you started feeling the urge to get your dick sucked?" I blurted out and I slapped my mouth with both of my palm as I realized what I had just said.

Adam chuckled, looking at me with amazement. "If that's the best way you can put it, well yes."

"Whoa! It would be safe to say that your uncle made you gay then."

"Maybe. But ever since that day, I have always liked boys."

We remained silent again and I thought of something to say to continue the conversation.

"What can I say? I'm—"

"You don't have to say anything," Adam cut me off. "I don't want you to pity me. I've accepted myself the way I am already. That's all that matters. I know you hate me already."

"No, no, I don't. Why would I hate you because of your sexuality?"

"The society frowns at people like me, so there's every tendency that you could also do that."

"Well, I don't. So, about the note on the paper..."

"That," He said immediately before I could complete my statement. "I actually wrote that in my diary since ss1, when I first came to this school and I saw Peter. He was very cute and I crushed on him at the time, but when he started to bully me and some of the branded social pariahs in school, I disliked him from then which is why I tore that part of my diary where I wrote that I was crushing on him and placed it in my math note. I never knew it had been in the note since then."

"You should be lucky that I'm the one that found the paper and not someone else."

"I know, right!"

"Thanks anyway for sharing with me this part of yourself."

Just then, the bell went out and Adam and I walked back to our class.

________________________________________

I don't know why I have the feeling that this is the most boring chapter so far. I'm sure most of us were expecting drama. 😂 Anyways, I hope that even if I don't write on Adam's pov, this chapter has been able to do justice to his background. Speaking of pov, I don't think I'd write on any other person's pov in this book. The story is all about Daniella, so it's only her point of view we'd be reading from. It depends though, I might change my mind.

Quick question: Have you ever been friends with a gay guy before?

Vote, comment and recommend. Lest I forget, this book has garnered over 1k reads. I'm chuffed. Thanks to you all.

IG handle @dan_lexicon

Bye 👋