elliot

I can't catch my breath. I can't catch my breath.

Why did Brooklin and Taffy and the girls do this? Why? I tried so hard. Every damn day. I tried to be the best friend I could be, constantly shoving down everything I actually wanted to say or felt for the betterment of those stupid douchebags. I was so unhappy. Ridiculously unhappy. Why? Why did I do that?

My parents don't know I'm gay. Oh my god. This is a fucking mess.

There's so much I need to do, so much on my mind that I know needs to happen, but I can't focus on anything long enough to even comprehend what it is that I need to be doing. My mind is a mess, my hands are shaking on the steering wheel, and I almost hit someone's stupid cat at three in the fucking morning.

Yesterday was so perfect. This is literally the opposite.

I keep telling myself to breathe. Breathe, Elliot. Breathe, so you can go home and tell your judgy parents that you're queer. Breathe, so you can stop your hands from shaking long enough to type in your phone password and see exactly what was said about you. Breathe, so you can go apologise to Neema for hanging up so abruptly. Breathe, so you can go back to Alyssa.

Of course, I don't breathe. I feel like I'm about to pass out.

I pass the Cumm-n-Gitt and contemplate pulling in, but whoever's on shift will be either Enrique, who I don't even know, or Norm, who's hardly a close enough friend to warrant thrusting all this upon. So I zoom past, winding along the scenic path till a speed limit sign, blindingly white against my bright lights and the harsh downpour, reads 55. I screech the Camry to a halt and jauntily three-point-turn, and head back into town.

Salty snot runs freely down from my nostrils, but I can't even wipe it away. Same with the free-flowing tears. My eyelashes are soaking wet, but I ignore it. It's like I can't move. I feel trapped, and small, and I can't breathe.

Every time I try to inhale deeply, my whole body shakes. I pull over a few times before I realise the solution is to stop trying to breathe deep. I head back onto the road with a painfully tight chest.

Okay. Okay. Okay. What do I do? What do I do? Neema isn't the best to offer legal advice here. She took our school's Civil and Personal Law class, and she wants to be a lawyer, but she's not a lawyer.

Maybe it's not even as bad as she says it is.

I'm vaguely aware of my surroundings when I whip over to the side of the road—I'm in one of the neighborhoods close to Duncan's house, now parked squint beneath a yellow streetlamp. The Lumineers CD Duncan's brother lent me sounds fuzzy in my ears. My head feels detached from my body. The Camry's engine thrums beneath me, pulsating, as I reach for my phone in my pocket. My fingers don't cooperate for a few seconds, but I manage to punch in my password through the numbness and shaking.

My Instagram inbox is flooded with messages. It's not too many people who have been messaging me, they've all just spammed me. With what, I don't want to know. It's also nearing four a.m.; most of my schoolmates are asleep.

My chest is heavy with snort. My shoulders shake. What kind of fucking onslaught awaits me tomorrow?

I don't open any of the DMs. I have just as many regular notifs, and I realised that I've been tagged in the InstaTea posts. Some inhuman sound escapes my lips, not quite a groan, or a whimper, or a cry. Pure, animal pain.

My profile feels desecrated. I don't post often, but they're all happy pictures, a lot of me and Duncan and Neema. It reeks happiness. It feels so stupid and innocent. When I switch to my tagged photos, I have to scroll down to find a photo that's not an anonymous text screenshot.

And then, I read the posts.

I try, anyways. There's just so much. Not just with the posts themselves, but the comments. Oh my God. Our part of California is more conservative than not, I knew, but I didn't know it was so fucking hateful. My mom and I have had shit before. Neema's skin is so dark and her family so proudly Kenyan–Ghanaian that I've glimpsed some of what she's faced over the years. All of that was bad. But the comments I got about speaking too much or not enough Spanish, or about being a little more Brown than some of my peers, weren't from my friends.

Reading some of these, I can tell who sent them. I'm surprised there aren't any from Chlo (I think, but I could be so, so wrong), but the Ambers, Brooklin, and fucking Taffy are all obvious. I guess they're not my friends anymore. I shouldn't call them my friends. Especially after this. These posts make it seem like they really do hate me.

And I know. I know they're not my friends. Maybe they were, years and years ago before everyone came to the realisation that there was something "wrong" with me. And I feel it—I feel wrong, so, so wrong. Disgusting. I'm disgusting. I know I shouldn't be feeling this way and that I'm not, but there's this sudden banging about the insides of my skull. It screams at me, tells me how I'm a disappointment and how I've ruined everything and how not one person will ever like me, because I'm like this.

I didn't think that kind of thinking would hit so hard. It never crossed my mind to think about this. But, here it is: my queerness has pushed people away. It has alienated a swarm of people, people who want to batter down the doors inside my brain and charge inside and berate me, tell me how worthless I am. How I am a nothing and a disgrace, simultaneously. All the wretched things I deserve, and all the good ones I don't. Even though I don't think I've ever thought about anything like this happening—how could I have thought to?—it still feels like my worst fears coming to light.

Something coppery slips into my mouth. I could laugh. I've cried so hard that I've given myself a bloody nose. Lovely.

My parking job is shit, but I don't care. I shut off the lights and the engine, and step out into the rain on wobbly, unsure legs. I know which street this is. I can walk to Duncan's house, no sweat.

I'm drenched immediately, but somehow, I've stopped crying. I think it might be the bloody nose—I apply pressure and tilt my head forward, and I just walk.

I try the Nelson's front door. Its handle is slick with rain, and locked as I quickly discover. Of course, Elliot. Duh, Elliot. Still pinching the bridge of my nose, I slick my soaking hair back with my free hand and walk across the lawn. The grass squelches beneath my feet, and I almost slip a few times because I forgot to tie my shoes before jetting out from Alyssa's. I get to Duncan's first story window and just start rapping.

It takes, like, two minutes, but Duncan's bedside lamp turns on and the window finally opens. I can see how bleary-eyed he is as he tries to wipe the sleep from his face, then goes to remove his window's screen. Droplets of water stick to the screen. A little puddle begins to form on his windowsill.

"Elliot?" he murmurs. "Are you okay? Do I need to grab my nunchucks?"

My shoulders shake. If I'm laughing or crying, I don't know. "Can I come in?" I ask, so quiet that the rain probably drowns me out.

"Of course," he says, and he reaches out into the rain and helps me scramble inside.

The minute I'm through the window, I wrap my arms tight around him and give this big, embarrassing shudder of a sob. He doesn't ask what's wrong, he just wraps his arms around my torso and helps me over to his unmade bed. Then he grabs a towel off his desk chair, hands me a box of Kleenex, and puts his grandmother's weighted quilt over my shoulders.

"Are you okay?" he asks, drying my hair. He says it quietly, his voice still raspy with sleep, and I glance up at him. The rest of me is paralysed and shivering, but my eyes can see him in the fuzzy light of his lamp. He's completely focused on the task he's given himself, on getting me dry.

I don't respond right away, because I don't know what to say, and he sets his towel back on his chair and opens one of his dresser drawers—the workout drawer—as quietly as possible, then pulls out an oversized Hulhazy Front marathon shirt. I glance down at my own soaked shirt and realise that it's covered with diluted drops of blood, marking it with a splatter of pink.

He sits down next to me and I slowly pull off my own shirt, replacing it with his. The fabric is cool against my damp skin and drenched sports bra, and I feel a little more capable of breath when I take a Kleenex and press it against my bloody nostril.

I don't mean to keep him waiting so long for a response. Just, how do you say it? Duncan waits patiently, and finally, I just pass him my phone, because of course he hasn't seen it—he was sleeping, and he doesn't have Instagram in the first place. There's a fleeting moment where I want to snatch it back, so I can have one person who doesn't know. Just one. One less person to potentially fuck this up. I couldn't handle Duncan not saying the right thing right now.

He unlocks my phone. I look away. He's completely silent.

He finally speaks. When he does, his voice is tender and soft and so, so hurt. "Oh my God, Elliot," he whispers. "What the hell."

I want to say "I know," but all that comes out is a shamefully whiny "Uh-huh."

Duncan hugs me again, and I hug him back, and he rubs my back through his shirt, and I cry and readjust my Kleenex and squeeze my eyes shut and try to let go of that tightness in my chest.

"Can I do anything?" he asks, squeezing. "If you need to spend the night, you can. You can take the bed. I—"

"I'll be okay," I lie, pulling away and forcefully wiping my eyes with the heels of my palms. For a second, I see two of Duncan, but when I blink a few times, it's back to just one, very-concerned-looking best friend.

"Are you sure? This is ... disgusting, and terrible. Please, Elliot, you can tell me anything."

"I'm seriously good," I say. My voice is stuffy and nasally and stringy. "You wouldn't get it, anyways."

His eyes widen. His eyebrows twist up. "Oh, uh, I ... okay? I'm-I'm sorry."

I've definitely said the wrong thing, and that makes me want to cry even more, but I don't. I shouldn't have come here. This was all a big mistake. "I'm sorry. I think I'm just gonna go back home."

"Back home?" His brow furrows more. "I thought you were sleeping over at Alyssa's...."

My laugh sounds hollow. I think I swallow a little blood. "I was. We had sex and it was very very very rad, and then Neema called, and it totally just killed everything. I'm not ready for a girlfriend, Duncan. I'm not good enough. I can't even take care of myself—how does she expect me to take care of her?"

"You take care of each other. That's what a relationship is, Ellie. You're, uh, you're kinda scaring me. I don't think you should drive." He hands me another Kleenex, and I realise this one has bled through. "I can drop you off at home, or at Alyssa's. Even Neema's. Anywhere. I can take you to the Cumm-n-Gitt, or—"

"I'm okay, seriously." I stand up. Duncan's quilt falls from about my shoulders. I feel the absence of its comforting weight immediately, and I want it back, but I also need to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Duncan stands too. "Please don't leave, Elliot," he says, trying to bring me in for another hug. "Just stay here. We'll get this figured out."

I gently push him away. "I'm fine." I smile. See?

He shakes his head, sending his sandy brown bed head flopping. "No, seriously, you're not okay right now. Please, stay here. We can call your parents, and—"

"No we can't," I tell him, and it feels like I'm choking. "They don't need to know about this. It's fine. I've got it."

"Elliot, no offence, but you do not 'got it.' This is something your parents need to know."

"I've got this. Seriously." I take a step towards the still-open window and wipe up the rain pooling on his windowsill with the bottom of the borrowed shirt. The sky is still pitch black, but a sudden bolt of lightning lights up the thick ceiling of clouds for a brief second, a spindling strobe light in the endless dark. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and I swear I feel it in my chest.

Duncan crosses his arms and tries to look kind but wise and authoritative. Like he knows what's best. Duncan has never dealt with anything. He's a straight, cis, White guy, living in a small red town. He's the varsity basketball MVP. He's tall, and he's good-looking, and he has no idea what the fuck this is like.

"I'm gonna go," I tell him tersely, pocketing my phone. One leg is through the window, dangling above the rain-soaked lawn, when Duncan grabs my wrist. His grip is tentative, but tight.

"Please. Stay." His shoulders shake for a second, but no tears come out. "You're my best friend, Elliot. I love you. Let me help you."

I pull away. "I love you too, Duncan."

I slip the rest of the way through the window and fall on the ground, and pick myself up and start running.

Rain and wind tear at my face as I race across the Nelson's lawn, onto the flooding street, running right up its center and in the direction of my parked car. I need to get to my car before Duncan can get out of the window; all those morning runs have taught me that he's way faster than I am. I just hope he loses sight of me.

My sneakers splash through puddles, smacking too hard against the asphalt, but I keep running till I'm at my jauntily parked car. I start it immediately and tear off into the street before I can think better of it. Lightning flashes again, and thunder booms immediately after, but I don't stop. My phone starts ringing, and I chuck it into my backseat and just keep driving.

I just need to breathe. If I can remember how to breathe, this will all be very, very okay.

A/N - I'm back. Hi.