By Monday morning I'd calmed down a little. I looked like a dead raccoon, but at least I wasn't excusing myself to cry every twenty minutes like I'd done throughout Saturday and Sunday at home.
"She's staring at you," Aiyana muttered into my ear. I looked up, finding Mrs. Rivers staring at me. I looked away, discovering that I hadn't even put a book in front of me to pretend I was at least doing something. She was having us solve some exercises, but my mind was hardly in the class — heck, my physical being would have disappeared as well if it could.
I quickly took the textbook that was open in front of Aiyana, and it thankfully worked. She stopped looking at me, and instead, she headed for another group of students. When the siren for the end of the period went, I got up with the rest, only to hear Mrs. Rivers voice asking me to stay back. I sighed under my breath, settling back into my seat as I watched the other students leave the class. When they were all gone, I heard Mrs. Rivers approach me, her heels clicking against the tiled floor until she decided to stop in front of me.
"You never got back to me on the universities and colleges." I groaned immediately when she mentioned it, scolding myself over it. I'd been so caught up in thinking about Felix that I'd completely forgotten about it.
"I'm sorry. I forgot," I said, looking over at her to catch her nodding.
"It's fine, just please bring back the pamphlets and magazines later on," she said, making me nod.
"Okay," I said, turning to my bag that was sitting on the wooden desk. I made to pick it up before getting up and making to walk away.
"Ben," Mrs. Rivers said, making me pause in my tracks and turn over to her. "Did something happen?"
I felt my throat clog up at her question. Yes, something did happen, but I don't think it's the kind of something I'd just tell me critical thinking teacher. I thought as I shook my head. I cursed under my breath when I had to reach out for a stray tear, breaking down whatever front I'd been putting up in front of her.
"I'm sorry..." I trailed as I rubbed my now stinging eyes.
Mrs. Rivers nodded before pulling a seat from the table I'd been sitting on and taking a seat herself. She crossed her legs, tapping the chair beside her. I sighed, moving to take the seat. When I'd settled down I just gazed at anything but her, waiting for her to talk.
"So what happened?" she asked, making me bite my bottom lip as I tried to look for where to start.
Was I really going to tell my teacher about my nonexistent love life?
"I know this is a stupid thing to get worked up over," I started, turning to look over at her. She stared at me, her hand resting on he entwined fingers.
"Err... Okay, it's about me and Felix," I finally got out. She still just stared at me, as if asking me to silently continue.
"I really like him. Like, I really, really like him," I chuckled rubbing my eyes with a loose fist as I felt my chest burn. "He likes me too — I think, but he's confused and I'm not sure he knows what he wants. Thinking about everything was frustrating so I just cut whatever was brewing off, but now I'm upset. I don't even know if I'm making any sense—"
"You are," Mrs. Rivers' voice rang through the empty classroom.
"So let me try and recollect this," she said as she pouted her red painted lips before pushing back the fringe of her pixie cut. "You like Felix, and Felix likes you... romantically?"
I nodded at her part question, part statement. She mirrored my action, making to continue talking. "But he's confused, and you don't want to deal with that so you cut everything off?"
I nodded again, and she did the same, adjusting her sitting position on the cushioned chair before turning a bit on it so that she was looking straight at me.
"On the surface, you made a good choice, but do you even know what he's so confused about?" she asked, making me shake my head.
"He's refusing to tell me, and saying that 'I won't understand' even if he did."
"That part hurts too, right?"
"Yeah," I answered honestly as I looked down at my fingers and picked them. It hurt that he'd automatically assumed that I won't get it. I hurt more that Amanda seemed to know what he was keeping away from me.
"I thought as much," she said, smiling lightly. "Felix is usually straightforward. If he's holding something back, he must really be unsure of it himself," she concluded, making me nod in understanding.
The classroom fell into an odd silence, and I stared at my lap as Mrs. Rivers drummed the tip of her fingers against the table's surface.
"Okay then, I think it's time for you to leave. I should write you a late pass," she said, getting up before walking to her desk. I waited on my seat, watching her scribble on a sticky note before heading back to me. She stopped in front of me, handing me the note with a smile.
"Thank you," I said, before getting up and leaving the classroom. I handed the note to my IT teacher when I got to class, before heading to the desk I shared with Ji-Hun. He gave me a small smile, one that wasn't invasive, but yet enough to sympathize with me.
After I set up, we worked on our video project together in silence until I spoke up.
"Hey, Ji-Hun, has there been anything you've not told Wyatt because you didn't want to confuse him?"
"What?" he asked, looking up from his screen before turning to me with a frown. I sighed, running a hand through my thick curls. My hair had gotten longer, but I hadn't found time to get it cut.
"I'm really not sure what I'm asking to be honest—"
"Wait, are you asking me if I've kept a 'necessary' secret from Wyatt?" Ji-Hun asked, cutting me off as if he'd just digested what I'd asked him.
"Yeah," I started, biting my bottom lip, "something like that."
Ji-Hun just stared at me, frowning a bit. "It wasn't really a secret... Or necessary, but yeah, something like that," he said, running a hand through his dark hair.
"Could you tell me about it?" I asked cocking my head. I watched as Ji-Hun blushed before he looked away from me.
"Well, okay I guess," he sighed, looking about. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was to make sure that other students weren't listening in.
"Okay, so Wyatt asked if we could go further with it sometime early this year — well, I hope you know what 'it' means because I'm not saying it in full," he said, making me frown a bit before I muttered a small 'oh' as my face warmed up at the realization.
Ji-Hun nodded, looking away. "Okay, so it scared me because it was sudden. I mean, I wanted it, but Wyatt's my first boyfriend, And of course, even though I wanted it, it was scary because I knew close to nothing about it. Are you following what I'm saying?"
I nodded, avoiding Ji-Hun's eyes as I tried to follow the story.
"Yeah, so I freaked out and I told him I wanted to do it but refused to tell him why we couldn't do it then. We argued for a bit — not because of 'it', it was more so because I had acted childish and wasn't telling him something. He left my apartment eventually."
"Why didn't you just tell him the reason?" I asked. Ji-Hun sighed, covering his now red face with his hand as he stared at me with his dark eyes. He looked away again, running the fingers of his free hand through his pitch black hair.
"Err... I eventually talked to Mr. Richard—"
"You talked to Mr. Richard?"
"He's the only gay man I know, okay?" Ji-Hun sighed, making me let out a low laugh.
"There's always porn," I said, shrugging.
"My family goes through my search history. Plus, what the hell? Why would I watch porn to learn that? That's fantasy VS real life here," he said, making me think about it for a bit before nodding my head.
"I get it," I muttered, turning back to my computer. "Did you eventually tell Wyatt why you didn't give him the reason?"
"Yeah, more so because at that moment I knew how to go about it. Well, I sort of knew what I was doing," he said. "It was so awkward, but we made it work—"
"I didn't ask you for details," I said, cutting him off when I realized the boundaries he was about to cross. He stopped, laughing at my words before we returned our attention to the animation we were making.
So, maybe like Ji-Hun Felix isn't keeping anything too important away from me? I thought as I sketched on my pad.
I hope so.
I just wish he'd open up.