Comfy Closets - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

Tenseness filled my shoulders, causing an uncomfortable vibration to blanket over me.
My hunched stature caused my eyes to focus on the ground as I walked. To me, it was easier to look at the sole-marked floor rather than the gaze of the ones around me.
Since yesterday’s incident, I haven’t talked to Leah, not even through text. She seemed to not be in the mood to chat after everything that happened. So, I didn’t bother her, letting her have her space as I needed mine.
As I entered the school, I thought it couldn’t have gotten any worse than yesterday, but I assumed wrong. Word must have travelled with time. People now looked to me with speculation instead of confusion. I realised this was undeniably worse.
I tuned out as much as I could, focusing my attention to getting to my locker, then straight to class. But ten steps later, I passed a trio stood to the side. The two girls and boy were whispering but not quiet enough, failing to inconspicuously glance my way.
“I heard she threw a hissy fit because that girl cheated with her boyfriend.”
“No, they said that other girl was her soccer rival or something from another school. Woods must’ve lost to her recently and couldn’t get over it.”
“What a loser, throwing a fit over that...”
“I know, right. Pathetic…”
My head dipped lower. Embarrassment coated my cheeks like paint. I didn’t know if I could handle a whole day of talks like this.
As I tried to shrink my form into a smaller, less noticeable shadow, I realised I was reverting to my old ways. The shyness I thought I had buried away rapidly resurfaced.
I didn’t want the attention; I just wanted to slink back into the background.
Tomorrow was when I’d be seeing Isabelle, and dread slowly ate at me. My heart hiccupped every time I thought of the looming meeting as if telling me to cancel before it’s too late.
Two years without closure, and it all came down to this. You know what, I still have her number. I’ll just cancel now.
I shakily pulled my phone out and went into my contacts, ready to wimp out. Just as my thumb pressed on her name, I felt someone grip my upper arm, immediately tugging me to the side.
Startled, I tried to rip my arm out of their hold, only stopping when I caught the sight of fiery red hair.
“Gia, what?”
She didn’t answer, only continuing to march the short distance back to her opened locker and pulling us to a stop. Releasing her grip, she turned to face me with her forehead creased in concern. “What happened yesterday? I only know bits from Ashton. What did the bitch say? Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
I waved my hands at her to slow down as she bombarded me with too much, too fast. “Slow down, Gia. I’m okay. She just surprised me, that’s all.” Understatement of the year.
“Well then, what did she want?”
“She wanted us to talk, and I agreed to meet up with her tomorrow at Davey’s,” I said quietly.
“Oh…”
“Yeah.” The hand holding my phone stayed limply by my side. I couldn’t decide what to do.
A war raged on in my mind as it debated whether to do what I wanted instead of what it thought I needed.
If only what I needed didn’t involve talking to her.
“Well…” my best friend bit her lip and trailed off, “you need any backup?”
My mouth had been about to sound out the word ‘yes’ when I stopped myself. I had to do this on my own. This was my battle to fight, something that had been prolonged for too long.
“No, it’s okay.” The corner of my lips quirked up slightly with effort.
“Alright then,” she said reluctantly. “If she tries anything, know that I will beat her ass, and there’s nothing that can stop me.”
That got me to smile, which was probably what she was trying to do. “You spit-fire. Of course, you would,” I chuckled mildly.
“Well, the last time I chewed her out didn’t seem to deter her, so I’ll have to up the ante,” the redhead shrugged casually with a crooked smile, slamming her locker close.
Shaking my head, I started making my way to my locker with her by my side. The whispers and side-eyes came back to my notice after the short distraction, and I once again ducked my head down in shame. How was I going to get through today?
Most of the people gossiping were people I barely knew, and some only by name. How could they even talk about me without actually even knowing me at all?
She was cheated on.
I heard she was being black-mailed with her leaked sex-tape.
What a slut.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to block everything out. It’s not true, it’s not true! I screamed to the void in my head.
“Aly?” my best friend’s voice broke me out of my spiralling thoughts.
Blinking my eyes to the exposure of light again, I cleared my throat to gather any semblance of composure I had left. “Sorry, I spaced out.” Realising we had arrived at mines, I busied myself with gathering my books.
“What were you thinking about?” Gia prompted carefully.
I sighed. “The rumours. How much they talk about me when they don’t even know me or know what happened.”
Gia’s eyes turned sympathetic. “They’re just losers trying to stir up shit. They don’t matter, and this will pass over like any other gossip.”
“But what if they do find out what happened? What if they find out who Isabelle was to me?” I asked as panic started to grip my body, adrenaline shaking it with the increasing stress. “I’m going to be so screwed.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Her voice was firm as she took hold of my arms, rubbing them up and down in a soothing manner as she tried to calm me. “I promise you, it won’t.”
She said it with such certainty that I started to believe her, easing the anxiety that had begun to build.
But it was short-lived, as none other than ‘Kyle-the-jerk’ appeared with a self-righteous smirk. “Well, well. I heard about your outburst yesterday. Too bad I missed it, but it must’ve been a show to see you get cheated on. Or was it something about a sex-tape?” the boy taunted with a snicker.
I didn’t have the fight in me today to retort. His comments got to me because honestly, some of what he said was partly true. I was cheated on, and the scars of its impacts still remained as it affected what I did still to this day.
I said nothing in return, so Gia took it upon herself to defend me. “Shut the fuck up, Kevin. Why don’t you mind your own business and pamper your ego somewhere else? And while you’re at it, get that head of yours out of your ass. Doesn’t look pretty with all that bullshit.”
Her barrage of attacks stunned him for a few seconds before he scoffed as if unaffected by her insults. However, the way his nostrils flared said otherwise. “Wow can’t even get a name right, dumb bitch,” the jerk said and started to walk away, having nothing else to come back with.
“Yeah, run you little bitch,” the redhead yelled after him. "Asshole."
I was highly impressed with how my friend just handled that, but now, even more attention was drawn to us. The day just seemed to be getting worse, and all I wanted was to be back in bed, letting myself disappear from the world.
“I’m going to head to class,” I muttered and closed my locker, squeezing Gia’s shoulder in thanks before slinking away with little energy in my step.
________________
The rest of the day was the same, with looks and whispers aimed at me. I saw Leah at lunch, but she only stayed for a bit – something about a student council meaning.
I got the feeling that she didn’t really want to talk to me, and the thought just made me feel more depressed.
I couldn’t understand why she was like this. Maybe it had something to do with me still wallowing over my ex after two years.
They were right. I am pathetic.
Before I made my way to soccer practice, I decided to send a text to her to see if things really were not okay.
Lyssathegf – Heyy, are you okay?
My girlfriend responded ten minutes later as I was readying myself to leave the changing rooms.
Leahbabe – Yeah
Her response wasn’t promising, and my anxiety climbed higher as I thought of all the bad things my meeting with Isabelle tomorrow could cause. Was it something I said? Will Leah break up with me?
My internal environment was starting to go haywire, but I was snapped out of it by a loud noise.
Coach banged a hand against one of the lockers to hurry us up. “Come on, girls! Get on the field! We don’t have all day.”
I tapped my finger on my knee as I tried to figure out how to respond. In the end, I sighed and decided to let it be for now. I’ll talk to her later to get this cleared out.
Walking onto the field with the others, we quickly went into doing warmups before getting into the exercises set for today. I noticed from time to time, one or two of my teammates would stare when they thought I wasn’t looking and talk amongst themselves, probably about me.
I huffed out a breath in frustration as I finished a circuit of drills. I hadn't expected to have this sort of treatment too while we trained, but apparently, the drama that occurred yesterday was too much to not be talked about everywhere.
When we had a water break, I left for the bench to fetch my bottle. But in my periphery, I could see two girls, Camilla and Hayley, walk up to me. I turned around to face them and saw that they held cautious but curious expressions as they stopped in front of me.
“Hey girls,” I said, going for casual.
“Hey, Aly.” Camilla was the first to speak, a little hesitation in her voice. She cast a quick glance at our other teammate before continuing. “We were just wondering… are you okay?”
My gaze focused on her as I pursed my lips, not sure how to respond besides the generic ‘I’m fine’. They clearly knew something was up.
Hayley took over, trying to clarify. “We were there in the cafeteria yesterday when the thing went down,” she said, brushing her ginger flyaway hairs aside to busy her hands. “Since then, we’ve seen you in classes, and you seem to be… not yourself.”
I could tell she had tried to put it lightly, but the fact was that the outburst from yesterday and its repercussions had had a considerable impact on my demeanour today. And I guess it was that bad, that my teammates had picked it up.
“Umm,” I ran a hand through my damp hair as my eyes drifted off. I saw my other teammates glancing over from their own positions at the bench, unable to hide their curiosity too. “I-I’m going through something,” I said softly, not wanting to lie but also not wanting to spew out everything, especially right now in the middle of practice. Even if it wasn’t practice, I didn’t think I would be any more forthcoming with information.
Camilla opened her mouth to say something but closed it again, looking unsure. She bit her lower lip, but finally let it out. “Who was that other girl you were talking to?”
Hayley nudged her side in reprimand. Camilla was always bold with her words, and normally, I would be okay with it, but it wasn’t something I could handle today, of all days. Her prying wasn’t appreciated.
“She was someone I used to know a while back,” I said, my voice clipped. I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice, but I almost felt like an active volcano just waiting to erupt.
The both of them got the hint that now wasn’t the time to pry into the subject, and so chose to back off. “Sorry I asked,” Camilla apologised, now glancing nervously at the ginger.
I nodded my head in acknowledgement. “It’s fine,” I said automatically.
They moved away and left me alone to drink my water, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling of annoyance and stress. It had only built with time, and I didn’t know what would happen if someone poked me further.
Practise soon ended, finishing off with a match that ended with my side losing by one goal. I quickly made my way to the changing rooms and got my bag, leaving straight after without a goodbye. By now, probably everyone on the team knew I was in a bad mood, so didn’t bother me as I left.
I got into Logan and drove off. But on my way home, it felt like I had stopped at every red light I came across, further adding to this burning fury that fed off of my frustration.
Once I reached home, I parked in the driveway and slammed Logan’s door a little too hard, making my way up the walkway to the door. I let myself in and kicked off my shoes, ready to go take a nice bath and cool off from this almost out-of-control anger that festered inside me.
Mom heard the front door close though and popped out of the living room to see who had come home. “Oh, Alyssa. It’s you. How’s your day been?”
I didn’t want to deal with this conversation at the moment. “Fine.” I’ve been saying that a lot lately.
Mom narrowed her eyes, sensing something off. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Did something happen at school?”
My jaw clenched at the questions, just wanting to be alone so I could deal with my shit in peace. “I said I’m fine.” I started making my way to the stairs.
“No, if there’s something wrong, talk to me. Maybe I can help,” my mom pushed.
I could feel my aggravation rubbing me the wrong way, and now all I wanted to do was punch something. “Leave it alone, mom.” I gritted out as I walked up the steps.
She wouldn’t though, following me to the bottom of the staircase. “Is it your grades? A boy? Soccer?”
At the mention of ‘boy’, something snapped in me. I couldn’t do anything to stop the words that hurtled out. “NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT A BOY! IT COULD BE ABOUT A GIRL!”
Once the sentence left my lips, I clamped my mouth shut as horror filled my body. What did I just do?
My mother looked livid. “Young lady, you do not shout at your mother,” she said with barely restrained anger.
Silence filled the air for a few seconds before she decided to say more. “And if it was about a friend, you could have just said.”
I felt my mouth hang open, realising she took it completely the wrong way. It just flew right over her head, and at this moment, I was relieved for her hetero-normative mindset.
“O-okay,” I said timidly and quickly made the rest of my way up the stairs and to my room. The moment I closed the door, a huge sigh of relief left my lungs. I couldn’t believe I just let myself slip in front of my mother, and it was close to a miracle that she didn’t pick up on the truth.
Leaning my forehead against the door, I stayed there for a while, trying to process everything that had happened today. It was clear that I had to sort some shit out, but I was honestly overwhelmed on where to start.
The smell of my sweat wafted to my nose, which gave me my first step. Right, first thing - shower.
I took a quick one that did enough calm me down a bit as I stepped out smelling like lavender. I flopped onto my bed, gazing at the ceiling as thoughts swirled in my head.
I needed to decide whether the thing with Isabelle tomorrow was really going to happen, and I also needed to clear things with Leah. Just thinking about the latter task brought a feeling of dread to my stomach, not knowing what to anticipate from that call.
And as for the strife with my mom… I just had to hope that she wouldn’t catch on to the real meaning of my words.
My eyes focused onto the circular light on my ceiling, tracing the lines and details absentmindedly. As I followed the outline of the light for the fifth time, my mind came up with the next step for me to do.
Letting out a huge sigh, I pushed myself upright and grabbed my phone from my desk. I unlocked it and saw the picture of the gang in my phone's background. It was from the day we went bowling together. I had my arm around Leah’s waist as she was pressed to my side, both of us beaming at the camera, as was everyone else.
My lips tugged upwards with fondness at the sight, but I moved onto my contacts and found what I was looking for right away.
The dial tone rung for five seconds before it was picked up. “Hello?”
I breathed out a shaky breath and replied. “Hey, Isabelle…”