Comfy Closets - Chapter 38: Chapter 38

You know that feeling where you want to help someone get through something, but you don’t exactly know how because you think you’ll end up making it worse by saying the wrong thing or not being observant enough to notice what is the right thing?
Well, I’m kinda feeling that right now.
After that encounter with Sara, Leah went about her day as usual.
But what I meant by that was forced smiles and a happy façade, as if her falling out with her best friend hadn’t happened at all.
It felt like I couldn’t do anything to help. Every time I attempted to talk about the event that happened this morning, she would dodge it seamlessly and change the subject.
Maybe she just needed some time, but what if she needed someone there for her now and was just hiding it really well?
Gah, I hate when I overthink.
As we sat in Chemistry, busy doing the class assignment, I glanced at Leah beside me and frowned at the blank look on her face. Her dull eyes were staring at the sheet of paper on our desk, but she might as well be looking through it.
I let my hand brush against hers on the table, getting those dark, distant eyes to look at me.
“Huh?”
“Babe… you alright?”
“It’s fine,” she brushed off, shaking her head as if to clear it and focusing back on the work - or trying to at least.
I sighed and bit my lower lip, leaning closer to her and whispered. “I know you’re not, Leah. It’s okay not to be.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then why’d you ask?”
“Because I know having someone you care about say things like that is hard, and painful,” my sincere gaze stubbornly fixed on her. “You don’t have to push me away to deal with it.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then why are you pretending like it didn’t even happen?”
There was a pause in our conversation until her head whipped to look at me with a glare, her anger rearing its head at me. “Well, it’s easier to imagine that today is like any normal day than to think that I just lost my best friend because of her ignorance and beliefs. So, don’t blame me for pretending when frankly, I don’t what to deal with that crap right now.”
Leah’s darkened hazel eyes held my gaze with an intensity so filled with irritation, but she broke it first and went back to focus on her classwork again. All I could do was stare at her with widened eyes, shocked. I’ve never seen her react like this before and it was now really starting to worry me.
Biting onto the inside of my cheeks, I let it be for now and got back to my paper, casting occasional glances to my side that my girlfriend otherwise didn’t react to.
When the bell finally rang, Ms Parry yelled out her list of homework reminders over the noise of my chattering peers. Leah quickly slipped out of the classroom with me close behind.
I hope she wasn’t staying mad at me for saying those things. But as I said, I didn’t really know how to go about this. All I could do was sympathize the best I could because, in a way, I understood how she felt. If Gia or Ash had reacted the way Sara had, I probably would’ve broken down right there and fled school immediately. But I wasn’t sure if Leah doing all this pretending was any better.
We joined the crowded hallway and followed the flow of hungry students to the cafeteria. Leah and I didn’t talk on our way there, settling on being awkwardly quiet as we got into line for food. As I got my plate of pasta, I raised a brow when Leah only grabbed fries before moving to the cashier. I thought it was wise not to say anything.
We headed to our usual rounded table and I spotted Zach and Gia already there chatting. Plopping down in our seats – Gia across from me and Zach to my right - it only took them a couple of seconds to realise that something was up with Leah. The usually upbeat, friendly blonde was silent as she munched on her fries and looked ahead with those same distant eyes.
Gia cast me a confused glance and all I could do was mouth a ‘later’. The other two slowly started up conversation again and I joined moments later to make things seem normal. But I suspected my friends already had an idea of what was going on since they were there after the incident with Sara at the game.
Ashton and Riley weren’t here yet and I wondered if the latter already knew about what went down with her two best friends. Probably not, judging by her lack of presence or worry when she knew they’d be here to eat.
Just then, in my periphery, I saw Leah’s attention shift quickly as it focused on something across the lunchroom. We were seated in a way that let us see the rest of the room, and when I scanned the faces of the many people there out of curiosity, one blonde, in particular, caught my eye.
The girl held a look of disgust as she stared our way. But to my surprise, she focused on only me, eyes never straying to the girl that sat beside me.
Sara stood there for a few seconds more before shaking her head as if disappointed and continued on her path to sit with a bunch of other girls at another table. Leah clenched her jaw as she looked on, the corner of her eye twitching as her anger started to boil up.
As I assessed the scene before me, I couldn’t help but notice the thought that I had unknowingly pushed to the side until now. I had been so busy worrying about Leah that the worry of Sara telling someone about us hadn’t cropped up. And although the thought now prompted me to start bouncing my leg out of nervousness, I couldn’t help but want to ponder more on that simple realisation.
For a period of time, I wasn’t concerned about other people knowing. And it was all because of Leah.
The person in question currently had her jaw moving more forcefully as she quickly finished up her meal. Our friends hadn’t noticed the interaction and now looked even more confused as they eyed the dirty blonde weirdly.
“Hey, Leah… you okay?” Gia spoke up.
“Just - fine,” my girlfriend muttered out between bites, a gruffness to her tone.
She says fine too much, I thought.
Leah whipped her head to me with narrowed eyes. “What was that?”
Oh shit. “N-nothing.”
Her mouth opened to probably vent at me, but she was interrupted by someone else making their presence known as they approached the table.
“Hey, Aly? I wanted to ask you something about practice. Are you-”
Leah’s chair screeched, abruptly cutting off Olivia’s speech mid-sentence. She looked like she was about to burst. “You know what?” My girlfriend said, getting up from her seat. “I have a thing with the student council. Go have fun with her.” With that, she got her bag and stormed off so suddenly that I didn’t have time to process what just happened.
Olivia was left awkwardly standing behind my chair as she fiddled with her fingers. “Um… so, are you going to be at practice today, what with the sprain and everything?”
I barely registered her question as I watched Leah walk away in a huff. She can’t still be jealous, can she? I’ve already told her it doesn’t mean anything anymore, but why is she still like this? I noticed that Sara was also staring at her as she walked away, and I wanted so badly to go over there and wring her neck.
Deciding that it was best to leave Leah alone, I didn’t chase after her and answered Olivia’s question. “No, I’m not joining you guys. Coach said I needed to rest and recover.”
“Oh… that’s a shame,” the midfielder said lamely.
She stood there for a few more seconds, and not knowing what else to say, I decided to bring up the one thing that was circling my mind. “So… you’re dating Dean, huh?”
She seemed surprised by the question, but her face quickly morphed into an unreadable expression as her lips thinned into a line. “Yep.”
“Nice.” I internally facepalmed myself at that.
Olivia nodded stiffly then chose to make her departure then. “Thanks. Bye, then. Heal up soon.”
The three of us at the table were left to ourselves, with the other two staring at me in befuddlement.
“Well… that was weird,” Zach finally spoke up.
I groaned and let my head fall on my arms as the onset of a headache started its unwelcome throbbing. “Can’t deal with this right now, guys.”
________________________
“I don’t know what to fucking do.”
“Give her some space. She’ll come to you if she really wants to talk.”
I sighed in frustration as I watched my Yoshi character get hit by one of those red turtle shells on the screen. “I just feel so helpless right now. Like, I’m her girlfriend but she just won’t let me in.”
Gia focused intently on driving her go-kart in the game as she replied. “Different people deal with things differently. She might just need some time.”
My friends and I had gone to Ashton’s house after school to hang out and I used the time to catch them up on what happened this morning with Sara. As expected, they were raving mad about the way Sara reacted and treated us, choosing to curse and call her all the names under the sun, bad enough in my opinion to make a priest cry.
But what made this worse was that we as a group were starting to really get used to having Sara around, and to know that she was so blindingly against something that was fundamentally a part of who I was – it really stung.
And as much as I was worried about her telling people, Leah was the one who had lost a friend, someone she’d known for years. It just sucks knowing that other people have to go through this whenever they choose to come out. A negative reaction like this doesn’t always happen, but the risk that it might was enough to scare many people running back into the closet. I was particularly familiar with that feeling.
Zach had left early to go run some errands, but I highly suspected that those errands involved a secret boyfriend that we still hadn’t met yet. It was obvious to me too as I spotted his blushing when he received the text that prompted him to leave.
Ashton cursed under his breath as Princess Peach got knocked away and was overtaken by Toad, Gia’s character. “Hey! You’re cheating!”
“What! I haven’t done anything.”
“Yes, you- Gaaah! Stop winning!” he groaned as Toad crossed the finish line right before him, slumping his body down on his side of the sectional couch.
The redhead winked smugly. “I can’t help myself,”
I came in last among us, not really into the game anymore. Throwing the controller down on the sofa, I let my head fall back to rest on the comfy cushions and mumbled. “Today was so shitty.”
“Hey, you have us. Doesn’t have to end in a shitty note,” Ashton piped up, dipping his head and running his hands through his messy hair to fix it.
Gia leaned over from her seat on the bean bag to mess it up again, laughing as she received an annoyed groan from the boy. “Yeah, you have us. And you guys will get through this. But let’s just hope that blonde has some shred of loyalty and common sense in her to not out you two. Now that’d be shitty,” she huffed.
I pursed my lips as my concerns were brought up again and sighed.
Ash turned to me with a sympathetic frown. “I heard Riley was going to Leah’s house after school to check up on her after she heard about what happened with her best friends. She’ll be there for her. And besides, Riley knows those two better than us, so she’ll find a way to make things better. Don’t be too down about it, yeah?”
Now, I felt even worse for not being there for my girlfriend. I knew what he said made sense, but this useless feeling didn’t seem to want to go away. I felt so done.
My female best friend noticed my mood and decided to change the subject. “So~, how’s it been with you and Riley, lover boy?” she directed the attention away to Ash.
I picked up the bag of cheesy Doritos beside me and munched on it glumly as he answered with a smile. “It’s been great. Really great. She met my parents a week ago and they love her. Mom has been bringing her up nonstop since then. She’s even somehow managed to get Riles’ number and they’ve been texting like besties. Ugh, it’s so weird,” the boy grumbled.
Gia snickered and I couldn’t help but smile at that. “Oh, I love Laura so much.”
“It’s embarrassing! The other day, Mom was sending over baby pictures of me, and Riley wouldn’t stop laughing at the one with me with a bowl cut! It’s not like I was the one who chose to look like a mushroom…” he pouted childishly.
We laughed loudly at his expression. “Well then, what about you, G?” I directed my attention to the fiery girl.
“Hm? What about me?”
“Y’know, your debate guy? Charles, was it?” I teased.
Ashton spoke up, surprised. “Charles? You mean Zach’s friend, Charles? How come I’m the last to know about you two?”
“Woah, guys. Slow down. We’ve only been talking!”
“But…” I prompted eagerly.
“He’s… nice, I guess,” my friend said shyly. Oh god. Gia, shy? This was big.
I squealed excitedly then shortly stopped myself as I realised how odd that sounded coming from me. Gia’s cheeks coloured a dark red to match her hair, her fingers fidgeting with her controller and Ashton just looked confused like always.
“Wait, I thought you had a thing for Zach?”
“Oh pfft, that’s old news. We’ve moved past it,” Gia waved off.
“Wait, what! How come I didn’t know about this?!”
We shrugged. He was always a bit out of the loop, mostly because of his poor observation skills that tended to miss hints and cues. But I couldn’t help but find that fact about him adorable.
“Stop swerving the topic! Tell us about him!”
Gia looked at me with playfully narrowed eyes before relenting. “Alright, alright. I guess he’s very sweet, funny with a humour that’s kinda like mine – oh, and he has the warmest brown eyes ever! Sometimes, he looks like a puppy with that long hair of his – and oh my gosh, it’s so damn silky! How does he get it like that? And-”
Her rambling kept on going on and on. I exchanged an amused glance with Ashton as she continued to swoon over the boy she was only ‘talking’ to.
I realised at this moment that I missed having my best friends to hang out with. We haven’t been doing that lately, what with us being busy with other things like girls, boys, sports and school, but I still didn’t like how we haven’t hung out often enough. I made a mental note to change that for the future.
The redhead suddenly lit up like she had the most brilliant idea. “Oh! We could do double dates! No, triple dates since we’re all dating people now! Oh man, it’d be so fun!”
Ashton voiced his excited agreement at the idea, and I was going to too but as I thought on it, I became hesitant.
“I don’t know, guys. It’d be cool to get to know Charles but I’m not sure if I want him to know about me and Leah yet.” Even voicing out my concern made me want to squirm.
I didn’t know why it was affecting me like this, but after all the events of today, I felt like I was taking steps back with my progress of becoming more comfortable about coming out. It might just be me overthinking again, but I couldn’t shake this feeling. Was I moving backwards by not wanting to be more open around other people? Should I be trying to be more open about it? Tell other people?
Why are there so many questions? I tried to ignore the thoughts.
“Oh,” Ash said, deflated. “I was going to suggest Zach bring a girl so this could be a quadruple date, but it’s okay. Maybe another time,” he mustered a smile.
When he mentioned Zach and a girl, I whipped my gaze to meet Gia’s, sharing a knowing look that alluded our best friend’s notice. Zach hasn’t told him yet and I wasn’t sure why, but it wasn’t my business to tell his truth to my friend. It was his to tell.
Gia and I chose to not pursue that topic and instead avoided touching it at all, lest we slipped up.
We decided to carry on with the game on the TV but soon got bored of it and resorted to just talk and chill. Gia was on her phone scrolling and Ashton and I were busy being unhealthy pigs and chomping on the junk food.
“Yo Ash, pass me the Cheetos,” I grumbled from my now lying position, resting my head on the armrest as my legs resided near his body.
He smirked mischievously, picking out a piece and throwing the snack itself my way. I couldn’t dodge his throw in time, and so the snack bounced off my grey hoodie and left a bright orange stain.
“Dude! Come on.” I still picked up the snack off the couch and ate it. No use wasting it.
The boy snickered and winked my way, still holding onto the bag tightly to his chest. I rolled my eyes. Boys.
Suddenly, Gia ‘awwed’ loudly as she looked at something on her phone. “Dude, this date idea is so damn cute…”
“What is it?” I asked, motioning for her to show me as stayed in my lazy position.
She got up to show me her phone, settling right by my side and letting me see the picture that captured her attention.
“I’d love it if someone would do this for me. Just imagine how cute and romantic it’d be,” she cooed.
Staring at the picture, an idea started to form in my head and a grin stretched across my lips.
I think I know just the thing that might cheer Leah up.