Comfy Closets - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

I giggled into the kiss as Leah held my face in place to prolong it. She smiled against my lips and finally allowed me to pull away after a few more seconds.
“I can honestly kiss these lips all day,” she grinned as she gave me another quick peck. Despite the wave of heat that suddenly flared on my cheeks, I smiled cheekily at that.
“Hey – there’s no one stopping you.”
She laughed and proceeded to pull me back in, her soft plump lips returning back to mine-
The click of heels on the hardwood floor echoed from the far side of the room.
At the sound, I pushed away from Leah and backed up a couple of steps, my heart pounding so hard that I felt the pulse down to my fingertips.
Leah’s honey eyes looked startled and confused, but all I could focus on was the sound coming from the entrance. When I frantically darted my gaze around Leah, I saw a woman and a student come into view just then as they stepped around the thick, black curtains that had been pulled over the door.
The older lady looked surprised to see us in the room, pushing her glasses up her straight nose and squinting at us. The other girl who looked vaguely familiar, probably a TA, had a bunch of papers in her arms and seemed to be accompanying the woman. It was then I recognised the older woman as the head drama teacher that had been in charge of the play.
“Leah? What are you doing here? I thought everyone was in the hallway with their friends and family…”
I could hear my girlfriend release a small breath. “Oh, I was about to change and head out, Mrs Nefan.”
Her casual tone was enough to wave off the drama teacher’s curiosity, and she continued on her way to the table in the corner for her bags. The other girl, however, was looking at me with narrowed eyes as she followed Mrs Nefan.
I stayed frozen in my place despite most of the suspicion having passed, not able to shake off the utter panic that had come over me like a tidal wave.
“And who are you, young lady?” The chipper woman asked as she swept her greying hair back. Leah nudged me subtly when I didn’t answer in the first few seconds and even then, my voice came out croaky as I responded.
“Um- ah, Alyssa. A friend of Leah’s.”
At that moment, I couldn’t think about anything else but about the ‘what if’. What if Mrs Nefan had seen us kissing? How would she have reacted? Would the other girl say anything about it? To her friends? To the school? Just the thought scared me so damn much.
I was brought out of my thoughts when the teacher turned back around and smiled widely with pride. “Oh, Leah, you did wonderfully by the way. Your best performance yet! Your parents must be so proud of you. They did come, right? Have you gotten a chance to see them?”
“Yeah, they were in the crowd somewhere, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. We’ll be heading out soon though.”
“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it. Good job again, for tonight.” She motioned over to the girl, who was still eyeing us warily. “Come on, Lily. Let’s bring that to my office and we’ll be free to leave.”
The two of them left the premises and Leah turned to me with a frown on her face. “Well, that was…”
“Close,” I breathed out, rubbing a hand over my eyes.
When I let my hand fall, I saw her looking at me with a longing gaze. But underneath that, her expression held sadness. I didn’t know what to think of it.
She sighed. “I’ll go change quickly and we can head out.”
Leah slipped into another room with some clothes in hand, disappearing behind a door. I was left standing there, my thoughts unable to move past the close-call situation that had just occurred.
Why was Leah sad? Was it something I did? Or maybe it had something to do with us being interrupted. As I let my pondering continue, I quickly came to a thought that had my heart sinking in my chest.
Leah was getting tired of hiding us. That had to be it. And it was all because of me.
I wanted to hit my head against the wall at the realisation. At this moment, I felt helpless, but the irritation I had for myself overpowered everything else.
Why did I have to be so afraid of the idea of coming out? It’s like this one big bad thought that I avoided thinking about every day, but the longer I prolonged this, out of fear, the more it's hurting Leah in ways I couldn’t imagine.
I want to be brave – more uncaring of other people’s opinions. Then all this wouldn’t even be a problem. Leah didn’t seem afraid. She was just more private, but even she has said that coming out wouldn’t be the worst thing. She’d seen how it was like when her brother came out, and now she was just waiting for me to be ready.
But I couldn’t keep on dragging this along. Leah’s been patient with me for so long already. And deep inside, I knew that this fear of judgement, of rejection, had to go soon. If not, how the hell are we going to move forward as a couple, and me – as a person?
Guilt weighed down my body when I watched Leah come back in, now in a casual hoodie and jean shorts. She fixed her giant top but frowned when she glanced my way.
“Hey, you okay?”
I tried to bury my thoughts for now and gave her a small smile. “I… I’ve just been thinking about some stuff.” Her concerned expression didn’t budge. “I’m okay, babe. I’ll tell you later, promise.”
The crease between her brows didn’t leave but she let it go for now. Picking up her bag, the blonde walked to the door with me by her side. She gave me a quick smile and squeezed my hand briefly before letting go and entering the crowded hallways.
Students and families have gathered around in groups, talking animatedly as the buzzing energy of the performance continued to permeate the air. Some of the performers heading to the backstage room shared hugs and excited words with Leah on the way, and I waited patiently by her side, smiling and congratulating them for the success of the show.
When Leah found her mom and stepdad waving her way further down the hallway, she sped to them with a skip in her step. I stayed behind to give them some family time so they could gush over their daughter in peace. Looking around the heads of the crowd, I spotted my red-headed best friend and also my group of friends close by, standing to the side. I made my way to her with a big grin.
“Hey! You freaking killed it up there! What the heck?!”
Gia giggled and hugged me back. “Thanks, bub. And oh man, I’m so glad I didn’t mess up.”
“Nah, my best friend is too talented to do that.”
She pulled away and rolled her eyes, but a fond smile stretched across her face. “Thanks for coming guys, really.”
Ash slung an arm around her and pulled Gia’s small form to his side. “Of course, G. If you did manage to embarrass yourself on stage, we definitely couldn’t miss that either.”
Not appreciating his joke, my fiery friend smacked his arm as we all laughed. When we calmed down, I realised a certain someone who wasn’t usually a part of our group, standing in our circle. I decided to be friendly.
“Hey, Charles. What’s up?”
The boy smiled kindly as he brushed his long hair aside. “I’m good. Just came to see Gia perform, and as expected, she was brilliant.”
His compliment caused my dear friend to blush a deep red as she rubbed her neck, the tell-tale sign I knew that hinted to her nervousness.
“Oh, shut up,” she said half-heartedly, but the boy she was seeing only bit his lip amusedly. My friend chose to change the topic. “Alright, guys. The cast and crew of the production are going to go have a celebratory dinner at that pizza place on Grattan. You’re welcome to join, and there’s gonna be a party at Dean’s place after.”
Zach was nodding his head and I knew Leah would probably go too, so I agreed with him. Riley and Ashton, however, weren’t so keen.
“I think Ash and I will be heading home. It’s been a long day,” the tall, tanned girl said.
Zach’s eyebrow rose and leaned to whisper in my ear. “I doubt they’ll be having a quiet night.” I snickered at that.
Leah came up behind me just then, sticking her head around me and smiling at everyone.
“Hey, y’all. What’s the plan?”
Her close proximity made my head a little fuzzy as I turned my head, realising my lips were mere inches from her cheek. Her musky lavender scent clouded my senses. “Dinner, t-then party. You wanna?” I asked. She glanced at me with a soft smile.
“Sounds fun.”
“Alright. I guess we’ll meet you guys there?” I asked the group - Zach and Gia speaking their confirmation whilst Charles stayed quiet and nodded.
We split up soon after as Gia went to go change, and the boys went to accompany her so they could drive to the place together. Riley gave her best friend a tight hug before the couple said goodbye, leaving Leah and myself to walk to my car as we took our time.
Remembering my mom, I pulled my phone out of my ripped skinny jeans and texted her as we walked.
“Who’s that?” Leah asked curiously.
“Mommy dearest,” I said, sending her the text saying I won't be home soon, and putting my phone away. “She was actually in the audience with Addy, which surprised the heck out of me. My little sis was excited to see you perform, though.”
“Really? Aww, that’s sweet. I kinda miss that lil’ nugget. Haven’t seen her in a while.”
“You and your way with kids,” I smiled humorously, shaking my head to myself.
“What? They’re cute! I wish I had a little sibling…”
“I don’t think you do. They’re crazy little monsters sometimes,” I shuddered dramatically, and she laughed.
When we got into Logan and I started him up, a quiet settled over us as I pulled out of the school parking lot. Inevitably, the previous thoughts I had in the backstage room returned with a vengeance in the silence, despite my efforts to push them down. I couldn’t do anything to stop the deflation of my form. The guilt took out much of me without me even realising.
I felt Leah watching me carefully. “Lys, what’s going on?”
Biting the inside of my cheeks, I debated whether I should bring this up with her now but when she continued to stare into the side of my face expectantly, I caved in with a sigh.
“I hate that I’m so scared of coming out.”
She didn’t say anything in reply, probably shocked by the unexpected topic, so I continued. “I know you don’t want to do all this hiding. The sneaking kisses and all – it’s not enough. But as much as I want to have more with you, I just can’t seem to get past all the judgement I’ll get. We’ll get. And I hate that so much. So fucking much. You deserve more than me holding us back.”
“Baby, I want to be with you. I can wait-”
“You shouldn’t have to!” I cut in, gritting my teeth as the frustration for myself filled me to the brim. I stopped the car at a red light. “You deserve more. You deserve to be kissed at anyplace without having to be cautious and scared of someone finding out. And I should be caring less about other people’s opinions. I know that. I get that. The only ones that really matter to me are my parents and my friends, and I already know that one of those groups have accepted me. But I’m still-,” I choked on my sentence and took a second to steady my voice, “I’m still scared. I don’t know what to do to get over this.”
The red light turned green and I pressed the car into motion. I let out a shaky breath as I tried to calm myself down. The girl by my side let a silence envelop us for a few seconds before speaking up.
“You know when I came out to my parents, I was scared. You might think that’s stupid because of the thing with my brother, but that’s how I felt. Yes, they accepted Landon, but I wasn’t scared of them knowing I was queer. What I was scared of was how they’d see me after I told them. They had expectations for me, thought I’d be marrying a man one day, no questions asked. But I knew that there was always a chance I’d marry a woman. So yes, I was scared of how they’d react once I broke that image for them. But it’s okay to be scared.”
She gently rested a hand on my lap, and I bit my lower lip as I tried to keep myself from falling apart. “Look, I can’t give you any good advice about caring less. You’ll just come to the realisation that some people’s opinions just don’t matter. But for the people you do care about… you have to remember they already have a specific image of you inside their heads. And sometimes, that’s easy to adjust. Other times… it takes time.”
I let out a deep breath as I processed her words, giving it time to sink in. Once I felt like I was okay to talk, I took her hand on my lap and clasped it with my own, taking comfort in the warmth that her body emanated. “I guess I kind of get it. But when I keep on thinking about it, I can’t help but feel like it’s such a huge risk. As stupid as this sounds, it feels like I’m gambling for their acceptance. Accept or reject. It’s one or the other.”
“How will you know they’ll accept you if you don’t ever risk being rejected?” Leah asked. Her question made me pause.
The rest of the ride was silent as Leah let me sit in my thoughts, thinking over her words. We arrived at the restaurant and I parked, getting out with Leah to head inside together. Through all this, her last words to me in the car kept repeating in my head.
This idea of risk – it’s quite scary, yet intriguing. It entails a certain amount of bravery. Now the question was, do I hold that amount of bravery in me?
I was brought out of my thoughts when Leah stopped me a couple of feet from the door with a grip on my arm, pulling me in and giving me a chaste kiss on the cheek. When she pulled away, her soft smile reassured me without words, and I found myself smiling in return. I somehow felt better after that.
We entered the restaurant and found that it was filled with people from the production, with tables pushed together to create large groups around the room. The place must’ve been booked out just for us, and I even saw a couple of teachers sitting around.
My girlfriend led the way to a table with three others, greeting them enthusiastically as we sat down in the available seats.
As she chattered away with them about the production, I picked up a slice of pepperoni to eat and silently listened to their conversation from the side-lines. I didn’t mind, it was their night and they obviously had been through quite an amazing experience together up on that stage.
When I had gone through my slice, Leah chose to introduce us then. “Alyssa, Miranda here played Tiger Lily tonight. Jack here was the boy-version of Tinkerbell, and George was in charge of the lights. Guys, this is Alyssa.”
We exchanged ‘nice to meet you’s’ and they asked me what I thought of the play. Once they engaged me in the conversation, I went off on my thoughts of it and it became quite an interesting discussion that drifted to one topic or the other, all related to theatre and plays. I never thought I’d end up in such a deep discussion about this topic that I hardly knew anything about. Literature class probably had a big hand in it.
It was only when I felt hands on my shoulders did, I snap out of this bubble we had made.
“Yo, peeps! How are y’all feeling?” someone said, and I turned around to realise it was Gia.
We all called out our greetings and said a variation of the word ‘good’. The redhead took the empty seat beside me as Zach and Charles followed her lead.
“Are all of you going to Dean’s party after, by the way?” Gia asked as she picked out a Hawaiian pizza and I scrunched up my nose in disgust. She spotted my look and pushed at my shoulder playfully. “Stop that. This is delicious.”
Rounds of confirmation went around. Miranda, a beautiful olive-skinned girl with these blue almond-shaped eyes, spoke up to tease my best friend. “Are you going to get piss-drunk again and fall into the pool like last year, Gia?”
“No! That was one time!”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve done that more than once, G,” I snickered, adding to the fire.
“Hey! You’re supposed to be defending me!”
“As your best friend, it’s meant to be the opposite of that.”
Leah chipped in. “I second Lyssa. Pretty sure I’ve seen you jump into a pool, drunk and half-naked more than once.”
Gia’s face turned as red as her hair at that. As we laughed, Jack, a lean dude with gelled hair that had this wind-swept effect, cut in to tease someone else. “Hey, Gia isn’t the only one who did something stupid at last year’s production party. Didn’t Leah trip down a bunch of stairs then sprang up right after to go do shots?”
I laughed in disbelief and looked at my girlfriend, who had this sheepish look on her face. “No freaking way.”
“I don’t even remember it! I woke up to bruises on my arms and legs, and one nasty one on my hip too. That was the last time I’d ever try mixing beer with anything…”
“I don’t think that was the last time,” Charles commented casually as he bit into his pizza. My girlfriend crossed her arms in playful defence.
“How would you know?”
“I was there that other time when you were jumping on the trampoline out back and managed to land on the floor hard without breaking a bone. Had to carry you back to your place ‘cause you said everything hurt too much to move.”
Leah turned meek again. “Oh, yeah. That time. Oops.”
While I wanted to laugh, I covered my mouth to try and hide any evidence of it. Meanwhile, Gia looked confused as she looked between the two. “How were you there?” she asked, directing her question to Charles. He looked a bit awkward when he answered.
“I was her boyfriend then and took care of her after both things happened.”
“Oh,” both Gia and I said in unison.
There was a pause in the conversation, but before things could feel weird, Zach came to the rescue. “Well, now that you’ve made fun of Leah, we gotta hear about you. So, Charles, worst decision you ever made while drunk, go.”
The brown-haired boy looked relieved and gladly answered his question. Leah gave me this look with a shrug, and I raised a brow in response but said nothing else about it.
Soon, the dinner came to an end as all the pizzas were cleared from every plate. The teachers left to go home, whereas the teenagers left in groups to go to the party.
Leah and I arrived to see that it was quite a low-key party, filled mostly by the production kids, which wasn’t a lot. We chose to sit in the den and chatted with the people around us. I liked that I was being more out there and social with these people I usually never talked to. But that just might be because of the alcohol running through my system.
My friends and Zach joined us when they arrived, doing shots and playing these drinking games with us that ended up making us really tipsy by the end. I was swaying side to side when we finished the ‘King’s cup’ game, but I felt light and happy overall. This chill vibe that this party had going on turned out to be something I really liked.
“I-I think drinking that m-mix isn’t gonna do good things for my stomach in the morning,” I slurred slightly as I leaned my weight against Leah, who sat to my right. She was in a better state than me and was currently making me drink cups of water to keep me hydrated. Ever the responsible one.
“Well toooooo bad,” Gia giggled as she sipped from her plastic cup. Charles sat beside her on the other couch opposite ours with an arm slung around my friend in a more than friendly way. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of it, despite knowing that they had a thing together. My mind worked a little weird when intoxicated…
My girlfriend prompted me to drink my water. “Come on, try to drink more. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning if you do.”
“You pwomise?”
Leah laughed at the childish tone I used. “Yes, I pwomise.”
I nodded seriously and drank from the bottle as I rested my head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arm casually around me and rubbed up and down my upper arm in a comforting manner. I didn’t think anything of it.
As I continued to drain the bottle, my muddled mind wandered over to the memory from early tonight when the thoughts of risk, rejection and bravery came back to me.
In my current state of mind, I deducted that the simplest way to fix all this was to be brave and take the risk like a big girl, no matter how scary it seemed. Sure, people may reject me for liking a girl, but at least I’d have Leah to hug if I got sad. Right?
The den now only contained the other couple, Leah, and I on the sofas as the night grew late. Zach was somewhere still in the house, probably chattering like the chatterbox he was when drunk.
As my eyes gazed at the other couple, an idea came to mind and I couldn’t help but let a wide grin appear on my face. I turned my head to face Leah, looking up at her from my peculiar position and seeing her defined jaw that looked sharp enough to probably cut stone.
“Leaahhh,” I called softly, and she gazed down at me with a curve to her lips.
“Yeah?”
“You look so pretty.”
She chuckled humorously. “Do I?”
I sat up straight and looked deep into her hazel eyes, feeling myself melt on the spot. “Yeah. The prettiest girl I’ve ever met.”
The dirty blonde canted her head to the side, making her look so adorable. “I’m very, very happy to hear that.”
I swallowed heavily and prepared myself to say the words. “You deserve the best. And in order for you to have the best, I have to be brave. You are worth taking the risk for.”
Leah furrowed her eyes. “What are you sayin-?”
Before she could finish her sentence, I lunged forward and captured her lips in mine, moving them against her soft pink lips with a tenderness filled with affection.
My hands moved to the back of her head, holding her against me and guiding her movements with ease. She moaned into the kiss when I bit down on her bottom lip, giving me entrance to her mouth, and allowing our tongues battle in a passionate dance for dominance. She won, as she often did, and pulled me closer by my waist as we grew lost in our movements.
A loud clearing of the throat interrupted our session and we broke apart to see that Gia was looking at us from the other couch with this look of panic in her blue orbs.
Charles, on the other hand, gazed at us with wide eyes as his jaw hung open, almost as if his brain was unable to comprehend what had just happened in front of him.
I smirked at the two of them and pulled Leah right against me, who seemed to realise what had really occurred and was now eyeing me in utter disbelief.
“Yes Charles, I am gay. And yes, Leah is my girlfriend.” I tilted my head and pondered for a second. “Wow, that wasn’t that hard to say.”