Born for This

Chapter Ten: Ghosts in the Moonlight

xXShayne’s POVXx

“Kiss me,” I whispered ever so softly in her ear. She leaned over and teased me with her gentle lips, not daring to go near my mouth. She pushed me down on the bed and hovered lightly over me, the only thing touching our noses. Then she did it. She kissed me, gently at first, but after a moment, went harder.

“Are you sure you want this?” she asked. the voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t tell who it was. I nodded, trusting the girl in the shadows. She leaned down and kissed me again.

We fumbled with our hands for hours, quietly, only letting out a giggle when one of us had trouble getting the other undressed. Finally, I lay exposed underneath her, blushing and breathing heavy. She kissed me eyelids lightly, and ran her long fingers over my white skin. I moaned quietly. She let out a smile. A familiar smile.

“Let me know if I’m hurting you, okay?” she pleaded. I nodded. She leaned down and kissed me again, and soon moved towards my neck, leaving a trial of tiny bites around my collar bone and shoulders.

As something entered me and I was about to moan out her name, I shot upwards, covered in sweat and tears.

I searched in the dark atmosphere for a moment before I curled up into a tiny ball. I hugged me knees to my chest and let my head rest for a while. I swallowed, hard, to try and get the lustful taste out of my senses.

What was that exactly? Well, I knew what it was. It was a sex dream. But normally, if someone has a sexual thought, they know who it’s with. All I knew was that it was with a girl that seemed too familiar not to remember.

Wait. Girl? I gasped, shocked at the utter thought. Sure, I knew I was bi, but a full blown sex dream about a girl? That had to mean something, right?

Maybe not. Maybe I’m just worrying myself silly again. It was nothing. One sexual thought, one girl, one dream. There’s nothing to worry about. It was nothing. Nothing! Right? Right.

After calming myself down, I fell back into bed and looked at the clock. The blue neon read 3:47 am. I was too jittery to fall back asleep, and, after several failed attempts, I decided to get up and do something with my life.

I tried drawing, being that it was my usual stimulus. I let my hand glide across the clean slate, and trusted my mind and arm to work as one. I didn’t really look at the picture until it was done, ten minutes later. When i finally did look, what I saw was a rough sketch of Frankie. The thought of her made me sad, being that I obviously upset her when I didn’t say goodbye. After all, it had been almost a month since moving here, and Frankie had not emailed me. It hurt me to even think of what damage I’d caused to our relationship forever.

I closed the book and got up off of my bed. As I walked around the room, searching for little things to occupy my time, I caught my reflection in the mirror. A young girl with white, pink, and blue hair stared back at me, wide eyed and begging for something. She reached for her shirt and pulled it up, enough to reveal the flesh underneath. She poked the body fat with her pointer finger and let out a miserable sigh. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it. She continued to pinch and pull the think spots of skin, shaking her head and looking like she was about to cry out. She wanted something. Something more than this.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the hardwood door. I pulled my shirt back down to its usual spot at my knees and asked who it was. “Alex,” she said.

“Come in.”

She walked in meekly, only peeking halfway through the door with shaking hands. The white hair that she’d gotten from Mom was bed head-less, and her slightly flushed skin was blotchy with tears. Was she having nightmares, or was she having a miserable time here as well?

“What is it Ally?” I asked. She stared at her feet nervously. “You want to come in?” She nodded. I smiled at her softly and took her hand in mine, leading her to the edge of the lavender canopy bed. I sat her down and turned on my reading lamp.

“What’s wrong Ally?” I asked. “You’ve been crying.”

“It’s nothing,” she lied. One thing she inherited from Mom: bad lying. I, unfortunately, lacked lying skills as well.

“It’s not ‘nothing’ if you’re getting upset,” I alerted her. She looked away meekly. “Come on Al. You know you can talk to me about anything. I may not be a good liar, but I’m hell good at keeping a secret.”

She let out a watery chuckle. I took her hand in mine and squeezed lightly, making her smile through the tears. We sat for a minute like that before she finally let out a sigh and told me what was going on.

“Shay,” she started, “I know this is what you wanted and all, but... I hate it here.”

I laughed. “I haven’t been having too good a time either.”

She chuckled again. “But why don’t you say anything to Mom or Dad?”

I sighed. “Mom and Jack already pulled up their roots in Jersey to have me go to this oh so spectacular private school. It would be too selfish to make them move again. Besides, we’re closer to Rio now, which is nice for all of us. We’re a close family now.”

“Yeah. Some family,” she scoffed.

“Ally,” I replied, “I’ve never seen you act like that. I didn’t think you could scoff! What’d going on that’s getting you upset?”

“The girls at school talk about you and Rio!” she blurted out. My shoulders slumped. “They call you names. Horrible names that I refuse to repeat to you! I mean, what’s so bad about Rio having a girlfriend? She’s happy! And you, well, I don’t know why they talk about you, but-”

“Forget about it Ally.” I told her. She wasn’t ready to know yet. I barely had an answer myself.

“But-”

“Not now.” I stated firmly. “Another time, another place.”

She nodded and exhaled angrily. Her shoulders relaxed. I knew she felt better now that she had talked with me. Hell, I felt better when I talked to her! Maybe it was something about being so far in age, but so far close in mind. Maybe one day she’d look up to me like I looked up to Rio. For different reasons of course, but that’s beside the point.

Ally yawned. “I’m gonna go back to sleep.” she said. I nodded and said I would too (if my insomnia didn’t get the better of me). She smiled tiredly and shuffled to the door. As she opened it, she looked back and glanced my way. “Shay?”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Um...” she contemplated asking a question a moment. “I heard noises before coming from here. Like, groaning or something. Do you know what it was?”

I blushed, but luckily, it was dark and Alex couldn’t see.

“Nothing Ally. Go back to sleep.”

+++++++++++++++++++

The next morning at school, I went through my usual ridicule, but today seemed different. I couldn’t quite point my finger on it, but it was. I checked my back constantly for “Kick Me” signs, or anything of the sort, but nothing. I avoided my locker in fear of salsa bombs and planted drugs. I sat as far away as I could from everyone in class without it being considered “ditching”.

By the time lunch rolled around, I still had no idea what was different. Then, it hit me. Literally. People had taken hand balls and written derogatory names on each one, and one by one, threw them at me. I tried to block the balls by putting my hands up and crouching down, which made the students laugh harder. One male student threw a whole box of condoms at me and yelled, “If you ever change your mind, the number’s on the back! He’ll give you an ass load of money!”

I froze. I could hear no more, and see very little. my vision blurred with water. I hung my head in shame, not for who I was, but for the fact I couldn’t confront them or speak up for myself. I just let the ball and nasty comments continue to knock me down.

But just because I allowed it doesn’t mean everyone else did. Moments before I was about to crack, I felt an arm wrap around my shoulder. “Hey!” a voice yelled, “What the fuck are you doing? Got nothing better to do than beat on an upperclassman?”

The table yelled nasty comments at the voice. I looked up. A girl, medium height, with long mocha hair and tannish skin was standing up for me. A girl with so much courage, that I didn’t even think she existed.

“What’s it to ya Czaree?!” a freckle faced boy yelled. “Why are you standin’ up for this... this-”

“New student?” Czaree asked. “Upperclassman? Junior? Superior figure? Is that the word you’re looking for James?”

“That lesbo!” he yelled. A teacher turned her head for a minute, eyed the fight, and then went back to patrolling a bunch of freshman trying to break a cafeteria table.

“The correct term, I believe, is lesbian.” the tall girl next to me stated. She let go of my waist and patted my head. “And why do you think that she is one? Because her older sister was the first lesbian to go to this school?”

“I know she’s one!” he argued. His faces was flushed bright red now, matching his hair. “She just has this vibe!”

“Funny,” Kelly stated. “She ain’t breakin’ my gay-dar.” The boy mumbled something incoherent, which got Kelly even more pissed. She quietly fumed, holding back her urge to hit the boy.

“Whatever.” Czaree stated. She turned around to go back to her table, motioning for Kelly to come. She stopped and turned around once we passed her. “Ya know James, they’re doing this new study now. Maybe you heard about it. They say one in every five people are gay, bi, or transexual. Look through each one of your friends, and, well, let me know if none of them are it. I’d like to be there for that.”

James’ face flushed to a tomato shade now as he yelled something we couldn’t hear. We were now all the way across the cafeteria, and behind a pole. The second that we were out of site, Kelly and Czaree slapped a high-five.

“Nice one!” Kelly stated. “I liked his face after that!”

“You did good too. Putting a pop culture phrase into it was fantastic!”

The two cheered at each other, not noticing me at first. I spoke up after a moment. “Thank you,” I told them. They both froze and looked at me. “Thank you so much.”

“Aw!” Czaree squealed. She pulled me into a hug. “We’ve been watching you for the past two weeks and we got so sick of seeing you being a sitting duck and taking it.” She let go of me. “Weird. According to my sources, your sister was the exact opposite.”

“You know my sister?” I asked. She shook her head.

“My older sisters went to school with her. I heard a lot of stories.” I nodded. A lot of people had remembered my sister for the way she stood up for her beliefs and rights. I knew she hadn’t always been like that, but that one change after coming out still left me in utter awe.

“We going back to the table?” Kelly asked. Czaree nodded and turned to me.

“Would you like to join us?” she asked. I thought for a moment. Was it a new opportunity to have what I did in Jersey, or just some sort of cheap trick? No. it was safe. I could feel it. I nodded gently and smiled a new smile. A smile of a new start.

We got to the table within seconds. Everyone was already sitting and chatting, and roared with delight at the sight of Czaree and Kelly’s return. They told their story of what happened and everyone roared with laughter at their reenactment. I knew at that moment they were sort of the “leaders” of our group.

Czaree introduced us all right after. There was Mo, a senior track team runner with viciously curly hair. There was her little sister Julie, who was my age and an aspiring musician. There was Emili, a shy guitarist bassist who spent the whole time with one iPod headphone in her ear. After everyone was settled, we all sat down and began to eat. That is, except for me.

I didn’t understand why, but I was never hungry anymore. The thought of food made me somewhat nauseous, and brought back a lot of sad memories. Maybe it was those girls from day one getting in my head. Maybe I just didn’t feel like eating. I looked down at my hands resting on my stomach. I remember in the dream that I had the perfect body. And that was what the mirror was looking for.

And I was going to give it to it.