What Are You Waiting For?

“Ian, time to get up, sweetie.” I heard mom’s voice call to me as she opened up my curtains.

I turned over and put my covers over my head.

“Come on now, don’t be stubborn.” She tried pulling my covers off. “Do you want to keep Nick waiting?” She asked in a sing song voice, which made me shoot off of the bed.

“You’re so mean.” I whined, getting up and gathering clothes.

She just smiled, shook her head, and left my room.

I stuck my tongue out at her when she wasn’t looking, then jumped in the shower.

“Come on, Ian! We have to leave soon!” Mom called in my room as I put my belt on and quickly slipped on my shoes.

“Coming, Mom, coming!” I called, grabbing my backpack and rushing into the kitchen, putting some of the chocolate chip muffins I made last night into a small container to take to Nick, just like I promised.

“Are those for Nick?” Mom asked as we walked out of the house.

“Yup. I told him that I was going to bring them and I did.” I said proudly.

“You’re such a good person, Ian. Nick is going to love you.”

That comment made me blush. “Thanks, Mom.” I said bashfully.

She pulled up to the school and gave me her usual morning kiss before I got out of the car.

I looked around the parking lot, scoping out all the cars, wondering which one belonged to Riley’s brothers, who I found out were “the twins”.

I walked into school, seeing Nick at his locker.

He looked in my direction and a smile instantly spread across his face. He met me halfway in a long, warm, comforting hug, though he looked distracted and sort of lost in thought.

I brought up nothing about it and walked with him to our lockers, Nick lacing his fingers with mine.

“The whore’s snagged himself a fresh one, I see.” I heard someone say as they walked down the hall. I looked around and saw that the girl who said it was looking back at Nick, smirking.

He flipped her off and turned back to his locker, his mood fallen dramatically.

“What was that all about, Nick?” I asked him, confused. Nick’s a whore? Since when?

He sighed, shutting his locker, then turning to me. He didn’t make eye contact with me, just kept his gaze on the tiled floor. “Well, before you moved here, I was living with my parents. They are insanely controlling over what I like and dislike, well, I should say they were. They don’t control me anymore.” He cleared his throat. This seemed hard for him to do. “My mom’s more Christian than Jesus and Dad was so homophobic I swear he’d hide behind the sofa if a gay guy came into our house. In order to not get kicked out, I basically had to force myself into liking girls, though I had no interest in them at all. I just kept moving from girl to girl, thinking to myself that maybe that girl just wasn’t pretty enough or this girl just wasn’t my type. People started finding out, and they started the whore thing.”

I kept my eyes down, feeling slightly…used. “You didn’t have the guts to tell your parents that you were gay? You threw yourself a girls just to get their acceptance?” I asked him, my voice getting slightly harsh. “That’s kind of pathetic, to be completely honest, doing anything to make your parents happy, even if it makes you miserable.”

“I wasn’t just proving to them, but I was trying to prove to myself-”

“So you were ashamed of yourself for being gay?” I coughed out a bitter laugh. “That doesn’t make your situation any better, if anything it makes it a hell of a lot worse.”

Nick looked defeated, and I was still confused as to what I was feeling towards him. I didn’t want to completely detach myself from him, but I didn’t want to be with him, either. I couldn’t totally trust him just yet.

“Well, this is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Nick said quietly, making me look up at him.

“What?” I asked.

“I think I agreed a little too early to get together with you. We only met each other last night, we barely know each other. I think we should give it some time.” Nick explained.

He made it sound so easy. I was already so attached to Nick, that it tore my heart a little when he said that.

“So you’re breaking up with me.” I said flat out, tears coming to my eyes.

“We shouldn’t have even been together so fast in the first place.” Nick said.

“Then you should’ve had better self control.” I spat at him, storming off without him to first hour, landing in my desk next to Riley hard.

“Whoa, Ian, what’s the matter?” He asked, concern flooding his voice.

I sniffled, not realizing I was crying. “Nick…”

Before I even finished my sentence, Riley hugged me tightly, rubbing my back. “I thought something like this was going to happen.”

“You were all for it!” I said, holding back a sob.

“I know, I know, and I regret it now. I knew Nick would do something this stupid.” Riley said, now petting my hair. “He told you about what happened before you got here?”

I nodded. “Basically.”

“Tell me what happened, Ian.”

“Well I got pissed at Nick for not mentioning anything about that last night. I don’t like people who can just throw themselves at people like that. It’s disgusting. And on top of doing that, doing it to make his parents happy and to try and basically make himself straight? Those are the stupidest reasons I’ve ever heard.” I ranted, tears gushing out of my eyes.

Riley said nothing, just continued rubbing my back and hugging me.

I heard someone sit next to me, presumably Nick. I just ignored him and continued crying into Riley’s shoulder.

“I even made him the muffins he wanted.” I said quietly, for some reason that one simple thing being the thing that just makes me snap. I start sobbing, gripping Riley tighter.

I heard Nick suck in a shaky breath behind me, meaning that he was getting hit by this, too.

Good. He should get hit so hard he gets knocked against the wall.

“I knew this was too good, too perfect. I knew there was some sort of fuck up in this thing. How did I become so attached?” I asked, more rather to myself than to anyone else.

“You were looking for acceptance, and when you found it, you took it a step further. That step just happened to be Nick, who has a pretty dirty past. But Ian,” Riley said, tilting my tear stained face to look at him. “The past is passed. It doesn’t matter what someone did over the summer or two years ago. What matters is what happens now, today, tomorrow, the next day and the next. You can’t change the past, but you can alter the future.”

I looked back at him. He had tear-stained cheeks, looking at us. He was probably only crying because I was crying.

“See, the thing with his past, is how am I ever going to be able to trust him from going off with someone else while he’s with me, with everything he’s done with other people.” I said.

“You have to just trust him. This is coming from the guy who’s sharing the same house, the same bedroom, even, with him. He hasn’t had anyone over ever since he got kicked out. Once he got kicked out, he didn’t do any of that, and he won’t do any of that when he’s with someone, or even if he’s single. He’s not that type of person.” Riley explained.

I let go of Riley, wiped my eyes and crossed my arms.

“Just give him another chance, Ian. He was just telling you the truth, it is only the second day you’ve known each other after all. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell someone I just met something like that.” Riley said, slightly pleading with me.

I sighed, looked at the floor, then to Nick, who looked sad and desperate; desperate to get me back and sad that he probably won’t.

I stood up and took Nick’s arm, pulling him out into the semi-crowded hallway, all the students rushing to get to their first hours in five minutes.

I turned around and hugged Nick, burying my face in his chest. “I’m sorry.”
Nick said nothing, just stood there, hugging me back.

“Do you forgive me?” I asked, looking up at him.

Nick cupped one side of my face with his hand, staring straight into my eyes with his piercing green ones. “Ian, I still stand by what I said. We need more time to get to know each other, so things like this don’t happen. We can’t have any secrets between us, okay? We need to know each other inside out before anything happens.” Nick said quietly.

I felt my lip start quivering. That’s not the answer I was looking for. I was hoping for a yes and a make up kiss, then go back into the classroom like nothing ever happened.

Of course this is not that kind of case.

I pushed away from Nick and ran into the bathrooms to try and calm myself down, but I just started sobbing harder.

I fell to the floor with my knees tucked to my chest.

I can’t decide whether getting harassed or getting your heart broken is more painful.