A New Kind of Dangerous

Raven woke up for school thirty minutes early the next day. For the first time in her entire life she was excited to go. She couldn’t wait to see Sydney after last night. Never in a million years did she think she’d be able to call the other girl hers.

She grabbed her phone off of the bedside table and read their goodnight conversation from just a few hours ago, happy to know that it hadn’t all been one of her little dreams. She straightened her hair and applied her usual dark eye-makeup. For the first time in her life, she changed her outfit more than once before leaving for school.

After what seemed like hours, she finally decided on what to wear. Her jeans were super skinny, light washed, and ripped in a million different places. Her white tank top was extremely low cut and said The Runaways on it with a cherry bomb on the right side. Instead of Converse, she decided to wear her leather boots that she had gotten for Christmas. She made a braid on one side of her hair, bobby pinning it up so her purple gauges showed.

At twenty till eight, she was ready and heading to her car.

She got in and began blasting This Girl by Laza Morgan the entire way. She pulled in ten minutes before the bell. Before she could find Sydney, she had to go get her books out of her locker.

She grabbed her battered copy of Hamlet from the top part of her locker, checking to make sure her question sheet was still tucked inside of it. She was always losing papers this way, but it was easier than having a separate notebook and folder for each class like most of the people in her classes did.

Even though she had a ten minute break after first period, she grabbed her Calculus book as well. She’d skipped her homework for the past few days and her grade was starting to drop dramatically in this class. She finally slammed her locker shut and began walking through the hall.

Pangs of sadness hit her as she walked right past Sarah who was at her locker. Kara Woodis was standing next to her. She had just moved here a few weeks ago and the two were apparently already best friends. She felt like going up to her and talking to her, but she knew she wouldn’t exactly be welcomed. She had been a fucking idiot to fuck up that friendship. Nobody else had put up with her bullshit like she had. Nobody else had been there for her through everything like she had. Fuck she was stupid.

After walking around for a few minutes, she finally spotted Sydney standing at her locker. Raven felt herself smile as she took in Syd’s appearance. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans with a giant rip in one of the knees. Her shirt was just plain white with the school’s logo on it. Her long hair was up in a bun and her face bare of makeup except for mascara. It was fucking insane how she could make plain jeans and a t-shirt look so damn good. She was absolutely perfect.

“Guess who?” She slipped her hands over Sydney’s eyes and kissed her cheek as she did so. Sydney immediately stiffened and pulled away. “What’s wrong?” Raven asked, confused as hell. Why would she just shove her away like that?

“Look, we need to talk.” Said Sydney. She had a troubled expression on her face.

“Okay…about what?” She said slowly.

Sydney gathered her gigantic Biology book from the bottom of her locker. She grabbed a binder from her backpack before slamming her locker shut. “Come on.” She began leading her throughout the many hallways and down an empty staircase.

Raven was totally going to be late to first period, but she didn’t care. She wanted to know what the hell was going on. The way she said that they needed to talk scared her to no end. “We need to talk” was never a good line in any relationship. Especially one you’d only been in for less than twelve hours.

They finally stopped walking once they reached the bottom of the staircase that led to the unused basement. She didn’t ask what was going on, just waited for Sydney to begin talking.

“I’m not…nobody know…I haven’t…”She seemed to be having a hard time getting whatever she needed to say out. “Everybody thinks I am straight.” She finally said.

There it was. The reason she had pulled away from her in the hallway. The reason she had looked around like that. The reason they were having this fucking conversation on an unused staircase. She was ashamed of their relationship. She didn’t want anybody to see them together or know they were a couple. She wasn’t going to come out to anybody. Raven just continued to stare at her.

“Look Raven, I’m not like you. I’m not confident. I’m not carefree and outspoken. I’m just…me. Sydney Harper. The girl with the highest great point average in the junior class. The girl who is student council president, leader of the student government, and has been on the math team since seventh grade. I’m the girl who leads the typical high school life with the typical friends and the perfect boyfriend. That is how people see me. Nothing less, nothing more. I don’t want to keep us a secret, but I don’t think I can just tell everybody at once. It needs to be a gradual process for me. What would I even tell people? I don’t even know what I am. I don’t think I’m a lesbian, but I don’t think I’m bisexual either. I can’t show people who I really am if I don’t even know who that girl is. Please….just give me some time.”

Raven stood there completely speechless. A million things were running through her brain and not one of them was good. She understood that it would take Sydney a while to come out to everybody, but that didn't mean she was happy about it. She loved Sydney. She didn't want to hide it. She didn't care if every human being in the earth found out.

"Okay." She said finally. Wow. Was she losing her nerve or what? A bell rang over their heads. Shit.
She was late for English, the one class she really could not afford to screw up in.

"I gotta go." Sydney said. "I'll see you at lunch. I was going to tell some of my friends about us today. Um...I kinda want to tell them alone so if you can just come over during the last half of lunch?"

Raven agreed to the plan and walked off without kissing her goodbye. She didn't want the other girl to think she was pushing things. That and she was just a little bit pissed off, hurt, and annoyed at her girlfriend at the moment. She made a stop at the office to get a late pass and headed into her English class.

Of course, everybody stared at her as she walked in and found her seat. The teacher was coming around to check if they did their homework. She had actually done it for once instead of scribbling random answers down at the beginning of class.

The rest of the morning passed quickly and it was soon lunchtime. She took a seat at the stoner lunch table as she waited for the first half of lunch to pass. The boys she was sitting with were tossing around a hacky sack and talking about some party that was going on this weekend. She could honestly say she wasn’t interested for once. She was thinking about asking Sydney out on a real date. They could go to the city about an hour away. It was perfect sounding when she planned it out in her head.

Raven quickly made her way over to Sydney who was sitting at a table alone. She sat down next to her, resisting the strong urge to wrap her arms around her waist. “How’d it go?” She asked her.
“Really good, actually. None of them had a problem with it. I was really scared to tell Meredith since she’s been my best friend since we were four. She was completely fine with it and said we need to go on a double date with her and Nick.” Sydney laughed, rolling her eyes into the back of her head.

“What exactly did you say?”

“I told them I had something to tell them and they asked if it had to do with the real reason Brad and I broke up. I have no idea how they knew there was another reason behind it. Anyways, I told them that I’d discovered that I liked girls. I told them if they didn’t want to be friends with me because of it then that’s fine. They all looked at me like I was stupid pretty much, which I was so grateful for. They asked if I still liked guys and I told them that’s something I’m still trying to figure out. They asked if I had a girl or anything. I told them about you and I. And yeah…that’s pretty much it.”

“I’m glad they accept you. I know what it’s like to not be accepted and it honestly feels like shit. I understand this is hard for you and it’s also something new. It’s going to take a while for you to be comfortable with yourself. I will be by your side through it all. I promise.” Raven finished.

Sydney smiled up at her and began stroking her hand underneath the table. That was a step.