It Started With A Dare

“You ready?” Bob asked me, turning off his car engine as we arrived at school.

I nodded “I’m ready … I think.”

“You’ll be fine.” He assured me.

We both stepped out of his car, Bob placing his hand on my shoulder, more for comfort than anything else, as he led us up the steps and into the daunting building which was school. As soon as we stepped foot inside, heads turned and the whispers began. I knew it was about me, I heard my name enough times to be certain of it. They were all talking about me, making up incredulous rumours no doubt, ones that would haunt me for a while.

“Hey, shut the hell up!” Bob exclaimed to those who were whispering. It kind of worked; they held their tongues as we walked past but went right back to it as soon as we were gone.

It was the same through every hallway and although I tried to ignore it, I knew it was still there, everyone knew about us, there was no hiding anymore. I guess I should be happy about that, not having to sneak around anymore, it made it a bit easy but it made everything else even more complicated.

We met Bob’s friends at their lockers like usual except that today was far from ordinary. They probably didn’t mean to but I could feel them staring at me differently already, their eyes more curious than scrutinizing. I dared a glance, meeting Frank’s eyes first; he gave me his usual, genuine smile but his eyes showed his hesitance.

“Hey guys.” Bob greeted them, receiving a few mumbled greetings in return. Then everything was quiet again.

“Bob, is uh,” Frank started to say, scratching the back of his neck nervously “Is it true?”

Before Bob could answer him, I felt a presence behind me “It’s true.” Gerard’s voice said.

I turned my head to look up at him, smiling, thankful for the comfort that he gave me from just being there. He smiled back at me, slipping his arms around my waist from behind, bringing me to him in a hug. I rested my hands on top of his, looking up at the faces of the other; they all seemed pretty sceptical as they studied our embrace but Bob butted in before they could say anything.

“You guys, if I’m not worried then you shouldn’t be either. Admittedly I found out earlier but I know that it’s not what you think, it’s not just some silly high school fling, Gerard really cares about her.” Bob explained. It was quiet again for a while.

“Well, if Bob’s okay with it then I guess we’ve got no reason to be against it.” Ray said.

“Ray’s right, we should be happy for you guys.” Frank added just before the bell rang.

“Thanks guys, it’s good to know you’re not against us like everyone else seems to be.” Gerard said.

“They’re not against you, they’re just … not very open minded,” Mikey explained “Anyway, we’re gonna be late for class.”

Everyone said their goodbyes and headed off to their first class of the day, Gerard and I stayed stood where we were. I turned around in his arms to face him, ignoring the students passing us by.

“You okay? No one’s been bothering you, have they?” He asked me.

“I’ll be fine; they can’t hurt me when you’re here.” I said as a blush spread across my cheeks.

He chuckled “I’ll see you at lunch, yeah?” I nodded.

“Bye Gee.”

“See you, sugar.” With his arms still around me, he bent down to kiss my red cheek before heading off down the hall. Grinning, I shuffled through the waves of people in hopes of getting to science class before I was late.



Classes were the same routine: walk in, get stared at, sit down, hear them whispering about me, try in vain to pay attention to the teacher, then leave. I was kind of happy when I reached homeroom since today it would be the class before lunch, thank god.

I took my usual seat at the back of the class, the staring a whispering was still there but this time I didn’t have anything else to concentrate on. My ass hadn’t even been sat on my chair for five seconds before an unwanted face appeared in front of me, her usual snobby expression visible.

“You can cut the crap, I know you’re lying.” Debbie said, resting her arms on my desk as she sat in the chair in front of it.

“Excuse me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“It’s so obvious that it’s not true, Gerard would never date you. Are you really that desperate?”

“Why would I lie about something like that?” I asked incredulously.

“How should I know? I bet you paid James to say that at the pep rally, you’re such an attention seeking whore.” She snapped at me before turning back around, leaving me to frown at the back of her head for the rest of homeroom.

As soon as it was over, I sped out of the room as fast as I could, making my way to the cafeteria. Just as I’d predicted, Damien was one of the first people in there, sat at our usual table with his back to me but I knew that his nose would be buried in a book. I dumped my bag down and took a seat opposite him, making him look up and smile at me.

“Hey, I heard about what happened. Today hasn’t been too horrible, has it?” He asked.

“Nothing that I can’t handle.” I answered him, pulling out a juice box from my bag. I set it down in front of me, watching the room quickly fill up with students. Before long, I spotted Gerard enter the room. His eyes soon found mine and I watched as he made his way over to me, taking a seat beside me. Well, this was certainly a chance.

“Hey,” He said, moving his arm around my back, leaning in to press his lips to mine briefly as a greeting, his hand coming up to my cheek to keep me there a moment longer. I hadn’t realised that the room had gone quiet until I pulled away from the kiss to see pretty much everyone in the cafeteria staring at us. My cheeks heated up as I stared around the room, eventually spotting Debbie; her mouth was hung open in shock, and I couldn’t help but smile a little.

“So Damien, you still into Hellraiser?” Gerard asked him, sliding a hand around my waist, doing a great job of ignoring everyone around us.

“Duh, its rad.”

“I’ll lend you some of my rare copies sometime,” Gerard told him, making Damien’s grin widen. Gerard then leant in to whisper in my ear “Just ignore them.” before kissing my cheek.

And that was pretty much how we spent the rest of lunch, the three of us talking about music and comic books, not giving two shits about everyone else. It was honestly one of the better lunches I’ve had at school, the better part of one of the worst days of my life.