Sweet Like Sugar

“Here.” Peeps gives me a hand full of more paper towels that I’m using wipe off my pants. “Sorry about him, again.”

I shake my hand and to continue to scrub the vomit off my jeans. It was pretty much all cleaned up but now I had a huge wet stain next to my crotch area that made it look like I wet myself. And not to mention I still kind of smelled like bile.

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not. I say you go bash him right in the face.”

I ignore her violent words. It sucked getting barfed on and maybe I was a little upset, but who wouldn’t be? That didn’t mean I’d try to hit him. Besides, he’d probably kick my ass and with my messed up little crush, I’d probably like it.

The funny thing was that I felt like it was all my fault. Like I deserved this kind of bad luck. I should have never started liking him. It was like a punishment from God or something.

Boys should not liketh other boys and if they do, thou shall get puked on for all eternity. Exodus 23:12.

I’ve never actually read the bible but that sounded about right. That was why all of those insane people were always protesting right? Because gay is a sin.

I was a sinner and God was now showing me his all mighty wrath.

“Are you sure you’re, fine?”

“Yeah. Isn’t Finn the one you should be more worried about?”

She rolls her eyes walking further into the bathroom and hops up onto the counter next to the sink. “He makes me so mad sometimes. I was finally able to get him back to his room where he puked again and fell back asleep.”

“You two seem to know each other pretty well.” Her annoyance and genuine worry about him was interesting and I wasn’t sure where I was going with the conversation but the thought of them dating kept gnawing at me. I wasn’t jealous. Definitely not. Why would I be jealous? It wasn’t like Finn and I would ever end up together anyway.

Nope.

Not a chance.

I obviously hadn’t thought this through. The gay thing that is. This was pretty much what my life was going to consist of. Secret crushes on people who would never like me back in the same way. It had only been about ten minutes since I had been completely sure of my sexuality but already…being gay kind of sucked.

“Unfortunately.”

Unfortunately? That was it? That’s all she had to say about her relationship with Finn? There was evidently more to be said but she just stopped there and let an awkward silence fill the room. Her expression changes from an annoyed to a somber and she looks down at her feet dangling off the counter. I realize that I had somehow stumbled upon a touchy subject.

“He’s a good person. He’s just…” She trails off and groans throwing her head back.

She hops off of the counter having a quick change in attitude again and perking up. “Oh yeah. He asked me to give this to you.”

She pulls out a small square Polaroid from her back pocket that has a much younger Finn and a lady holding him up on her hip and waving to the camera. It looked like they were at some kind of Zoo and Finn looked as happy as ever. He couldn’t have been more than five, yet his eyes were as bright and vibrant as they are today.

“I’m not sure why…” She trails off and raises an eyebrow at me wait for me to explain why Finn would want to give me one of his baby pictures. I guess it was a pretty weird situation if you didn’t know the backstory.

“I’m helping him with a project.” I shrug and she nods still probably a little confused by it all.

“A project?”

“An art project…He asked me to draw him something.” I elaborate.

“Oh….” She shrugs again and places a bored hard on her hip. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to let Finn ruin my night. I’m going back to the party. You coming?”

“Uh…” I throw away the ruined napkins and point to the huge wet stain on my pants. “I’m not really in the position to party anymore. I’m just going to walk home.”

She frowns. “Well, I can walk with you.

“No. It’s not that far. I’ll be okay.”

“No, it's really fine.” She grabs my hand again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately for some reason. “I don’t like anyone else here, anyway.”

I give her a head start to the staircase and use that time to peek my head into Finn’s room where I see him lying on his stomach, out like a light, just as she had said. His room is spotless and if there wasn’t for a soccer ball in the corner and tangled up chords from a video game console, I wouldn’t have even believed it belonged to a boy my age. It was very bland with solid greys and plain whites. Though, there did seem to be some kind of mural on one of his walls but it was hard to see in the dark.

I wanted to walk in and look around some more; find out more about him. It was exciting to be so infatuated with someone. I wanted to know what made him happy and what made him sad. What made him tick and why he felt the need to drink himself to this level.

He shifts on his bed and turns over to his side and I wait for him to wake up and smile at me, or smirk, or wave, or something. Anything. I wanted more. I had come to this stupid party for him in the first place and I had only seen him for less than ten minutes before he threw up on me. That didn’t seem very fair at all.

“Sugar, what’s taking you so long?”

I sigh and wave goodbye to him even though I know he can’t see before I join Peeps who’s waiting for me at the top of the staircase. She’s doesn’t hold my hand this time around but that doesn’t stop people from giving us unnerving stares as we start to come into view. They weren’t even trying to hide them either. Everyone was just gawking at us as if they had been waiting for us to come back down. And we reach the bottom, I understand why.

Mark is standing there with his arms crossed and a sinister smile plastered to his face. To his left is bored Rowland and to his right, a girl I recognized from school. Laura Rodriguez. Peeps' best friend.

But from the death glare Laura was giving Peeps now, they didn’t seem to be the best of friends anymore.

“Well well well…what do we have here?” Mark starts up, taking threatening steps toward us both. “So what, are you two hooking up now or something?”

Peep’s just rolls her eyes and continues to walk around him but he blocks the way.

“Move.” She demands and I see her fists clench.

“What are you gonna do about it, Slut?” Laura joins in and now everyone is watching us and the music had somehow died down so our confrontation was the highlighted event.

Peep just looks at Lara like she couldn’t believe what she just heard but then toughens back up. “Just leave us alone.”

“Why should we?” Mark jeered getting her face. “Is your little boyfriend gonna make me?” He glances up at me with a smirk and shakes his head. “You know, you two make a good couple. A slut and a fag.”

The people around us start to laugh and everything is screaming inside of me to do something. Do anything other than just stand there and take it. But it’s like I’m frozen in fear. Even if I tried to fight, I would just without a doubt be beaten to a pulp.

“Y-you’ve got it all wrong.” I finally speak up. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh?” Mark fakes interest in what I’m saying. “Just friends? And how long have you been friends? Two? Three weeks? Is that all it takes to get into her pants?” He walks into my face and stares me down but I refuse to look at him and focus on my shoes.

“Nothing happened.” I whisper but he ignores it. “I swea-”

The force of his arms sends me flying back and I hit the chair I sat in a few minutes before on my way down into the floor.

This gets the crowd pumped up and they laugh even more and some even start “oooing” but no one tries to help. The chair hit me in the side and it’s aching when I finally I lift my head again. I can feel my eyes starting to burn because that’s all I was good for. Tears. I wasn’t a man. I couldn’t stand up Peeps or even myself. I was nothing but a…a..fag..

Peeps pushes Mark back away from me. “Stop it! What are you doing?! Just leave us alone, Mark!”

“You would choose this queer boy over me?!” He yells at her pushing her off him. “You know, you’re nothing but a bitch! A fucking slut, you god damned whore!”

Surprisingly she ignores his rage and his hurtful words and walks over to help me up.

“Let’s get out of here.” She whispers help to my feet and then locking her arm with mine. “You’re a piece of shit, Mark. I’d choose him over an asshole like you any day.”

We make our way to the front door and she flips him and everyone else at the party off before slamming the door shut.

We walk in silence for a while and I try to discreetly wipe away my tears but she already knows. Even though the sun has gone down it still feels like 80 degrees. The air all around me felt hot and heavy.

“He’s just a bully, Shug. Don’t let him get to you.”

“Except everything he said about me was true?”

“So he said you were gay? So what?” She shrugs holding her hands out.

“So everything.” I try to keep my voice low because I can feel a rush of waterworks coming and I hold
in a sob.

“Sugar, he doesn't even know you. He has no idea if you’re gay or not. He was just being an jerk.”

“But I am gay, Peeps!” I choke out. “I’m gay! I’m a faggot! I’m a queer boy! I’m the butt of all of his jokes and they’re all true! How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Shug…”She shakes her head and give me dumbfounded look and I can’t take it anymore. I break down into semi controlled sobs and I take a seat on the curb, burying my face into my knees and hiding my stupid tear streaked gay face.

“Even if that's true, those are just harsh words to try to make you feel bad about something that wrong. You and I both know there’s nothing wrong with you being gay.” I feel her place an arm around my shoulders.

“That’s easy for you to say.” I say wiping my face with the back of my arm and sniffling. “You don’t have to feel this way. You don’t get to be outcasted for just...existing. I feel wrong. Can’t you understand that? Everything I do, I feel wrong doing. It’s hasn’t even been that long but I have the rest of my life to count on feeling this way. I hate it. I hate it so much and there's nothing I can do about it.”

That seems to have her stumped and of course it would because there’s was nothing anyone could do.

“GSA!” She suddenly snaps her fingers.

“What?”

“Gay Straight Alliance. Our school has one. And there’s also a PFLAG chapter in Salt Lake that meets once every third Thursday of the month. There are all of these people out there in the world who are going through all of the same things as you and there are these support groups and clubs where you can meet with kids just like you.” She exclaims.

“Sugar, I know you feel like you’re alone in this but you aren’t I promise. You have me. And you’ll have Talia when she gets back. And your parents are great and so is your sister. You have so many people who love and care about you. You can’t let some douchebag, who’s jealous of you by the way, get you down. Please don’t cry anymore because you’re going to make me cry and my makeup is really nice right now so I’d rather not ruin it.”

“Sorry.” I try to suck it up and wipe my face dry.

“I’m the one that should be apologizing to you.” She stands up and for the second time today offers me her hand to help me up. “I asked you to help me with Finn and got you puked on and on top of that you got dragged into my drama with Mark and Laura. I would completely understand if you never wanted to hang out with me again.”

I shake my head and I know she gets it. If I wanted to ever stop being her friend it would have happened a long time ago.

Her shoulders drop like her smile and she sighs and she leans in to give me a hug.

“I’m sorry you feel bad and I’m sorry people suck and I’m sorry I can’t help you that much but I’m really glad we became friends.”

“Yeah…me too.” I say gently squeezing her back and officially drying up my tears. “You aren’t going to confess you undying love for me now are you?”

She playfully nudges me in the shoulder. “You wish.”

“Besides, you’re not really my type.”

“Whatever.” She gently shoves me and starts skipping away giving her shiny brown locks an exaggerated flip. “I’m everyone’s type.”