Sweet Dreams-60

*Before…

Jen actually beats me too it and says. “Why does having something cool like this have to be a competition? I think the more people the better when we want to do something cool.”
I hold my palm out and Jen slaps it in a sort of low five and stuff.
I look over to Kathy and she’s giving us both the stink eye as are some of her friends who are just kind of looking at Queer Corner with all that snobby better than you disdain that I’m kind of used to seeing a lot of the time.
And Alex wraps his arms around me really purposefully and like he’s sort of showing off to them that “He’s” with me and he says. “Count me in, I’ll talk the guys on the team around and stuff.”
And there’s some surprised looks at that and just as icing on the anti-bigot cake Jen and Cindy have a public cheerleader on cheerleader kiss that lasts just long enough to get a few looks and then the end of break bell goes off and we head to our classes shaking hands and sharing a few light hugs as we do.

*And Now…

Class is good, well my classes are good even with the occasional bit of talk and buzz about things and a lot of it in the classes that I’m in is that I’m going for this and that Jen’s going for this and that we’re friends but it’s not like overwhelming until it’s like after the bell and going from class to class.

And…it’s very strange having people talking to me that I don’t know.

I get that I have too and I’m getting that this is a pretty damned big school with a whole lot of students that I’ve never seen before and never hit my radar.

And apparently I sort of still have new girl on me, and it’s the new girl that faced down Jen and now I’m facing off against Kathy and company too. I do try and talk to them and even shake a couple of hands and stuff…it’s strange getting offered handshakes.

And I try and remember names with faces or something memorable about them really. I think that I have a plan for that by the time I’m out of my last class before lunch and I stow that away for later but I slip into the typing lab and I use the computers to whip up a sheet.

“Isn’t it about time we make the Prom and Homecoming people do something?
I want to do something, I have a voice and I want to use it.
More than that I want to hear what you want.
What bugs you in the school?
What are we doing wrong?
What aren’t we doing at all?

High school shouldn’t just rock for the few it should be a place where we actually have a chance to do something cool with our friends and with our classmates before we’re slammed with the real world and college.

I’m looking forward to all of your replies and you can write stuff on the back of these and slip them into my locker at number # 3343 in the west quad or you can leave them at the office and I’ll pick them up.”

I print it out and I go to the office and pay for a whole bunch of photocopies and get them done and ask if they’ll hold any of these that are turned in and I hold up the box for some of the printer/photocopy paper and after a look and an eye roll they let me put the box up on the outside office counter and I tape a blank sheet to it and write Hunter’s Box on it in big black marker so that they’ll see it and there’s this double entendre that they really can’t complain about.

*Grins*

I take my sheets and I head to lunch passing some out. “Give it a read and then you can drop it off in the office and stuff it in my box.”

Oh heck yeah I’m taking full advantage of the whole funny and off color nature of this.

I’m not as clean cut and stuff as I have been looking lately and I make sure that I get all the lockers of the Queen Squad and slip sheets into their lockers and then I go and meet Alex at the cafeteria and he’s actually standing and talking but he’s standing and he’s looking for me.

I know he’s looking for me because he gets this look and this sort of Alex kind of lit up thing but that broody Alex subdued but lit up thing when he sees me.

My boyfriend is Batman.

I go over and we kiss and we’re getting better at it because we break apart by the faculty default “Arhem”ening… and he tells the guys he was talking to that’d he see them later.

And I don’t know them…and they’re a little younger than us.

“New friends?”

“Voters and stuff, they’re fresheys and I said that if they wanted to hang out and listen and stuff about us and everything then I would take some time after practice on the days I’m not working and I’d like help mentor them and stuff with football.”

I nod and we’re unpacking lunch and so are some of the others as we’re getting joined by some of the fresheys or freshmen and yeah I’m not sure that I like fresheys but I’ve heard a lot worse and I set out and pass out some of the sheets I have done.

“When you’re done you can take it to the office and stick it in my box.”

There’s snickers and laughs and Alex is choking on his first bite of food. I slap his back and I rub it. He’s looking at me.

“What?”

“Your box?”

“Yes I have a box.”

“At the office.”

“I have a big box; it has my name written on it.”

By this time people are openly laughing and Tim reaches for some of my sheets. “So Hunter is I take some of these and pass them out I can tell them to stuff them in your box?”

“Absolutely!”

Alex looks at me and he looks at Tim and the others and he does this face palm thing really slowly. He peeks at me through two of his fingers. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

I nod and swallow my mouthful and peck his cheek. “Yes I am, and so are other people and that’s kind of the point right?” I hold up my sheet with my finger on and sort of pointing at the last paragraph. “These are our last years in school and stuff so why should it just be all about the popular kids. I want to do stuff differently.”

One on the girls in the cheer squad asks. “But HCQ doesn’t like do a whole lot of student council stuff to like address beefs and like stuff.”

I nod. “I know, but we are elected and from what I can tell we’re supposed to do student council stuff when they have like stuff that HCQ is supposed to do or like did by tradition so I’m going to see about making that a student council position.”

Mark Wright one of the wide receivers says. “That’d be cool instead of just sort of getting like props just for being popular it’d be something that everyone would have to actually do stuff to have it on their like transcript.”

I nod. “Like for one, the HCQ and King and court should be part of all the fundraising for everything in school even if we’re just there being pretty or whatever but we should represent all of the students.”

We actually get into it right there talking about all of this stuff like what we should expect of the homecoming court. And what our role in the student council should be and how we should actually talk to the student council for the school and the faculty for….and like about.

But we actually did all agree on the fundraising and representation idea for the court.

Jen and Cindy meet us at the end of lunch and they’re doing the holding hands thing and they’re with some of the kids from “Queer corner’ and they look like they ended up losing most of their lipstick during the lunch hour and Cindy’s smiling and Jen, Jen actually has this sort of glow that you see people get when they’re like finally happy and it’s actually a new thing.

And even their whole relationship is turning heads because gayness wrecks popularity a lot of the time and then there’s the whole who’s on top or in the case of lesbians who’s “the man” and the fact that they’re both kind of femmes and not a femme and a butch combination is throwing some of those people that are those types that anything and everything that you hear them say is like stereotypes.

Jen grabs a sheet from me. “I’m so going to stuff your box.”

I can’t help it she got soooo many looks that I’m laughing and Alex rolls his eyes. “Oh wow you too?”

She grins. “Heck yeah that’s smart as heck and it’s funny too. People are talking about it ever since she set it up.”

I smile and I drop a bomb. “Well you go ahead and put that in my box but anything else is a no-no even if I’m pretty sure that I’m Bi.”

And it’s the truth too. I mean I’d never cheat on Alex I’m just not that kind of girl but I have looked at girls most of my life in that ooooh yes please way and even figuring stuff out lately I can admit that I spent time doing it to a degree with Jenn and Cindy and the girls on the cheer squad.

And yeah being bisexual is fine, there’s nothing wrong with any of it really.

Despite my brain fog programming and homophobia under years and years of the Stepshit. I think I’ve come a long way.

Mind you with my condition and the way that I was living I’m honestly not sure what my life would have been like if I kept going in that life. I mean I might have been okay, maybe since Mom and he pretty much left me for dead but given all of my complications and the medical stuff.

I might not have made it out of that apartment without the bizarre turn of events that led me to Alex.

I’m Soooo lucky.

Jenn and Cindy and I and some of the others head to the bathroom and touch things up and there is this sort of sense of relief that I never noticed before about being in here and not being different. I mean it really wasn’t a big deal before since there’s no real potty police except for this whole thing about the mirrors and things at the sink and I don’t have a lot to touch up this time around since I’m not really doing my usual look.

I say as watch the others. “Y’know I’m kind of conflicted about the whole new look.”

Cindy says. “I like it, I mean I kind of liked the old stuff too but I like that I can sort of see what you look like.”

“Well it wasn’t that bad.”

Jenn’s doing her eyeliner. “Uh0huh it kinda was and while you were kind of rocking that whole punkette thing it’s something that really stands out here.”

Me. “Well that was kind of like the way that I wanted it.”

Cindy shrugs which does nice things for her and it’s interesting that I catch Jenn watching that and I see her do that whole my girlfriend’s hot smile to herself.

That actually kind of makes me wonder about their sex life.

Seriously…Alex is so good for me like that…or we clicked like that so well that it made a big difference in me getting over the whole drilled in homophobia.

And the longer that I’m with him the better it is. I mean it’s not like Ai worship him or any of that stuff where you put the guy up on the pedestal and all but it’s getting warmer and more comfortable and I am seeing all these little nuanced things that I like about him.

I kinda hope that’s what Jenn and Cindy are doing the same thing.

“My hair freaks me out the most. It sort of looks like my mom’s hair. And that is just kind of really weird for me. I mean I kind of sort of look like her.”

Cindy looks at me. “You could still like dye it a normal color, I mean there’s like different kinds of blonde or you could go red head or brunette even. Just like don’t go like black it’d like wash you out really bad.”

I nod. “I could especially since I don’t have to carpet.”

They both look at me. “Waxed hardwood floors.”

No one gets the joke but us and Cindy laugh snorts and Jenn laughs so hard that she squiggles her eyeliner making a mess.

Yeah this is good, this is what having actual friends is like huh?

And I kinda like just being one of the girls.

I’ve never been one of anything really.

I watch as Cindy comes over to Jenn and does the intimate girlfriend thing where she wipes away the mistake and she takes the eyeliner pen and she fixes the eyeliner applying it in this looking deep into each other’s eyes sexy and sweet and intense way.

I grin as some of the not queer and the queer corner girls both have that sort of semi sigh thing going on. Hey I don’t blame them it is romantic. And I take a picture of that with my phone or five.

I so need a Facebook Page.

And that’s actually funny given just what my life was like. Like I have, I actually have a phone of my own and a laptop. Okay they were given to me by April when I was in the hospital and everything but it just sort of shows just how much a luxury thing having social media is actually.

I mean I know how it works since I’ve seen Alex’s FB sort of skeletal page. Seriously he has stuff there because he was with Jenn it’s like not really there for him. He seriously doesn’t use it.

But I need it for school and the whole HCC thing and I want to like use it like a platform too. I mean one of the things that I have read is that colleges and companies will sometimes ask for your Facebook and social media things so that actually means I can keep that in mind and build a page.

Plus that’s like me actually building a life.

So with that in mind maybe I will like not do the punkette thing so much because I really don’t want to have someone from back home recognizing me and everything.

Though with a swallowed wince of Ow as we’re leaving and I get corner of door grazing my boob that I’m not used to actually having even if they’re like just budding.

Ahem… “Fuck…ow…wow…”

There’s a few nods and knowing chuckles as everyone knows I had a thing and their just coming in and they’re amused by that an awful lot which leads to me giving several rude gestures that earn me an “Arhem! Miss Williams enough of that please!”

I get laughed at and teased all the way to afternoon classes which aren’t so bad just kind of more of the same as before with it being just really nice to go to a school where the rest or at least three quarters of the other kids are kind of centered on the subjects and the teachers aren’t all burned out and everything.

Then it’s afterschool and I’m getting “My box” and taking my sheets and putting them in my backpack and then of course seeing Katherine and her bunch and I’m fanning myself with my sheets which causes narrowed eyes and I can feel her eyes on me all the way to the football field where Alex is having practice and Katherine is well she sits with the “to be seens” because they are the “can be seens” along with some of their friends that are players girlfriends.

They’re doing this whole glare at me group sort of silent shunning and hissy fit and I kind of ignore them and go and I sit down close to the front of the bleachers to watch the guys and the cheerleaders while I take out my binder and put some paper in the clip board thing in the back and I start to read through all of the suggestions and making notes too.

Like who’s funny or joking and stuff because I can use that too and like actually show that I read all of these suggestions and things.

Even some of the stuff might not be a bad idea. Like bathing suit day, I know a guy wrote this but y’know if we like turned it into a fundraiser and in like good weather we might get approval for it as crazy as it sounds.

Actually there’s a lot of good ideas to really here like getting soda and energy drinks out of the vending machines and better stuff instead.

I see a camera flash and I see one of the school paper people I think and they’re taking pictures of me and Katherine and Jenn and Cindy and Alex and I look at him when he turns my way a gain and do a little friendly hand wave and he snaps a picture and I do a few funny faces for him too which he seems to like.

He turns his attention to the others and I stop to watch Alex.

Yeah as much as he’s not into football he is too and he’s good at it, it’s just not all of what he’s about.

But yeah I love the way he looks doing this stuff even…especially when he’s doing that wet hair thing when his helmet comes off.

And when they take a ten minute break for the stuff for the next string or whatever he comes up and he sits with me and I pass him a bottle of water and we kiss some.

And then we sit and talk and he’s looking at my notes…and that’s kind of as a couple cool.