Masks 45

*Before…

We’re still going and I miss out on a few things as he’s drinking and reading some hardcover book called Lioness Rampant and Mary Jane nudges me hard.

I look at her. “Huh?”

She and the girls are looking at me and laughing….and it kind of hits what I was doing and I turn red.

Holy cheese I was just checking out a boy.

When the heck did that start to happen?

*And Now…

Okay this sucks, being Steven and being teased because I’m looking at this guy with the weird hair and him just casually getting a bus seat and sitting in it crossways like the cool kids all do but with him it actually looks like he’s cool.

How?

Why?

(Mental Whine.)

And I am getting looks from the girls and there’s sort of those between girls teasing without talking things and I’m halfway between panic and blushing and I was never so glad to see Toni as when she gets on.

Goddess bless my lesbian friend.

Toni is looking at us and she has that look on her face like she knows something’s amiss and she look over the bus and she fixes in on the new guy and she looks at him and then she looks at the girls and then me and she plops down beside me.

“Wow, so it’s bad huh?”

I look at her. “I don’t know…it’s just like he’s and I’m all and he’s and it’s just…”

She nods. “What you’re describing is sort of like what I went through when I came out it was like all the girls I knew and all my like female cousins and stuff was like all. How do you know, it’s not like you were staring at us or you were like perving on us and I was like all eeeew…no…”

I’m looking at her. “Yeah but this isn’t like a gay thing…I don’t think it’s like a gay thing.”

Toni shakes her head. “No it’s like not that but it’s more like this is a cute guy…if you like guys and not just is he cute he’s not anyone you know. You have no associated levels of eeew about him.”

Omigawd that’s true, it’s like true I have never seen him be an asshole or gross or like doing anything that might have me have this whole pre-constructed thing about him in my head off of like stuff I know about the other guys.

The girls are nodding sagely like this was suddenly the most common knowledge in the world.

Toni looks at me. “I had zero clues to me being gay until I ended up going to camp and all of a sudden there were real gay girls around and there was all of these girls that I never really knew at all and there was none of that stuff with like the girls I knew between what I was feeling and it was all of a sudden zoink…whoa…I like girls.”

And I’m like.

“Oh wow my brain just sort of feels like it’s had a gas attack with all of this and now I’m like getting brain Eno and stuff.”

There’s giggles and laughter from the girls and it’s still kind of cool that we’re doing this and that I’m actually sort of semi out here.

I mean my friends all sort of know and the rest of everyone thinks that I’m gay and stuff so it’s like sort of okay.

Well it’s sort of not either since trans does like not equal gay but that’s something that I’m going to get like anyway.

I turn some in my seat to catch like another look at him and to sort of like maybe actually see what I am seeing and reacting too in a closer way and he’s looking up at me over the edge of his book or I think he is and I’m sort of stunned, shocked---caught.

Blush….oh, oh, oh what do I do.

I spin around from looking at him and the girls are all laughing and looking at me and at him and they’re definitely enjoying this took and M.J. is looking now and checking him out and she looks a little longer and she turns back.

“Okay you go good taste he’s a little punk looking and stuff but he kind of looks smart too and he’s sort of cute.”

Toni looks. “Nah he’s still a dude so he’s like not my type at all.”

Amanda says. “I like that he reads.”

Amber’s frowning. “Unless he’s a poser and like trying to act cool.”

That generates a whole other conversation within girldom that I have zero references to and that’s poser guys. Guy that sort of know what girls like in a guy with things like good looking and dressed but not like a trend follower and reads and yet looks like he might be strong and all of these other things that sound actually like cool things that a guy could be and should be and then there’s this whole thing that there’s all sorts of these guys that will just pretend to be those things to go out with a girl to fool her enough into like using her.

“Wait…wait what? Wouldn’t that actually take more energy to like fake than just actually be that kind of person or like change into that kind of guy that you like want to be?”

Oh… apparently I’m right and it is and would be easier and yet guys are choosing not to actually be that “better man” but just still act like it and be douches.

It’s this whole frustration thing that I’m just learning about and apparently now there’s this list of a bunch of guys in school some of them I know and some I’ve only heard off with most of them being older and stuff but that’s apparently part of it too…older guys are like supposed to be more mature but they are still just acting like it and a whole lot of the time it’s like just for sex.

Okay my dad’s cool and I’m actually getting better with The twins but there’s just part of me that is right sort of there in how wrong that bullshit these guys is.

And I’m not saying too much because it’s like really super new to me and stuff.

Yes I say and stuff and like a lot, I’m a teenager so SBNS.

The best thing about this though is the fact that I’m being treated like one of the girls about this whole new topic and I’m not really being left out but instead I’m sort of on that part of it all but sort of on the rim with it like Toni is and that’s okay.

But Rachel and M.J. and some of the other girls have really, really met some like really bad dudes, guys…boys…no creeps.

It’s good but I still really, really want to be me with this whole like bonding moment.

We’re pulling into school and we get off the bus and we’re heading to our usual things we got to do before class and the girls nudge me and the guy’s right behind me and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and he’s passing me my wallet.

“Hey you dropped this miss.”

Miss.

Miss!

Like really for real!?

I take it from him really gingerly and slow and put it in my book bag and he smiles at me some. “So which way to the office?”

Toni pushes me a little. “They’ll show you….?”

“Greyson.”

Oh…okay, that’s just.

He does the whole after you arm thing and I swallow and go leading him to the office my head still really after the whole miss thing and we just clear our first hall when I hear Elizabitch say.

“Miss!? Dude’s not a girl he’s a faggot! You might want to ask someone else?”

Greyson looks at her and he stops and lifts his foot and stares at the bottom of his shoe. “Wow…that was so hate filled and small minded and bigoted that I actually felt like I stepped in something.”

He’s staring at her with this unmasked look of contempt and Elizabeth looks shocked like someone slapped her.

He moves and looks at me. “I’m not putting you out of your way am I?”

I swallow. “Uhm…no…no this really, really isn’t that big a deal.”

He smiles and I feel it.

Like the whole butterflies thing from those guys and stuff that happened at the rink that time.

And I feel breathless too.

I blush and that actually makes him smile more and I look down and cough before looking back up at him.

“Okay it’s like this way.”

“Cool.”

Yep…he kinda is.

He called me miss.

And he hasn’t like apologized for it or anything either.

I don’t know what to do about that or say but…

Maybe, maybe I don’t want to.

I kind of want to like bask in this…just for a while please?