Masks 46

*Before…

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?

*And Now…

I get Greyson to the office and introduce him to the clerk there. She’s not really a secretary even though it’s like sort of the job but really I’m pretty sure that kind of stuff got changed because she was like running the office.

He looks at me and I look at him and it’s just.

Then he smiles. “See you around?”

“Uhm yeah sure okay.”

I feel sooo tongue tied.

And it’s really embarrassing.

I leave and I move to catch up with the girls before class and I don’t really make it because they’re in the girls bathroom and I’m…wow…just wow this sucks really, really hard.

I want to be in there with them and talking about Greyson and stuff but the bell is ringing and I end up having to go to homeroom and that’s just great because things with missing them and out on that one little thing just.

I feel that lead weight settling on and over me.

The one saving few seconds happen when M.J. comes over and she gives me this concerned look and she slips in beside me.

“You okay? I heard what Elizabitch said.”

“Yeah…it’s…it’s not that.”

“What’s up then? You kinda look pretty bad.”

I look at her and look around and it’s sort of not really safe because well Mary Jane is super good looking and people stare at her and at the same time in class like this and like closed quarters people can like overhear things.

“Just…stuff, missed you girls before the bell.”

I sit down and she does too and she’s giving me a worried look all the way through morning start up and stuff.

Right now even “in all our sons command” in O’ Canada just stings and I actually usually like our national anthem.

Then we’re off to classes.

I’d like to say that lots of stuff happened and all of that but they just kinda went past in an achy blur of dysphoria until break that actually stings again when the bell rings and there’s the rush for ten o’clock break and of course there’s the girls going to use the bathroom.

I’m right on the edge of that left out drop off again when a hand appears in front of me with a folded over set of napkins and cookies with nuts and white chocolate chips in them and I look and it’s Greyson.

“Careful they’re hot.”

Blush.

I take them and they are hot and I see him looking at me and I’m looking at him and it’s just.

Well I don’t know what it is but it’s very, very…I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like he’s one of the guys that I know.

This feels way more girl and boy.

I take a bite out of one of the cookies and it tastes like the whole brown sugar based chocolate chip cookie dough mix but white chocolate chips and then there’s the whole nuts in it and they’re actually these white, white nuts that are in pieces about the size of hazelnuts but are like totally different.

“Mmm…what are these?” They’re really good too and he microwaved them or something because they’re warm.

I’m actually headed still into the cafeteria because the girls will be there and well there’s coffee too.

“White chocolate and macadamia nut.”

“Ohhhh I’ve heard of these, they’re like Pepperidge farms or something?”

He shrugs. “My mom gets them at Cost Co. in big containers.”

“Well they’re quite yummy.”

I blush.

Holy moley I’m still in guy mode and I said yummy.

But he just nods and actually opens the door for me as we come into the cafeteria. I mean it’s not like he did this whole sweeping grand guy gesture of doing it but he still did it and I’m blushing even more and he really doesn’t seem to like notice or something?

I see the girls and they’re looking at me and they look at him and they almost wave us over.

Oh my goddess I can see their eyes lighting up and the wheels of Barbie’s corvette starting to turn.

He looks at me and them and then at me and he shrugs and he heads over to get one of the tables and stuff and I get my thermos and go with him and I hear Toni squeak “the coffee!” and I sit with him and we’re sort of getting a few looks and it’s mostly because he’s the new guy and then again there’s also the rumors about me being gay.

I think he’s getting painted with it because of me.

“Uhm…Garrison?”

“Mmmph?” he says way too cutely through a mouthful of cookie.

“You know a lot of people here think I’m gay.”

“Are you?”

“No…I don’t know…I mean that’s like a really complicated question.”

He nods. “Soooo true.”

I look at him questioningly.

He looks at me and he shrugs. “I’m not like thick.”

“Oh I never meant that and stuff, it’s just.”

“It’s just we’re getting all sorts of looks and stuff and you’re actually a nice person unlike the girl over there that’s staring daggers at you.” He pauses… “Is she drinking Starbucks?”

“Likely, her folks are well off and that sort of well of that apparently doesn’t come with the lessons of how to like not rub what you have in the faces of other people.”

He nods. “Knew some kids like that, they were all sort of like their parent all these fake people living in like there nice big subdivision houses that honestly they couldn’t really afford and running like super bills so like when the parents weren’t like away they were spending cash to like keep up with each other.”

“Yuck.”

He passes me another cookie and I pass him a coffee and there’s a whine from Toni and she’s getting shoves from Mary Jane and the other girls.

He looks at them then at me. “They can like join us right they know that?”

“They think something cute is going on so they’d like rather die than bust in right now.”

He has this smile. “So should we go over to them then and put your coffee jonesing friend out of her misery?”

“Oh yeah that’s Toni she’s pretty great.”

“She looks pretty different. “ He says very diplomatically. Toni is very Lolita dressing in that sort of anime styled way and it’s really different and if she was a white girl she might get a lot of flak for it but we’re pretty white here and she’s a black girl and there’s not a whole lot of people of color here that aren’t like Korean or Hindu or Pakistani in the area and there’s a few natives but we’re not really one of those towns that has a black community.

And because of that people don’t know how to treat Toni in being like racist of something.

Now here getting flack because she’s a lesbian is like a totally different story.

We are possessed of just enough assbutts like Elizabitch that we have homophobe pretty much down.

I smile at him. “You know if you feed her coffee you’re going to get claimed by her in some way.”

He grins. “Oh I think I can deal with that.”

I shrug and get up. “Okay…you want to meet my friends; you get to meet my friends. On your head be it.”

I lead the way with him laughing behind me. “Oh I’m going to like you girls.”

You…girls…was that including me?

Was he?

How?

Does he know?

Does he see through this mask that I’m wearing?

Are there people that can do that?