A Little Bit... A Little More. (Huh?)

Type: Chapter 3

I gaped at Tharn, trying to work through my shock, while I rearranged my scattered thoughts to make some sort of sense, all at the same time. I didn't know how to even begin, but I knew I had metaphorically backed myself into a corner by this point. 

"So, you know that I'm in Sports Science, right?" I finally muttered with unsurity lacing my words, trying my hardest to train my gaze at him. I somehow felt like the confession would sound more sincere if I held his gaze. But the more I stared at him, the faster my heart started beating. 

"Yeah. What about it?" He asked as he cocked his eyebrows, pushing himself off the bed to put his feet on the floor and sat facing me. It took everything in me to not jerk back at the suddenness of his movement. Although it wasn't really sudden, it seemed like it was to me because I was a tight ball of nerves at that moment. 

"On the first day, I met Techno." I looked down at his lap and then back up at his eyes. "You know him, don't you?" I asked, still hesitating to broach the topic. I could feel myself trying to delay the main event. 

"Yes, I know Techno," he said with a quizzical look on his face. I was sure he was trying to connect the dots of a puzzle he hadn't received all the pieces to. 

"He asked whom I was rooming with so I mentioned you and he said he knows you," I said, now averting my gaze, trying to muster up the courage to finally tell him what had been plaguing my mind these last few days. 

"What does that have to do with this?" He asked, impatiently. I brought my gaze back to him and took a nervous breath. As I stared at his face, I knew I couldn't get it out if his eyes looked into mine so intensely. I was definitely going to pass out from the shear stress, so I averted my gaze for a second. 

"He told me that… that… you were dating his brother's friend," I finally managed to fumble out in a single breath as I looked back up at him, hoping he understood what I meant without me having to put it into words. 

I saw the expression on his face change from confusion to wonderment to realisation before my eyes. He immediately hardened his expression. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. 

"So, you came to know that I'm gay?" He asked in a voice that I've never heard him speak in. He sounded firm but his voice had an edge of something different that I couldn't quite decipher.

His expression made me panic because that look on his face was exactly why I wanted to avoid having this conversation in the first place. He looked almost angry but his eyes had an edge of sadness in them. Or was it disappointment? I immediately moved closer to him and looked him in the eyes to convince him of the sincerity of the words that were about to spill out of me.

"I'm not against you living a lifestyle like that!" I said, with as much determination I could muster at that moment. 

"But you avoided me for days when you found out," he said, as he looked at me. His eyes were now hard and unreadable. The panic inside me increased by two folds, my mind starting to do mental gymnastics to find a way to explain myself to him. 

"Yeah, that's not because I mind that you're gay. That's because I've never met anyone gay in my entire life and I just didn't know how I was supposed to act around you without inadvertently making you uncomfortable," I said, my voice trailing off in the end as I slowly lost confidence in myself as I rambled through that sentence, hoping he understood that I didn't have a distaste for him or people like him. It was just plain inexperience. 

I looked up at him sadly. His eyes slowly changed to one of bewilderment and then mirth as he laughed. He patted my shoulder which made me jerk away a little, mostly because I was surprised at the outcome. I was definitely not expecting that. I was so sure, till a few seconds ago, that Tharn was going to hate me after this.