Kaleidoscope (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

Out

Nick had walked Charlie to his house and kissed him goodbye. Now he was in the door of his house, bending to pet Nellie, calling out "I'm home!" to his mum.

She was in the kitchen with her tablet. When he came in, she looked up, beaming when she saw his face. "You look very smiley. Have you had a good day?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was really good."

He went to the kettle to make a cup of tea. While he was fixing it, he thought that this was probably the time. He'd had a good day with Charlie, he'd told Charlie they were going to be open with the people who mattered, and no one mattered more to Nick than his mum. He wished he was less nervous about it. He trusted her, he did, but this was going to be ... unexpected. Surprising. And he wasn't entirely sure how she would react. Still—she deserved to know. He wanted her to know.

Nick took his mug over to the table and sat down next to her. "Mum."

"Mmm?"

"You know Charlie's like, my best friend."

She looked up. "If you're going to ask if he can come on our Menorca holiday this year, the answer is no, because I've already bought the tickets."

Nick would have loved that, but he doubted Charlie's parents would have been okay with it anyway. "No, that's, um, that's not what I was going to say."

His mum looked at him questioningly.

He felt that same build-up of the words, not knowing which ones to reach for first. But he had to stop letting that keep him from being honest with the people he cared about. Looking at his mum's face, he just said it. "He's my boyfriend. Charlie's ... my boyfriend."

She didn't say anything, but a faint smile crossed her face, and that gave Nick the courage to keep going. "I ... I still like girls, but, um—" He searched for the words. "I like boys, too. And—and me and Charlie, we're— We're going out." Those were such small words for everything Charlie was to him, everything he felt when they were together. He smiled at his mum a little, glad he could share this with her at last. His throat was tight. Even as much as he loved and trusted her, it had been so hard to say. "And I just—wanted you to know."

Her eyes were filled with tears. "Oh, baby." She reached for him, hugging him tightly. "Oh. Aw, thank you for telling me. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn't tell me that."

Nick held on to her, near tears himself, so glad that he had finally worked up the courage, so grateful that she didn't think differently of him now that he was ... not what she had expected him to be.

She let go, sitting back. "You don't have to say you like girls if you don't."

"No. I, um ... It's definitely not just guys. I, um ... It's called bisexuality. If you've heard of that?"

"I have heard of that. I wasn't born in the eighteenth century." They both laughed. "How long have you known?"

"Well, um ..." He reached up and wiped away a tear before it could roll down his cheek. "Me and Charlie started going out a couple months ago, but ... I started liking him way before that." Looking back on it now, Nick could believe that it had truly started the moment they said "hi", that first morning in form.

His mum reached to hug him again. "Oh, I love you."

Nick rested his head on her shoulder, feeling so glad to be able to be honest with her. "I love you, too."

She sat back again. "Do you mind if I ask questions?"

"No. No, I don't think so."

"So the fight with Harry, was that about this?"

"Sort of. I mean, Harry doesn't know about me and Charlie, but everyone knows Charlie's gay, and Harry was hassling him about it, and then—then Charlie had to lie about us, because I wasn't out." He winced, hating to think of it even now.

"Did he mind that?"

"He said not. He never pressured me, always said I should take my time. But I felt so guilty, you know? I was so afraid that people would look at me differently. I don't know why."

"Change is hard, Nicky. Especially when the thing changing is how you look at yourself."

"Yeah. And I just didn't know—I mean, I knew how I felt about Charlie, or, well, I learnt it, but I also still felt like I liked girls, and that was so ... confusing, you know?"

She nodded.

Nick laughed. "It was Will Turner that did it. When I realised that I liked both Elizabeth Swann and Will, everything suddenly started making sense."

His mum laughed, too. "Those are good choices."

"Anyway, I started feeling better after that, but then Tara came out—she's our friend, and she's a lesbian—and it was so hard on her, because people kept saying stuff." He shook his head. "I don't know why I cared about people saying stuff, really."

"Tara Jones? Didn't you kiss her once?"

"Yes, at a party, years ago."

"I remember. You came home walking on clouds because you had kissed a girl."

Nick chuckled. "I remember that, too. Unfortunately, Tara tells me that was the moment she realised she didn't like guys, so it's a good thing I got over her. She and her girlfriend Darcy, I think they're going to be good friends of mine from now on."

His mum smiled at him. "So. You have a boyfriend, you have new friends ... You've had a good term, it seems."

"Well, not all of it."

"No. But no one gets to be happy all the time, Nicky. There's always something. If in the midst of it, you can find people you care about, that's very lucky."

He nodded. "It is."

"Well. I think this calls for a celebratory dinner. Let's go out, shall we? Anywhere you want."

"Sounds good. Let me just go change—I'm all covered in sand."

"Good idea. I'll let the dog out while you do that."

He had reached the hall when his mother called after him, "And, Nicky?"

"Yeah?"

"From now on, leave the door open when Charlie comes over."

He laughed. "Yes, Mum."