Passion

Chapter 8

     I despised Mark's hair.

     As the days passed, Mark and I had gotten a lot closer than when we first met. When doing a bit of reading, however, I turned to him to ask a question and just froze. His hair. It looms over his actual face. But goes back into his hair. I pointed it out, but he just laughed and started messing with it. Mr. Kilcup scolded us for talking but I was just too annoyed to care.

     For the duration of class I kept glancing at his hair, disgusted at the hairstyle, and surprised he could pull it off. Eventually I processed that this is his actual hairstyle even though it sucks and forgot about it for the most part as the day went by.

     Our school wasn't too bad. It had a great curriculum, good teachers, and the mindset was always to inspire learning. One of the problems I had with the school, though, was the incredibly tiny hallways. It took at least three of the five minutes just to get through the traffic in the first hallway, so many students were often late for class. Because of that, the detention room was never empty. I'd landed myself in there a few times, though it was usually for making snide remarks to teachers (specifically Mr. Liles, the music teacher everyone hates) or for participating in Ben, Landon, and Sam's antics.

     Landon was really outgoing, he could befriend anyone if he tried, but liked to stick with his normal group. Because of that, the people who actually wanted to take the time to become friends with him stuck around while the others backed off. It was surprising, though: he usually let people come to him, but he reached out to me when I was alone, before I met Ally and Zoe. Though I had declined his offer to officially join the group, we were still good friends.

     Sam was the ultimate pun master, making god awful puns in almost every sentence. He was a decent guy, basically a walking stale meme. He was slightly obnoxious, and could get really overwhelming sometimes, but catch him on a good day and he was probably as pleasant as Landon. The others usually notified me when this happened, since they know I was overwhelmed easily. Those were the days when I hung out with them at lunch, since Ally had her own group of friends that I didn't exactly like. Sam and I had something going with pun wars, as we were both pun masters.

      Benjamin.

     Benjamin.

     He seemed like the typical bad boy when you saw him, and was slightly (very) terrifying, which was apparently what makes him so hot (according to half the girls I've talked to (A.K.A Ally)). When you got to know him though, he became at least five times hotter. He was hilarious, and gorgeous, and he s k a t e d. We'd gone to multiple public sessions together, and he was pretty good. His strong point was jumping, since he had strong legs from gymnastics.

     Oh yeah, he did gymnastics. Even straight guys would be lying if they said they never crushed on this guy. He was a gorgeous (and still very terrifying) human being, and a nice person on the inside, despite his nearly constant state of having a pink slip in his binder.

     Needless to say, he was obviously my current crush.

     I never exactly thought about my sexuality until I was about 12. I simply just didn't think it was strange or out of the ordinary to crush on guys and girls, mostly because the topic never came up in my family. As time went on though, and I learned more about the LGBTQ+ community, I learned about there being a real 'problem' with queers in society. Needless to say, I was kind of glad the subject never came up when I was around, so no one ever found out. I learned that I was pansexual, mostly because I wouldn't judge a person (especially on gender identity) on something that doesn't involve their personality. (🎶This is meeeeeeee🎶)