Today I Met The Girl I'm Going To Marry | jensoo

Chapter 24

My stomach tightens and even though I want to look at Jennie as I'm telling her my story, I just can't. I cast my eyes on the blue water of the pool and I don't hear anything else but the thumping of my heart.

I'm nervous.

I'm nervous and scared.

Opening up is hard, especially when I've kept this in for so long.

I know it's the right thing to do, but just because I know that doesn't make it any less difficult.

I'm not going to change my mind though, I need to do this, not only for a possibility at a future with Jennie but for myself as well.

I can't have what happened with Soojoo weighing me down any longer. I thought I had moved on but I haven't. It's time to face my past so I can release the hold it has on me.

I pick a spot in the water to concentrate on and then I begin.

"I met her the first day of my junior year." I literally ran into her and sent both of us sprawling to the ground. I apologized profusely and she accepted my apology by giving me a dazzling smile. I was enamored by her immediately so I offered to show her around seeing as she had just transferred to our school. She was an army brat and had moved around so much that she had been held back a year. So even though she was a year older than me I was overjoyed to find out we had a lot of the same classes together. "We hit it off and it wasn't long before I was hanging around her all the time."

I don't have to be looking at Jennie to know I have her full attention. I can feel her eyes on me and I can also feel an intensity radiating from her that urges me on.

"A couple of weeks after we first met we were studying in my room and I was struggling to come to terms with what I was feeling for her. I knew it went beyond friendship but at the same time I wasn't ready to admit that I was attracted to her." Despite the pain that Soojoo caused me, I can't help but smile as I recall what happened that day.

I'm lying on my stomach beside Soojoo and I'm trying to do my math homework. I'm not getting anything done though because we're lying very close together and I'm so distracted.

I've dated a few guys but none of them have made me feel even remotely close to what Soojoo does. She makes my stomach flip flop every time we touch. When she laughs, it makes me warm all over and once when we fell asleep after a late night of gabbing and I woke up snuggled up beside her, I wanted to stay that way for as long as possible.

"What did you get for number five?" Soojoo asks as she chews on the back end of her pencil.

I can't tear my eyes away from her lips, I want them on my own lips so badly and I'm scared of what that means.

Am I gay?

That's the question that's been running through my head for the last week non-stop.

Or am I confused?

Deep down I know the answer, I've know it for quite some time but I'm terrified of what being gay means.

I don't want to be different, nobody in high school really does. I don't want to stick out from the crowd, I want to be normal and so many people view homosexuality as anything but normal.

I've never gotten that message from my parents but from the outside world that message is screamed at you in so many different ways.

I get that I don't really have a choice in the matter, I can't help who I have feelings for. It still doesn't stop me from wishing I was like everybody else.

Even if I'm brave enough to admit who I really am, I don't have a clue if Soojoo would return my feelings. We've stayed clear of discussing relationships and I'm terrified that if I share this big secret with her, I'll lose her friendship.