Complexes // KELLIC

35

I was beginning to really hate Monday mornings. With every Saturday night recently having something go wrong, Monday was always the day where the fallout happened. I was continuously finding myself worried for what the day would bring, and today was no exception, in fact today was worse.

Yesterday I had been too scared to go outside or even do as much as check my phone. Vic kept reassuring me that everything would be fine and that no one would even really care about what I did on Saturday night. I was skeptical of that though. People were, and still are, horrible to Vic because of who he is. Who's to say the hate would stop with me? No one. I could just feel it. Or maybe I was paranoid.

"Come on or we're going to be late for class," Vic said as he tugged at my hand.

"Do I have to?" I asked as I begrudgingly stood up from my bed, "I don't want to."

"The longer you leave it, the worse it'll be. Trust me, no one is gonna care," he said.

He made me leave the room even though I really didn't want to, and I walked by his side down the hall.

"Did you know I went to the bathrooms this morning and three guys walked out?" I asked.

"Well, maybe they were just done and wanted to leave," he said with a casual shrug. He glanced at me, seeing my 'you're joking, right?' look and sighed.

"Or maybe they're total assholes. Who cares what anyone thinks?" he said as he pulled me into the empty elevator.

"I don't know how you don't let this get to you," I pouted.

"Years of practice, sweetie," he said.

He wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me in for a peck on the lips. I held his hips and pulled him closer, knowing that this would be the last time until this afternoon that I could act natural around him. Sure, I had publicly admitted that I'm with Vic, but it still felt weird being affectionate around other people.

"A guy dating a guy isn't the end of the world. Millions of people do it," he said.

I knew he was right. I just had trouble blocking it all from my mind. The elevator doors opened and I pulled away from Vic to walk out. Outside it looked like it was a busy morning, or maybe my mind was tricking me into thinking it was busy.

"Look, no one's even looking at you," he said, gesturing to the people walking past.

I nodded cautiously. He was right. This was fine. I was still freaking out on the inside because this was my first time amongst the general student population, but this was okay so far.

As we walked towards our class's building, Vic took my hand, and I let him. We could actually do this now, even though it filled me with anxiety. On the way to class I wondered what the people around me were thinking. I did get a few looks from people, but their expressions wouldn't give anything away. Do they think this is wrong? I knew it wasn't wrong to love Vic, but for some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop caring about what other people thought. These thoughts kept going around and around in my head. It was so easy to say 'who cares? Just forget about them', but when you're actually thrown into this situation, it wasn't that easy.

We got to the classroom and I pushed the door open. We were a little late and class had already started. The second we were in the room, all eyes were on the two of us. I dropped Vic' hand. I didn't feel comfortable being on display to these people.

"They're only looking because we're late," Vic whispered.

Professor Merrick, who had momentarily stopped talking as we entered the room, started talking again and the class turned their attention back to him. Once again, Vic was right.