[A young adult retelling of Cinderella - LGBT]
What begins as a failed date in a tea shop leads Jay to find his fairy Godmother, the one who could make love finally come his way.
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Jay struggles with being out of the closet to his friends but getti...
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Can your lips get a burn just from the warmth of your own breath?
I wonder as I stand here, glancing towards the living room, feeling my heart ticking under my shirt. I decide that my hands have been wobbling on the wooden balustrade for long enough. I'm going down these stairs.
It would help if my mom, Lia, kept her voice down. Her acute tone resounds from the kitchen and travels all the way up to the top of the stairs where I'm standing.
Not even Mrs. Albert from 8th grade -whose hoarse voice used to echo two classrooms away from where she was teaching-was known to be this loud.
I'm not sure if Lia is trying to teach basic math to Soni or if she wants to wake up the entire neighborhood. Maybe summon the spirits?
I take a deep breath for the third time and wrap my knuckles into a fist to squeeze some courage out of my system.
Okay, Jay, the plan is simple : I go down these stairs, like nothing is happening, then find a way to leave the house while Lia is not looking.
Whenever she isn't busy flipping through pages of newspapers in search of a job, the only two things mom can award her attention to are Soni and the TV. Why would she notice me now?
Well, I'm grounded. That's why. All because I was stupid enough not to take off the clippy earring I wore at the party of the school's basketball team last Friday night.
It's ridiculous when you consider that I refused every offer to drink alcohol, thinking that my breath would be what Lia would inspect when I got home.
That night, when she slammed the door of my room behind her, I swore I would never speak to her again. A bit too loud, I have to admit.
She understood soon enough and is giving me the same silent treatment now:
no waking me up in the morning if I'm late to school anymore,
no calling me for dinner at night,
nor asking me about my grades.
Great!
It's been a week she didn't come near my room and we're even getting used to taking turns at talking to Soni during dinner, as awkward as it was at first.
Sometimes I feel bad for my little sister Soni. But my mom. . . I think I'm starting to hate her.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and can't help biting my lower lip as I read Jord's text from that afternoon. It was still hard to believe he had asked me on a date. Just the two of us at the Sweet-T tonight.
Jord caught me off guard when he complimented my earring at the party last week. That alone couldn't get my hopes up, but after a sip of beer he asked if I was into guys.
I should have put two and two together then, but I opted to mutter an uninterested 'yeah'.
I didn't want it to be too obvious that I wanted to kiss him every time I heard his Nike shoes squeaking on the hallways of the school. His dimples cornered his big smile, and there was always a ball, trapped between his arm and his waist. Such a natural, like he was born doing that.
