The Gay Gatsby

Chapter 2: Sex, Satan and Homosexuality

Chapter 2: Sex, Satan and Homosexuality

"I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Chance

When I finally got back to Aly's house, I could hardly feel my feet; my sneakers were waterlogged due to the slushy weather.

I slowly knocked on the door with my freezing hands and waited impatiently for an answer.

After a few seconds, the door slammed open and I was met with a beaming Aly. I smiled back as I handed over her coffee and stepped into the house already untying my shoes.

As I looked back up, I saw her smile slowly fade as she took a sip of the coffee.

Oh no.

"I asked for a vanilla coffee not a hazelnut and I don't know if you know this but Coffee is supposed to be hot," She spoke bitterly as she stepped over to the trash and threw her coffee out.

I scowled at her, not with anger, but with disappointment at her obliviousness.

"I had to walk there, if you hadn't noticed," I sighed, brushing my hands through my hair.

"Really?" She said, surprised.

I looked at her in tired exasperation and to my terror, she started to tear up.

She was actually crying about my coffee mess up.

My day just kept getting worse.

I was about to question her sanity and offer to accompany her to the nearest psychologist but before I could speak, things took an unsettling turn.

"I'm so sorry, Chance! I just thought you've been cheating on me because you took so long and I had no idea you had to walk in this weather, " Aly was now pacing in circles around the small expanse of her living room as I gawked at her from my place in the doorway. "I would have driven you if I had known and I'm just really sorry I got mad at you. Forgive me, please?" She pleaded as she looked up at me and sniffled.

I couldn't stay mad at her; sure, she was a tad annoying, but she looked like a baby animal with her round face and big brown eyes.

I spared a look at her and my eyes were met with her deeply apologetic expression.

" Of course," I murmured reluctantly, as she swung her arms around me.

I was about to stop her, but I quickly realized that, as her boyfriend, I should be able to supply Aly with a simple hug after her moment of distress.

So I allowed Aly to do as she pleased and in the process, I received a face full of her hair and the familiar feeling of being punched in the stomach.

When I had first started dating Aly, this sense of burning pain in my gut was a disconcerting and surprising; I had no idea what it was and what it had originated from.

Though now, weeks later, this internal wrenching feeling was all too achingly familiar within my mind; it was the feeling of guilt.

This intense sense of guilt stemming from the severity of one momentous fact;

I didn't like Aly in a romantic way.

She was my best friend, nothing more. This "relationship" had happened accidentally and almost completely without my consent.

A month earlier

Aly and I were sitting on the floor of my living room studying for one of our upcoming tests. We were surrounded by a whirlwind of binders and papers, with Aly and I in the middle of the storm.