Just Be Yourself

Just Be Yourself
I lay awake at night, knowing something is wrong. The full moon is shining down on my bed. My black flannel sheets covering half of my long semi-tan legs. I think to myself, Ben what is the matter with you? You have so many friends, your beautiful girlfriend Stella. What more do you want? The answer is to be myself. I just want to be, well I want to be me. However I just know something is wrong here. I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. Truth is, I do not belong with Stella, because of her gender. I, Ben Smith, am gay. Nobody knows the truth, I do not want them to know.
As I walk into school on a bright shiny Friday morning, I am greeted by Sarah and Cody. They are the best friends anyone could ask for. Sarah has been here for me since kindergarten. Cody moved here to Wheeling Illinois at the beginning of High School. Sarah walks up to me with a warm greeting smile.
“Good morning Ben,” she says while embracing me in a tight hug. As I hug her back I do not smile, because I know what I have to tell her and Cody later today, after school of course. Too much drama in school as it is.
Cody just looks at me weirdly, “Dude is something wrong?”
I shake my head “No. I’m fine,” I lied. When Stella shows up, I have to act like nothing is wrong. So I smile at her, kiss her quickly, and walk her to class.
“How did you sleep last night Hun?” Stella says while gently grabbing my hand.
“Like a rock” Another lie. We walk the rest of the way to class in complete silence. After we get to her Algebra class, I walk to science alone. Getting the occasional head nod from some of my peers.
When the school day is finally over, I say Good-Bye to Stella, than walk back to my house with Sarah and Cody. Walking in the door, I slide my book bag off my shoulder on to the floor. Slide my black Vans off my feet; get a Pure Life bottle of water. I toss two bottles at Cody playfully for him and Sarah.
He catches them both even though he wasn’t expecting them to be thrown at him.
“Thanks dude”, Cody replied sarcastically.
“Thank you Ben”, Sarah said happily. Why can’t I be so happy with who I am as Sarah is with just about everything? I just nod to them and chuckle a little. Cody is sprawled out on the couch, with his right leg on the top of it, his left leg on the arm of the couch, and he has his head resting on his crossed arms. While me and Sarah are sitting on the floor, watching The Big Bang Theory. They are watching it, while I sit there thinking when would be a good time to tell them about my true self. When I cough, they both jump and look at me.
“Um.. I have something I uh.. need to tell you two” I say hesitantly.
“Ben you know you can talk to us about anything,” Sarah said while turning to face me.
Cody sits straight up with his elbows on his legs, “She’s right, anything.”
“Well I’ve been feeling like something is wrong with me, like I don’t belong. Being with Anna just makes it all worse. I look at her and I don’t feel attracted to her, or with any girl for that matter,” I take a deep breath and get ready to tell them the truth. “Sarah, Cody, there is a reason I’m not attracted to girls. That reason is…” There was a long awkward silence. “well the reason is that I, Ben Smith, am gay.” After I finish telling them, I realize I was clutching onto my legs as hard as I could. Only to be embraced in a hug by Sarah, and Cody reassuringly squeezing my shoulder.
“There is honestly nothing wrong with being gay, Ben,” Sarah whispers into my shoulder while hugging me.
“Once again, Sarah is right. Now dude, you know what you have to do now don’t you?” Cody says while looking down at me.
When I realize what he was talking about, I just groan. “I have to tell Stella don’t I?” While avoiding eye contact, I know they both nodded in response.
“I can’t just act straight, and not tell her?” Okay, I have to admit that was the wrong thing to say, but I meant it. Not telling Stella would be wrong.
“Now Ben, You know that is just selfish. Not telling her would be like using her just to cover up your true self, your gay true self. You don’t have to tell everyone at school, just Stella”
I just groan again, and mumble, “Ugh. Why do you always have to be right?”
Cody chuckles a little, “She’s a girl, a girl that’s always right” he says smiling at her. He doesn’t want anyone to know, but Cody has liked Sarah since the begging of high school when he moved here. It’s kind of obvious if you ask me.
I just nod, acting like I didn’t see his smile to her, “So when should I tell her?”
“How about right now, we could walk to her house.” Cody’s ‘smart’ idea that Sarah agrees with.
The three of us put our shoes on and walk out my front door into the warm fall breeze. Not wanting to go, I walk slowly behind the two of them. Sadly, for me, Stella only lives right down the street from my house. When we finally get to her house, Sarah basically pushes me to the front door, and knocks for me. Even though I love Sarah and Cody, at this moment I utterly hate them for making me do this.
A few moments later Stella answers the door with a bright smile on her pale face, her long, straight black hair was pulled into a lose pony tail. When she realized it was me at the door, she quickly pulled it out and fixed her hair. She always thinks she has to look perfect for me, I don’t know why. Stella finished fixing her hair and let the three of us into her house.
“What a wonderful surprise to find you three on my front step” Stella says smiling.
“Uh, yeah” I say as I am sitting down on her couch. Sarah sits down next to me and Cody in a chair across the room.
“Okay… Would anyone like a drink?” Stella says while walking into the room.
“No” the three of us replied at the same time.
“You guys are scaring me. What’s wrong?” She says while sitting down next to me and grabbing my hand.
I stare at our hands, “Stella I need to tell you something.”
“Okay Hun, what is it?” She replies quickly,
“Stella, I think. I think I might be gay,” softly saying it, hoping to God that she didn’t hear me.
Her only reply was dropping my hand and walking out of the room for a minute.
“Well that went well,” another sarcastic remark by Cody.
Stella walks back into the room with fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, “Get. Out. Of. My. House!” Saying each word as a sentence, Stella is pointing at the door. “It’s over Ben!”
Nobody says anything else says another word, and me, Sarah, and Cody walk out of the house, back into the warm fall breeze.
“It was for the best, Ben. She knows the truth now. And no one is being used.” Sarah says, laying her head on my shoulder as we walk.
“Yeah well I just lost the best thing that ever happened to me.” I fell like going home, locking myself in my room, and crying myself to sleep. With that remark, no one said another word the rest of the way home.
At school the next day, everyone was staring at me. Apparently Stella told people I was gay, and the word got around to the whole school. I shall now be hated by all.
Cory, the school bully, walks up to me, grabs the collar of my shirt, flings me against the row of lockers, and pinned me there. “Hello Homo. So.. Did you enjoy breaking Stella’s heart? Was it over another dude?! Huh?!” Before I could answer, I was punched extremely hard in the face. When he let me go I just ran out of the school and straight home. As I was walking I was swearing to myself that I would never go back.
When I got home, I was happily alone in my three bedroom house. I ran up the stairs, and into my Brother Matt’s room. He always has a hidden stash of drugs in his pillow. So I run and jump on his bed, pull off the pillow cover, and take a few pills out of the baggy. With a determined look on my face, I stand up and walk to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. As I toss the pills in my mouth, I think to myself, I hope you know what you are doing. These things are addictive. I push those thoughts out of my head and swallow the pills down with the water.
When the pills kick in, I don’t even notice my mom storming in the back door with a worried look on her face. “Ben what was the call I got from your school today all about?! They said you were hit and just ran out of school! You shouldn’t have ran away, but go to your consular instead.”
For no reason at all, I start laughing uncontrollably.
“Are you high?!” she runs over to me and looks me in the eye. “Ben how could you?”
After a few more days of bullying and drug taking, Sarah and Cody never leave my side, like all my other friends and Stella did. No matter how much they hate seeing me like this, they refuse to leave me. So far, I have been beaten every day before, during, and after school; generally by Cory and his friends. However, I’m not only physically beaten, but also emotionally to. That would be by Stella. Don’t get me wrong, I still have feelings for her, but not like boyfriend girlfriend feelings.
“Ben you need to stop taking those pills” Sarah says while we are walking to class. “Its ruining your life”
“But it’s the only thing to make the pain stop.”
“There has to be something else”
“I’ve tried everything. The drugs are the only thing.”
“Have you tried writing out your feelings? Talking to someone close to you? Talk to Stella! She always made you feel better/”
“Stella hates me. She never wants to see me again.”
“Now you know that’s not true.”
“Yes I do!” I stop walking and look at her for a few moments. She just stares at me not saying anything, so I just walk to class alone.
On my way to class, I realize that not as many people are giving me dirty looks, and trying to kill me basically. I guess the problem with me being gay doesn’t matter as much to people as it did a few days ago. When I turn back to see if Sarah was still standing there, I notice her talking to Stella with a worried look on her face. I knew Sarah was asking her to talk to me, but by Stella’s reaction, I didn’t think she would.
That was until I saw her turn away from Sarah and walk towards me. When she reaches me, she throws her arms around my neck for a hug. I hug her back by putting my arms around her waist. She lets go and looks at me with her beautiful face twisted into a worried expression.
“Ben you have to stop all this. Nothing is wrong with being who you are. So many people have forgotten this whole thing, now it’s your turn to forget it.”
“Stella if it’s not a big deal being gay, then why do you hate me? I told you hoping we could still be friends. Not to lose you.”
“I do not hate you. It was just the shock of it was scary. I thought I hated you. Then I see you walking these halls and I want to run up to you and hug you and apologize like crazy. So here it goes. I’m so sorry Ben.”
“And I’m sorry Stella, for putting you through all this pain. So for you and only you, I will stop the drugs”
When she finally let me go, I started to head back to class. Only to see Cory and Nick walking my way, the two people who have been bullying him the most. They had a rude look on their face, I knew what was about to happen.
“Hey freak!” Nick called out as he was walking down the hall. Instinctively, I would have walked the other way, but I stood my ground and waited for them to approach, mocking their facial expressions. When they reached their destination, they violently shoved me against the wall and held me there.
I slowly turned my head to the right just in time to see Sarah and Cody fast walking towards me and my enemies. Nick saw them both walking to him, his response was a chuckle and slammed me against the wall and let me go. As I watched the closing space between them, all I could think was “Oh god oh god oh god!”
Nick had a irritated look on his face “What the hell do you two want?”
“For you to leave our friend alone,” Sarah says while she storms up to Nick, getting right in his face, and pushes him away.
Nick pushes Sarah back, and that’s where Cody comes into this.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Pushing a girl like that!” He says while grabbing Nicks collar and pushing up against the wall. “I’ll give you two choices. One, leave Ben alone and walk away painless. Or you could touch him again and get your ass kicked.” He slams Nick against the wall one last time, “What’s it going to be?!”
“Just let me go! I’ll leave him alone. I.. I promise.”
Cody lets go of Nick’s collar, and he flees down the hall.
That was the last problem anyone has given me about being gay. I now have everything I could ever want, my two best friends, Sarah and Cody, Stella back in my life, and just being able to be myself, Ben Smith. And I now know, it is okay to be gay.