The Queerest [🗸]

thoughts, realizations, and coming outs

in regard to the comments from last chapter PLS weston did not out damien n soren 😭😭😭

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"What the fuck happened at school today?"

From where I'm leaning back against my mattress, my eyes flick upwards to the doorway of my room, Santiago Cortez barging through at ten miles an hour. My brother's hair flows behind him as he holds his phone up in the air, an image glaring back at me.

I've been incapable of really doing anything within the past twenty-four hours. I can't eat, can't fucking sleep with my insomnia coming to tug at me after months of being capable of sleeping.

Nothing makes sense, nothing has made sense, so when Santi asks me this very directed question, blue eyes wide and hand moving his cracked phone screen in the air, a new screen protector slapped onto his phone screen after he dropped and cracked it.

Any other day, it would've made me laugh, but I can't be sure of what I feel. My insides scream like a tornado, and it's hard for me to even hold myself up, or remember that I'm supposed to inhale and exhale because I can't process anything.

My eyes zero in on the image on Santi's phone. It's a loose-leaf paper, lined, familiar. It cuts through me. Names stare back at me from the screen. Mine is there. Despite having seen it early this morning, I still suck in a breath when my eyes land on my name, unapologetic and glaring.

Something clouds my lungs, pulsing with fear. Shaking my head quickly, my eyes widen at my brother. "Shit," my breaths come out shaky, "please don't tell me that Mama and Dad know."

At this, Santi's eyes widen as he shuts the door behind him. His eyebrows fly upwards and I glance back at him. "So, it's true? You're—?"

I shake my head time and time again, my hands running through my curls. I can't think, I can't think. In every situation, I have an answer, I know, I'm sure. But, in this situation, I have no control. Someone yanked all of that control away from me and spit all the consequences back in my face.

My hands continue flying through my curls as I try to steady my breaths. It was always something that Abuelito did when I was frustrated. My birth mama's dad. He'd exhale, carefully placing a reassuring hand to ruffle my curls. He'd say sólo respira. And I would.