Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 18: Post Trauma

Joshua

The room is dark all save for the single little lamp lighting it up from my desk corner. Really the darkness is my fault. The sun has set sometime ago, and I'm too lazy to get up and turn on the overhead lights. Or, I suppose lazy isn't the right word for it. I glance down at the papers and notebooks sprawling over the rest of my desk, staring back at me. Maybe a better word would be busy.

But, no, not really, not even that.

My head rests against my palm, my elbow on the desk as my other hand drums pensive fingers against the wood. I have a good amount of work to do, and it's getting late. I should do something. But— ugh. I sit back in my chair and sigh, running a hand through my hair out of frustrated habit. I'm well aware of the homework I need to get done, and yet, my head is elsewhere, and I'm stuck with the continuous, nagging feeling that there's something more pressing, more important that I should be doing right now, but I don't know what.

I feel antsy and sluggish all at once, and the feeling doesn't sit well with me. I'm normally all over getting my homework done, pronto, but right now I just... I don't want to do it at all, but I want to do something. What is it though?

My mind wanders back to a couple days ago, when I managed to confront Ethan about what happened with... well, you know the story. I tell him about the date and suddenly it's a gay fest. He's telling me I'm bisexual, which is honestly? Bizarre to think about. I still can't really wrap my head around it— me, bisexual? I guess... I guess it's not that much of a shock, I did sort of have weird crushes on some professional soccer players when I was younger. Not that I thought of them as crushes at the time. (It's not weird, okay.)

Really, there was this one guy, he played for the Belgian Red Devils in the FIFA World Cup a couple years ago; I was maybe fourteen. I remember watching and really paying attention to the one player, eager to see every replay and every different shot of his. Maybe it was because he was a prominent striker. I was just really impressed with his performance, and I guess I thought it was admiration, the feelings I had towards him. And I guess it was admiration, but looking back on it now, I don't think I wanted to just be like him, I sort of wanted to be with him. But that's gay. And sort of weird. (Okay, yes, maybe a little weird.)

And— God, it's true, isn't it? I groan and bury my head in my arms on my desk. There seems to be no escaping it now that Ethan's opened the goddamned rainbow can of worms. I never even considered the fact that I could be anything but straight until now... Was that naïve of me? Ignorant? I don't know... It feels like it.

I looked up "bisexuality" the other day, so I fully get the whole liking-girls-and-boys thing now, there's no confusion there anymore. But it still almost doesn't feel, well, real. Like I'm in some sort of weird dream where I like guys and aliens profess their love for me and it's okay, and... I don't know, maybe it's just because it's all happening so suddenly, but I guess I just feel like I'm waiting for myself to wake up.

But no, that's not true. This is reality. I sit up in my seat again and slap my hand against my face. Stop thinking stupid things, I tell myself. If I let myself think it's a dream that'll easily be solved, I'll never try to sort out or deal with these actual problems that are very much real issues. Like Seth for example. I still have 0% of a clue as to what to do about him.

He's in love with me? Great. No, not really. Not great. It doesn't matter that he's a guy, have I mentioned that he's alien? 'Cause I think I have, but I'm not sure.

Just kidding, I haven't mentioned it before; 'cause literally no one knows what he is except me. And it's not a good feeling. I don't even know if anyone else knows he exists except for me, and Ethan now by extension. But it's not like that's very helpful to me, because he still doesn't know about the extraterrestrial bit. That's kind of important. He thinks Seth is just some guy from my past, come back to ask me out all sweetly and rom-com like, and that is certainly not the case. That's not going to stop Ethan from continuously trying to hook us up though.