If Red Means No, Invert The Color

Chapter 9

It had been several days since the football game, and Kieran and Everest had been texting non stop. Unfortunately, to either of their knowledge, Monica was sending out text's as well.

Everest arrived to football practice right on time, heading to the locker room to get changed after school into his uniform. He was looking forward to practice, after their big win he knew it would be a good time. He made his way inside and walked to his locker casually, excited for the events that were to be occurring after practice. But when he got to his locker there was something written across the blue surface in bright red ink; 'Fag'. Everest's heart skipped a beat as soon as he saw it. Who would write this? Did someone know? He felt his heart begin to pound and his head spin, his palms became sweaty. He looked around and immediately his chest tightened, the whole team was staring at him. He looked down and opened his locker, grabbing his uniform. 'No, no, no, this is not good' Everest thought to himself.

" Do you mind? Go change somewhere else, I don't need you here staring at my business." The words came from Brad, the kicker, from behind him. He turned around.

"What are you even talking about?" Everest asked.

"Oh come on Ev. We all saw the video."

"What video?"

Brad pulled out his phone and showed Everest the screen; it displayed him and Kieran kissing under the bleachers. The image was blurry but it clearly displayed the people behind the shadows, unfortunately for Everest, you couldn't make out Kieran in the picture except for his jawline and lips, which were clearly a man's, but you could see Everest perfectly. It showed more than just him kissing a man as well.  Everest was screwed, and he knew it. Under the video it showed that the video was sent from Monica. And Everest's fear soon turned to anger. His mind was in a blur, he didn't know how to process this, he had never been in this situation before. He felt like he may puke from a mixture of confusion, stress, and anger.

"Didn't know you were that type, guess it's not that shocking. Only an idiot or a fag would dump Monica."

"Piss off." Everest replies bitterly, beginning to put his uniform on and ignoring the people around him.

Throughout practice, his defensive line kept letting Everest get tackled. Every single run through. Even the coach was giving him a hard time. He would let him get tackled, let foul play occur, and let the comments fly at him. He kept letting the other team members harass him for the full 3 hours, he ignored the sneers and just let Everest be bullied. It was like he didn't care. At all. And this crushed Everest. Coach had been a good friend of his for all of high school, he was more of a father to him then his own father was. And now he had lost that too.

School even became worse, Kieran had finished his classes so he was no longer there, and all of Everest's friends' and teammates had turned against him, making comments when he walked down the hallways, calling him vulgar names and threatening him. He couldn't even go to the bathroom without getting told to leave. The entire week was a living hell for Everest, and he just wanted it to end. His whole life he had never been treated this way, and he hated it. The teachers weren't even stopping all this from happening. It made Everest hate himself. He ran into monica on thursday.

"Hey!" Everest yelled across the hallway when he finally caught her, she had been avoiding him all week and he had a few things to say to her.

She turned around, her blonde hair whipping behind her. "What? Fag." She spat, approaching him and giggling.

His anger was getting the best of him. "What the hell!" he yelled, getting in her face. "Who the in the hell gave you the right to violate my personal life and spy on me? Huh?"

She looked shocked, but she still held her guard. "Oh, calm down, pansy. You got what you deserved, besides that used to be our meeting spot, I wasn't spying. I just happened to stumble upon you and your little, friend, and happened to have my phone on 'record' at the same time."

"What in the hell did I ever do to you?"

"You left. And decided to go join the freaks. You dug your own grave sweetheart, I just buried you."

That day at football practice he received even more bad news, as well as bigotry.

"You're off the team"

Everest felt like he was in shock

"Seriously coach?"

The coach sighed, putting a hand on Everest's shoulder. "Kid, I personally don't want to do it, but the guys have been saying that you're making them uncomfortable. That you're staring at them inappropriately and things like that. I don't have the choice. "

He stopped replying to Kieran's texts for several days, hoping that maybe Kieran would get a hint or just drop him, but he wouldn't. He cared too much to do that. And as much as Everest appreciated his support, he wished he didn't have it. Maybe it would make his life easier, lie and say Kieran forced him too or something. But Everest knew he wasn't capable of hurting him like that. So, he asked Keiran to stay the weekend with him, he lied to his dad and said him and Kieran were just buddies, of course. If his dad found out, it would not be good. He needed support from someone to get through this crap, and Kieran was all he had left that he could actually talk to.