Chapter 2: Coming Out part 1b
That sexual education class had been over 4 years ago, Dudley still hadn´t found the courage to stand up for himself and who he was. But that day and the support and friendship that had later developed with Ms. Snowden through the years had made him realize that who he was wouldn´t change. He could pretend to be someone he wasn´t but inside he would still have those feelings.
What he did or didn´t do with that was his choice, it was his life he was throwing away because of his fears of rejection and hatred for something that wasn´t his fault but instead was a part of him. It was his chance of happiness that he was throwing out the window.
He remembered the first time he had been invited to Ms. Snowden´s home and had met her girlfriend. The first time he had seen that a relationship between two women or two men wasn´t at all that different, that it was as natural as that ice cream melts in the summer. The love had been evident and Ms. Snowden had assured him that he could have that too if he just believed and let himself go.
Dudley had had many friends through the years. The friends that helped him tease and beat up Harry, the friends that helped him cheat on exams and make fake ID´s, the friends that invited him to parties and gave him free beer. Yea he had had a bunch of that kind of friends.
Friends that didn´t really matter in the big picture that was life, friends he would have never been able to tell his secret to.
Then he had the friends he hadn´t had to tell the secret to but that still knew, the ones that understood him because they were in the same situation as he was.
The first time he was in Ms. Snowden´s home he had thought it wouldn´t be anything special just a visit to talk about that outburst and fight he dumbly had gotten into outside of her classroom the day before.
Boy had he been wrong, it had been another one of those days he would never forget one of those days that would change his life and make him make it another day.
Ms. Snowden hadn´t brought it up. She hadn´t brought his secret up again since that sexual education class and it was almost 3 months ago. Nothing bad had happened and life looked pretty much the same as it had done before.
Tracy was still clinging to every word he said and was still desperately trying to get him to go on a date with her. He was still lucky to have been able to avoid that disaster but knew every day was bringing him closer to it.
He was pretty much still ignoring what he now knew was a fact, his secret was real and the only thing he could do was conceal it and try to not feel it. You could suppress anything if you wanted it enough, or at least that was what he was making himself believe.
He wasn´t looking forward to tonight and the visit he had to do to Ms. Snowden. He was sure that what was awaiting him was a long lecture on proper behavior and she would probably make him talk about what had happened and why.
And the truth was that the less people knew about him and his life the better.
It was raining and he carefully brought in the umbrella and looked at the sign. This was it number 37 Gleeverpark Avenue.
He made his way up to the door and knocked gently.
He was quite startled when an unfamiliar woman opened the door "Um hi, I´m Dudley" he said anyway fidgeting slightly where he stood wondering if he had gone to the wrong house after all.
"Kim honey, one of you students are here, I think it´s best if you come and greet him as well, he seems a bit scared of me" Dudley was scared, this woman was way too friendly for this detention lecture thing that he was there for.
The woman turned and looked at Dudley again and gave him a bright smile, too bright if you asked Dudley and he looked away. And by the way who was Kim anyway he couldn´t for the life of him remember Ms. Snowden´s first name at the moment.
It felt like hours but after not that long Ms. Snowden stood in the doorway with those twinkling eyes and soft smile. "Oh Dudley, you are just in time dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes, why don´t you join the others in the living room?"
Ms. Snowden wrapped her arms around the strange woman that had opened the door and they took a step to the side to let Dudley enter.
But he was frozen to the spot, had he heard her wrong "dinner?" he stammered and then "others?" he was utterly confused, why would they treat him to dinner, who was that woman and other people was there too "why?" was all he got out in the end.
Ms. Snowden just smiled a little more almost as if she was amused "I´m sorry, my manners are terrible, Dudley this is my partner Lou" she said and kissed said woman on the cheek.
Dudley did a double take. Why was he here exactly, was she mocking him because she knew his secret? He wanted to turn on the spot and run away, this turn of events was making him very uneasy.
And that was if you didn´t considered what Vernon would do if he knew he was about to join a lesbian couple for dinner, he would definitely freak and all hell would break lose.
"But… Detention?" he said at last not knowing if he should bolt or stay, the aroma coming from inside did smell delicious and food had always been something that made him weak in the knees. It couldn´t hurt going inside and see what they had cooking, right?
Ms. Snowden frowned and let go of Lou before taking a step forward and laying her hands on Dudley´s shoulders. "You think you´re here because of that fight yesterday" he wasn´t? Then way the hell was he there it didn´t make any sense. He nodded his head to answer her question even though the way she said it sounded more like a statement.
"He´s adorable Kim, he can´t really be such a troublemaker at school that you make him out to be" it was Lou.
Dudley felt his cheeks heat up and he looked down at his feet. He knew he let his barriers down when he was confused or scared and he really had to work on that.
He felt his shoulders being squeezed, "Shush you before you make him blush" Lou giggled in the background and he was almost certain he heard another adorable too "and no Dudley you are not here to talk about that fight, but of course I´m always here to listen and give advice if you are willing?" Dudley looked up and was met with the sight of a grinning teacher.
"No, I´m good thank you Ms. Snowden" at least he wouldn´t get a lecture but not knowing what was coming was almost as frightening.
Ms. Snowden´s smile once again became soft and she gestured inside. "Terrific, come on now and make yourself comfortable with the others" there it was again, others were there, who and why? Before he was able to ask this however Ms. Snowden said "and please call me Kim, we will hopefully spend a lot of nights like this in the future and it would be weird being so formal don´t you think?"
He just frowned and blinked but didn´t feel like asking questions, he figured he would get the answers before the night was over anyway. "If you say so Ms. ugh Kim" Lou sniggered in the background and Dudley felt his cheeks heat up once again.
This day was so weird he thought while he made his way to the sitting room down the hall where he heard voices coming from.
He stopped a few meters from the opening and listened to what seemed to be several teenagers discussing something inside the room.
"Do you think there will be more people coming over, and in that case who might that be?" it was a guy and Dudley did recognize the voice from somewhere, maybe science class?
He heard a loud sigh and then a frustrated "we have nothing in common Einstein, so your guess to what this little gathering is for is as good as mine", Dudley knew that voice too it was the girl that had been the head of the prom committee last year.
"Of course we have to have something in common and I have a theory of what that might be but if I´m wrong you knowing my hypothesis may unfortunately do more harm than good for all of us."
No mistake of who that was, Eleanor Camden and her logic was making Dudley nauseous and he couldn´t for the life of him think of anything that he could have in common with her.
The conversation went on and he thought it was time to make his presence known to the others and if he was being honest he was also quite curious who the other people in the room were.
When the other occupants of the room noticed him in the doorway it became silent, one thing was for sure they had not expected him to turn up. And to say the group was an unusual mix of people was an understatement.
There were 12 people in the room, in varying ages but they all went to Dudley´s school. In addition to the prom girl, the science nerd and Eleanor, there were a few people he recognized. The goalkeeper of the football team, one of the cheerleaders, that guy playing the trumpet in the school orchestra, the angry emo girl from his math class and oh no…
In one of the armchairs with one of his legs crossed over the other sat that singing dude from the Glee club that always had this pink glittering note books flaunting his flamboyant gayness in Dudley´s face. He was also the same guy he had beaten up yesterday for that exact reason. He was sporting a black eye and Dudley almost felt a little guilty, but not really it wasn´t fair that this guy could be himself and he couldn´t.
The guy looked scared and it almost looked like he would rather sink through the floor the face the wrath of Dudley. "Whaaat is he doing here" he stammered nervously "please don´t beat me up again, I have no idea what I did to offend you?"
Dudley had made his hands into fists and the skin over his knuckles had turned white. "You don´t need to do anything" he spat "your existence infuriates me." He sneered and tried to calm down.
He couldn´t help to be angry at the guy, or rather at life it wasn´t anything he had against the boy personally. The fact that he could be who he wanted while Dudley couldn´t was what made him boiling inside.
"Maybe he´s offended by your style, I can toughen you up if you dare to let me" it was the emo girl and she was smirking.
The guy just looked scared of that aspect too and it almost looked like he shrunk into the couch a little more.
The football player smirked then and said "no sissies, I think he is jealous that his dear mummy didn´t get her Dudlikins a pink notebook and he can´t stand Callum flaunting his around all the time." He had said all this with a straight face but as soon as he finished he and a few of the others started to laugh.
Dudley knew he was being mocked but that was not the scary part, what made all the blood drain from his face was that the football player was more right than he may have thought possible. Dudley did want a pink notebook.
"Shut up" he hissed halfheartedly not convinced that saying something could do any good.
"Oh don´t be a spoil sport I haven´t had this fun in ages" the prom girl was saying just as their conversation was interrupted by Ms. Snowden announcing from the kitchen that dinner was ready.
Everyone made their way to the dinner table and after they had taken a seat their teacher announced "now to why everyone is here, it´s because every each one of you have something to learn from each other and I believe you will also be able to help each other immensely." Was she nuts Dudley had time to think before she continued on "I hope this group will connect and become great friends, you may not think so now but you are special and together I know you can make anything extraordinary."
Dudley thought back on that evening with a fond smile and chuckled a little at the reaction they all had had when it was brought to their attention that what they had in common was their non-straightness.
They had indeed bonded and he was still friends with most of them even though the majority had gone off to college and they didn´t have as much contact as he would like.
His fond smile soon transformed into a gloomy frown though when thinking about their little secret NSAOCT (No Straight Arrows Only Curvy Trees) club ended in him thinking about Callum.
They had actually become best friends after a not such a great start to put it mildly. Dudley had ironically ended up the scared one, so their friendship had only happened behind closed doors and in NSAOCT were Dudley felt comfortable enough to be himself. Callum had never been home with Dudley, he had never got an invite to celebrate his birthday, never got to eat lunch with him in the cafeteria.
After 2 years of sneaking around Callum had had enough he didn´t try to force Dudley to come out or anything like that but he had given him an ultimatum. Dudley had been made to choose between being seen with him in public or not seeing him at all.
Dudley had chosen the latter and to this day it was one of the biggest mistakes he had done, he had lost his best friend to his own demons and prejudice from people around him. He was fed up with it, no more it was ending today.
Tomorrow would be the first day of being completely true to himself and doing what made him happy, screw people that wouldn´t stand behind that.
He didn´t get it back then because if he had he would have stood up for his friendship with Callum. But being a part of that group had both made him feel special but also not special just one normal teenager really with problems like anyone else. The most important thing was that since that day at Ms. Snowden´s he didn´t feel alone again in the same way as he had done before. And now he was ready to see what had been there in front of him all this time, even if or rather when his coming out ended in disaster his life would not be over it would actually just be an opportunity for it to really begin.