Selena's POV
January thirteenth was an amazing day for me, it was the day before we were going to Jamaica. Although Demi only thought we were going to Texas, she'd managed to secure the time off and we were definitely going.
It was our lunch period and I was in Demi's room as usual. Demi had a meeting so she wasn't in there with me, so I was on the computers. Alyssa had left after Christmas, she'd moved again because they'd had their house repossessed, she'd texted me to let me know.
I was sitting in Demi's room on my iPhone, reading an e-mail from the travel company telling me our flight times and other information. There was a knock at the door which interrupted me from reading the e-mail. I called whoever it was in, assuming it would just be another teacher. I practically crapped myself when Kelly, Becky, Lottie and Meg all walked in together.
"I swear to god, if any of you touch me I'll have Miss. Lovato here in minutes with Mrs Jacobs." I warned the bunch of them, not that they would have cared. Meg smiled at me; we literally never spoke except from the occasional text.
"Sel, this lot have something to say to you." She told me quietly, looking at the group of them. She came and stood next to me and hugged me.
"Selena, we're all so sorry for how we've treated you these past few months. We have been completely out of order. Meg's been trying to make us see sense ever since we fell out but she's finally managed. We had no right to treat you the way we did, and we want to go back to how we were before. We all love you to pieces and we don't care if you're gay, we just want you to be our best friend again. It's completely up to you though, and we totally understand if you hate us for how we've been." Kelly said; she actually seemed ashamed of herself, as did the others. Personally, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"What's brought all this on?" I asked them shaking my head. "Just last week I'm sure all of you could have happily sent me to prison for who I am."
"We were being pathetic little bitches and we totally understand if you want nothing more to do with us, but you have to know how sorry we are." Becky said, stepping forward to the front of the group.
"I'd like to be friends with you again, I've hated us being apart." I admitted to them quietly. The three of the girls in front of me and Meg who was standing next to me all grinned like complete idiots and I joined in.
"Group hug?" Meg asked us all.
"Group hug." We all said together. We all hugged tightly and I actually wanted to cry, I was so happy that I had my girls back. After a good minute of hugging tightly we pulled apart and Lottie looked at me.
"We're all having a sleepover at my house tonight then coming down to school together, do you want to come?" Lottie offered me with a smile. I wanted to go, but obviously I couldn't because of going on holiday.
"I would, I really would love to, but I'm going on holiday tomorrow and we have to be at the airport for like eight AM, so I can't. I haven't packed or anything, but when I'm back you can all come crash at mine, if you're okay with that I mean." I added quickly, still unsure whether they would be okay with sleeping at my house.
"That'd be really nice. You don't have to tread on eggshells around us, we were wrong, we know you wouldn't try anything with any of us or anything like that. We want it all back to how it was before. No awkwardness or anything like that. Where are you going on holiday?" Kelly asked me.
"I'm only going to visit my grandparents in Texas. My mom's staying home like, but I haven't seen them for a while so I'm going there. I'm going for two weeks so you can all stop then if you want?" I offered, knowing it would be fine with my mom anyway, she'd just be glad that I'd sorted things with them.
"Yeah that'd be great. We'll have to have a like a proper catch up when you're back." Meg said with a grin before hugging me again.
"Do you want to go and grab some lunch before we have to go to lesson?" Kelly offered, looking at the clock on the wall. We were only ten minutes into lunch so we still had another fifty minutes. Demi was due out of her meeting after fifteen minutes so I figured I'd be best to wait to let her know what was happening.
"Uh, I think I'll wait to tell Miss. Lovato where we've gone, she'll just worry if I'm gone when she gets back." I told them, not wanting to leave Demi worrying about what had happened to me, because she was off about leaving me on my own anyway.
"Why, it's not like she's your mom." Becky said with a giggle. I laughed but shook my head.
"No, I know that, but obviously with everyone hating me she'd probably worry that something bad had happened if I'm not here when she gets back and I don't want her to hold like a search party for me. Are you all still on the same numbers?" I asked them, remembering that I hadn't actually deleted any of my contacts.
"Yeah we are. We ca…" Kelly was cut off by Demi coming into the room.
"Everything okay here girls?" She asked us suspiciously. I looked to Demi and grinned.
"Everything's great. You guys can go ahead and I'll catch up to you, I take it you're still hooked on Jan's?" I asked, referring to the café down the road from the school. They all nodded in response to my question and I carried on. "Right, I'll drive down to you in a bit and then we can drive back, gives us longer to chat." I told them,
"Okay then, see you in a bit babe." Lottie said with a grin. They all hugged me on their way out and I turned to Demi with a huge idiotic grin plastered on my face.
"I take it you girls made up?" She questioned happily.
"Yeah we did. It's okay for me to go and grab lunch with them, right?" I asked her.
"Of course it is, silly. Just remember, you may have made up, but you cannot tell them about us. Please don't." she told me quietly. I nodded and hugged her for literally a second.
"I'm not stupid, I know not to. I'll text you during the day and I'll meet you at my car later, okay beau?" I asked her. I knew she didn't speak much French but Alyssa had taught me the French word for beautiful was beau.
"Okay then dear. I'll speak to you in a bit, have fun, and try not to be late for your next lesson." She said with a wink as I left. I rolled my eyes at her comment and went out to my car. I showed my student pass to the gate-guards and drove the two minute drive to Jan's where I saw Meg, Becky, Lottie and Kelly sitting at a table with a spare seat.
"Oh what a pleasant surprise, Selena, I've not seen you here recently." Said Jan, the little old lady who ran the place. I grinned at her and sat in the spare seat in between Kelly and Becky.
"I know, I'm back now though. Five lots of fries when you're ready please love." I ordered for the girls. "And five diet cokes." I added on when I realised none of them had drinks.
"No ice in…" Meg began to say but Jan cut her off.
"No ice in yours, a green straw in Lottie's, a slice of lemon in Kelly's, a red tinted glass for Becky and Selena's still in the can. I know." She said with an amused sigh. She knew us so well, even after months of me not going there she still knew.
"So something we've all been wondering 'Lena babe…" Becky trailed off. I nodded to give her to go-ahead to ask and she carried on. "Are you seeing anyone now that you're all… what's the phrase… 'out and proud'?" She asked with a smile. I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to lie to them but I also didn't want to tell them, so I just shook my head.
"No I'm not, I was seeing Alyssa as you all know, but obviously we broke up, which I'm sure you all know as well. I've not really been seeing anyone since her." I said, pretty much telling the truth. Me and Demi were more than seeing each other, Demi's my girlfriend so obviously I wasn't seeing her, there's a difference between seeing someone and being their girlfriend.
"Ah, that sucks. Is there anyone you like?"
"Not at the moment. I don't like straight girls, I never have, I just don't find girls attractive if I know they're straight. There's an obvious lack of lesbians at school, so no, I don't." I told them honestly. It was true again, technically. I don't like Demi, I love her.
"That's cool. So we've been talking on our way down here, obviously with us being the popular girls of the school, then hopefully everything should go back to normal when you're hanging round with us for you. You'll become popular and loved again, but we were thinking that maybe you'd want to do something to help people feel more comfortable with their selves. We were completely out of line with you and with how you were probably feeling; well, it must have been awful, so we want to make sure the rest of the school know that gay people aren't bad people. Got any ideas on what to do?" Becky asked. I couldn't really believe what she'd said. Yesterday they hated me being gay and now they wanted me to be educating others about how it's not a bad thing, and they wanted to help.
"How about we ask Mrs Jacob's if we can hold a whole school assembly at the end of last period? I know she'd say yes because she's been really supportive of me since all the stuff with Nick, so we could discuss it and stuff now whilst we have time?" I asked.
"That's a really good idea. Can you call the school and ask to speak to her or something, save us planning for no reason or wasting time going back." Lottie asked. I nodded and pulled my phone out of my pocket before dialling the school number.
Mrs Jacobs gave us the go ahead for a ten minute assembly at the end of last period.
Five minutes before the assembly
"I'm freaking out, I'm going to have an SFF." Meg said as she paced around the hall tugging on her hair. I walked over to her and grabbed her hands.
"Chill girly, it's gonna be fine. No one's gonna take the mick, you're the most popular girl in school, no one's gonna have to balls to laugh if you mess up." I told her, stopping her from pulling her hair any more. Lottie, Becky & Kelly all looked at us confused. SFF was something me and Meg both said whenever she had one, it just happened.
"What in god's name is an SFF?" Lottie asked me.
"Stage fright fit. Babe, you'll be fine, no one's going to say anything and you're going to do great." I told her. We could hear people coming in behind the curtain and Meg looked out to see practically all of the school in there already. People were sitting down in their respective seats, allocated by grade.
"Right, breathe. Come on." I told her quietly before we walked to the curtain, waiting for our cue to go onto the stage.
"Now settle down. I suppose you're all wondering why this last-minute assembly was called. It doesn't actually have anything to do with me, so without further-a-do, Selena Gomez and Megan Barker. A few people booed, most likely at me, but as we started walking out they shut up.
"Right, first off, I don't appreciate you lot booing my friend. The assembly today is actually going to be based on homophobia, because basically in this school it's disgusting." She started confidently. I knew she wasn't confident though so I grinned at her to reassure her that she was doing well. "I know that my friends and I haven't been great about it, in fact we were complete bitches, but we were wrong to be, and we all are genuinely sorry for it and wish we hadn't done it. Raise your hand here if you've said something bad to or about Selena, regarding her sexuality?" She asked.
There were around five hundred people in the school; around four hundred and fifty put their hands up. It made me feel pretty crappy to know how many people had bitched about me.
"Right, it stops and it stops right now." She finished firmly.
"Being gay, bi, lesbian, or any other sexuality doesn't make a person any different to you. What I've been going through has been horrible, I won't lie, I hated it. I hated having my friends turn against me and look down their noses at me. Being gay doesn't make me or anyone else any different than they were before. The fact that I like girls doesn't define who I am; it's just a part of me. A part that has always been there so people like me shouldn't be treated any differently just for admitting to it. How would any of you like it if it were you?" I asked them all seriously. I scanned the crowd and saw Demi sitting at the end of the row with her English group from last period. I knew from the look on her face that she was proud of me, I could just tell.
"Are there any questions?" Meg asked. Around five hands went up so I pointed to the boy closest to the front.
"I don't have a problem with girls being gay really, but don't you find it weird being the only lesbo in the school?" He asked, obviously directed at me.
"No, because I'm not, statistics show that one in ten people are homosexual, or bisexual. There are five hundred kids in this school which means that around fifty of you are also gay, you just haven't admitted it either to yourselves or others yet." I explained, seeing the light from the corner of my eye which came from the screen behind me and Meg. Obviously Lottie had put on the slideshow of random facts we'd gathered.
"Like the other kid down there, I see no problem with you being gay, I was just a little paranoid about you staring at us all when we change or just generally being attracted to us." Said a girl from my grade. I so wanted to laugh because she's honestly one of the most disgusting girls I'd ever met.
"I guarantee now that I don't think of any of the kids in this room like that. I guarantee it now." I told her, trying my best not to laugh.
"How far have you gone with a chick dude?" One of the younger boys asked.
"Irrelevant question."
"How did your parents take it when you came out to them?" asked Sophia Moore, a junior who had recently moved.
"They were extremely kind and accepting of it, my mom and dad both understood that I didn't get a choice in it and they respected me for actually having the guts to tell them to their faces. Their reaction was the best I could possibly have hoped for, they both love and accept me for who I am." I told her with a smile.
"That's lovely." She said, returning my smile.
"If anyone else in the school was considering coming out, what advice would you give them?" Asked a boy sitting at the back called James Prince. Honestly, I'd always had my suspicions that he was gay but I didn't want to question him about it because it was none of my business.
"Honestly, just do it in your own time when you're ready. Yesterday I would have said it's not worth the trouble, but now if everything goes back to how it was before, then I'd say just do it confidently, make sure you're sure before you tell others, and ignore the people who say anything bad about it." I told him with the same smile as before, he smiled back and nodded politely just seconds before the bell went, signalling the end of the day. People got up to leave but Mrs Jacobs told them to sit back down.
"Right, I want a show of hands again; before this assembly, how many of you had a problem with homosexuality?" Meg asked. Lottie, Becky and Kelly all came out from behind the curtain with their hands rose, although they genuinely looked ashamed. Most of the school rose their hands with the same ashamed looks on their faces. Meg rose her hand as well, before putting it down.
"Now how many of you have realised that there's actually nothing wrong with it, and we were all wrong to treat her the way we did?" She asked. No one put their hand down, they all kept them up.
"And finally, how many of you want it to go back to how it was before the homophobia within the school started, back when the most popular girl in school was also the most lovely, genuine, caring person in school as well, rather than bitchy meg, no offence babe." Kelly asked with a wink a Meg, who rolled her eyes jokingly in response. Again, no one's hands went down. I grinned at them all, overwhelmed with happiness that everything was going to go back to normal.
"Okay, that was a lovely assembly girls, now off you all go, have a nice evening." Mrs Jacobs said as everyone clapped on their way out.
"Group hug?" Asked Becky with a grin. We all nodded and basically jumped at each other before breaking apart.
"Guys, I have to go and pack, I'll see you in a couple of weeks and I'll video chat you when I get the time, okay?" I asked after looking at the time on my phone.
"Okay then babe, have a wonderful holiday. Love you." Meg said with a grin. I hugged her tight and whispered a quiet 'thank you' in her ear, knowing that all of this was down to her.