A/N: Rated T for homophobic slurs
Being out was scary.
After moving halfway across the country, Charlotte would say that she'd handled some pretty stressful things.
Except for maybe getting outed.
She'd had to change schools because of all of the bullying she had gotten, and ended up transferring to Truham Grammar school in Year 10, in the middle of the school year. She'd ended up finding a small clique of girls her own age who allowed her to hang out with them, even if it did mean that she had to put up with small homophobic comments every so often. Not that they were directed at her.
The leader was a girl named Krystal Hope who was about as homophobic as you could get. Charlotte had heard from the other girls she hung out with that Krystal's older brother had been outed the year previously, and had transferred to the girls grammar school, the same year that it had burned down in a fire, resulting in Truham turning into a co-Ed school until Higgs got repaired.
Krystal's brother had then been exposed for assaulting a Truham Year 11 (Charlotte didn't know who) and according to Krystal herself, had also eventually been exposed for being a homophobeandbisexual. Now Ben Hope was just a shadow in Truham, avoiding the hostile glares and keeping to himself.
"He's such a baby," Krystal had said one time, when they had spotted Ben at his locker. "And such a fag. I can't believe that my brother is gay. Isn't that so embarrassing?"
The other girls had enthusiastically agreed, but Charlotte had kept silent that time. Her dad had always told her to be herself and to stand up to injustice, but all she could ever do was stay silent. It was how you survived.
Charlotte had learned early on that there were only two openly gay couples in the school. Two girls who used to go to the girls' grammar school, Tara and Darcy, and the more famous couple, head boy Charlie Spring and rugby captain Nick Nelson. Krystal would always comment about how disgusting they were, but never in front of them. Krystal's group of girls weren't brave enough to say anything bad in front of the school's golden couple yet.
Yet.
Last week was different. It was after school and Charlotte'd had the misfortune of picking the exact same sport as Krystal had, so they often walked to practice together. On their way there, they spotted Nick and Charlie in one of the empty classrooms, kissing.
Krystal had made gagging noises and went, "Ewwwwww!" when she caught Charlottes' eye. Nick and Charlie had pulled away and had turned toward the door where Krystal was making a face and Charlotte was trying not to die of embarrassment.
"C'mon, Kryss," she had murmured, bright red under the gaze of Nick and Charlie. "We don't wanna be late."
Krystal made one last face before leaving with Charlotte hurrying behind her.
Ever since then, Charlotte kept seeing them everywhere. In the hallway holding hands, kissing in an empty classroom after school, or eating lunch together surrounded by their friends. Nick Nelson, rugby captain, tall and large compared to Charlotte's 154cm and Charlie Spring, head boy and and incredibly kind person. She always noticed them whenever she was around them. She felt like a stalker, almost.
She wanted that life so badly. She wanted to be proud to be out- to hang out with people who didn't care if you were straight or not, but whenever she saw the proud couples, she could only feel sad to know that she would never be brave enough to be like them.
For some reason, after she and Krystal had seen Nick and Charlie kissing, Krystal had warmed up to Charlotte and seemed to consider her a best friend, inviting Charlotte to her house and choosing to sit next to her at lunch. Charlotte had no idea how to react to that, so she just smiled through it and pretended that her new best friend wouldn't bully her the minute she found out that Charlotte was, in fact, a lesbian.
All of Charlotte's bad luck over the past week seemed to have been leading up to one big unlucky scenario. That in which she is walking her 2 dogs, Eggs and Bacon, and they decide to team up against or play with (Charlotte can't really tell which) a Border Collie and a very very tiny pug in terrible 45 degree November weather with chilly wind blowing dead leaves into her hair at every possible moment.
"Eggs!" she snapped at one of her dogs. "Be gentle! Don't hurt the little guy!" Eggs looked up at her with big, brown eyes before removing her paw from the little pug's belly. Charlotte scooped up the puppy and looked into his wide, criminally-adorable eyes. "Where's your owner, little guy?" she asked the pug, shifting so she could hold him and check his collar at the same time. Her smile dropped as she noticed the name on the nametag.
Nick Nelson
"Oi! Nellie! Henry! Where'd you two go?" a freakishly familiar voice yelled, and much more quietly another voice laughed and said "You look away for one minute and they run away. This is more proof that they should live with me."
"You looked away, too!" Nick Nelson protested as he and Charlie Spring, hand in hand, walked straight toward Charlotte. She immediately put down the pug and grabbed Eggs' and Bacon's collars turning around just as the couple spotted her.
"Hey, have you seen a border collie and a pug lately?" Nick rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "They've run away from us and we can't find them." He motioned to Charlie standing next to him, and Charlotte can see the nervousness in his posture, even talking to a year 10 like her.
Wordlessly, she stepped aside to show the border collie and pug sitting, perked up in the grass as they watched the situation with wagging tails.
"Nellie! Henry!" Nick said, his eyes lighting up like a golden retriever as the two dogs bounded toward him and Charlie. The border collie- Nellie, Charlotte realised- headed straight (straight, heh) for Charlie and began to lick his face as Charlie crouched down to hug her.
"We were worried about you," Charlie laughed.
Henry the pug wobbled over to Nick who scooped him up into his arms.
"Thank you for-" Charlie said before looking up and seeing who he was talking to. He immediately broke off and stared at Charlotte with intense blue eyes. Nick looked up from where he was playfully scolding Henry and noticed who Charlotte was as well. His eyes immediately became hostile.
"You're that girl who's friends with Krystal Hope, right?" he asked, making Charlotte feel even shorter under his intimidating gaze. Hearing herself being referred to as "that girl" didn't help either.
"I… uh…" Her mouth suddenly felt like sandpaper- dry and cracked. She swallowed nervously as Charlie stood up as well, looking at her with distrust. Great, now she had the two most influential and popular students at Truham against her without doing anything. Gold star for Charlotte Snow.
"I'm Charlotte. I don't really have any friends here," she managed to blurt out. "Um… I mean, I transferred. In November. Kryss lets me hang out with her. We're not like, friends or anything, she just really likes me and likes to hang out with me and- and-" God just shut up already. Going by the looks on both Nick and Charlie's faces, she wasn't helping her case. "She is a bit mean, though," she finished quietly.
Nick and Charlie looked at each other, doing that silent communication thing that Charlotte had seen her parents do more than once before turning back to Charlotte in eerie unison.
"Well, I don't recommend hanging around the Hope family," Nick finally said, his voice coming out as more of a growl than anything. "Unless you're a homophobic dickhead," he added as if it was an afterthought.
Charlotte managed out a squeaky, "I-I'm not!" before lowering her head down to break eye contact, fingering with the hem of her sweatshirt.. "I just don't have any friends," she whispered.
"Nick, stop," Charlie murmured. "You're scaring her."
Nick immediately stepped back, horrified. "I am so sorry," he said, and he sounded so sincere that Charlotte raised her head back up to see his brown eyes widened in guilt. "I'm sorry," he repeated. He glanced at Charlie for a fraction of a second before continuing. "It's just… we don't get along well with the Hope's. Especially Ben. It's complicated, but we really don't like associating with them. At all."
Charlotte nodded. She had heard that Ben Hope was a massive jerk and had assaulted someone, but she could tell from both Nick and Charlie's postures that it was something personal to them.
"If you don't want to hang out with them," Charlie said kindly, "you can hang out with our friend group during lunch. I know we're a bit older than you, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but we'd love to hang out with you some more, if you want."
"Well only if you introduce us to your dogs," Nick added
"Really?" Charlotte said, eyes shining as the couple both nodded. "Thank you!" she said.
"The dogs?" Nick prompted.
Charlotte laughed and began to tell Nick and Charlie the story about two new puppies and a 7 year olds attempt at making breakfast.
. . .
Charlotte stood on her tip-toes, cursing her shortness as she tried to find her new table amidst the sea of students, most of whom were taller than her.
"Charlotte! Over here!"
Charlotte turned, hopeful, only to realise that the person who called her name was Krystal, and not one of her new friends.
Glancing one more time around the cafeteria, she reluctantly followed Krystal back to her old table.
"Did you get lost, silly?" Krystal asked her. "I mean it's not hard. With all these fags around, it gets a bit nauseating innit?"
Charlotte's heart began to race, and she opened and closed her mouth a few times trying to get her words out.
"I cannot believe our school is run by them," Krystal was continuing. "I'm not tryna be homophobic here or anything, but it's just wrong, innit? It's just wrong-"
"Shut up, Krystal!" Charlotte finally said, standing up. Krystal looked surprised at her outburst and stood up to face Charlotte.
"What's wrong?" Krystal asked in a mocking tone. "Have you suddenly decided to be gay, is that right?"
"So what if I'm gay?" Charlotte shot back, folding her arms. "It doesn't make me a horrible person."
Krystal looked taken aback, as if she hadn't expected Charlotte to actually come out right then and now.
"I thought we were friends," she managed to growl out after a few seconds.
"Being gay has nothing to do with friendship!" Charlotte snapped.
"Yes it does!" Krystal practically screamed. "I thought you were cool but it turns out you're just another. Disgusting. FAG!"
Half of the cafeteria had been watching the encounter and at Krystal's last word, the rest turned to look.
"What's going on here?" Everyone tore their attention away from Charlotte and Krystal to see Mr. Farouk, who was arguably the most terrifying teacher at Truham, stalking towards their table.
"Ms. Hope, Ms. Snow, what is going on here?" he demanded. When neither Charlotte nor Krystal answered him, he sighed.
"Ms. Hope, I believe I heard you say something about fags?" he said, glaring down at Charlotte and Krystal. "May I remind you about our rules about slurs?"
"N-no, sir!" Krystal squeaked, and Charlotte had to bite back a grin. There were no such rules at Truham, but there were rumours going by that Mr. Farouk was dating the school's art teacher, Mr. Ajayi. Both were incredibly supportive of LGBTQ and were quick to shut down any homophobic remarks in and around their class.
"Good." Mr. Farouk said, glaring at only Krystal this time before turning around and leaving.
Charlotte grabbed her lunch and stalked away from the table, colliding with Nick only seconds later.
"Charlotte!" Nick said, not even phased. "Are you okay? We saw what happened," he added, gesturing to the table next to him where, to Charlotte's horror, at least a dozen people several centimetres taller than her were staring.
At least she recognized one of them personally.
"Are you okay, Charlotte?" Charlie asked, scooting his chair closer to where Nick and Charlotte were standing.
Charlotte nodded mutely, a little overwhelmed from being surrounded by Sixth Formers.
"She looks a little scared," a guy in a beanie murmured to the girl next to him.
"She just came out to a cafeteria full of people, of course she's a little scared," the girl said disapprovingly.
Nick laughed a little bit and dragged over a chair so that Charlotte could sit next to him and a quiet guy reading a book titled Ace of Spades.
"You know me and Charlie already," Nick said, breaking the awkward silence first. "The guy you're sitting next to is Isaac-" Isaac lifted his head from his book and smiled at Charlotte.
"The girl next to him is Imogen-"
"Hi!" Imogen said, giving Charlotte a friendly wave.
"Across from her is Tara and Darcy, they're dating," Nick continued, smiling at the school's only lesbian couple. Charlotte definitely knew who they were.
Charlotte learned that the 4 other people across from them was a girl named Sahar and 3 rugby lads who were originally friends with Nick, Sai, Otis, and Christian. The two other people to Charlie's left was the beanie boy, who's name she learned was Tao and his girlfriend, Elle, the school's trans icon.
"Why did you even hang out with Krystal Hope in the first place?" Darcy asked bluntly.
"Oh my gosh, please ignore her," Tara said automatically. "She has a horrible filter."
Darcy gave a dramatic gasp. "I thought you loved me!" she teased. Tara gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before glancing back at Charlotte who had turned beet red.
"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry," Tara said, catching her expression. "I forgot your new here."
"Basically all the couples here aggressively make out at the table and us single people have to deal with it," Christian said.
Nick rolled his eyes and put an arm around Charlie. "Lecture us once you get a girlfriend."
Christian just rolled his eyes as Nick leaned down and gave Charlie a passionate kiss. Charlotte blushed and turned her head, slightly embarrassed at the obvious PDA.
"You get used to it," Isaac said, laughing when Charlotte wrinkled her nose in disbelief.
The conversation continued, fluctuating between grades, Nick's dogs, Charlotte's dogs, A levels, Isaacs's latest book, a murderer that had been on the news lately (and who still hadn't been caught, causing an entire discussion about if he wouldevenbe caught), before finally ending with Darcy trying to convince everyone that cat gods actually ruled the world.
Charlotte left the cafeteria, trying to stop her laughing as she headed to Maths, feeling happier than she had in a while.
Maybe being out wasn't so scary after all