Olivia Isn't Normal (According To Them, Even Though She Is)

Content warning: suicide

This is a sad tale. Warning you.

"Hey, uhh, Gavie?" Olivia was seventeen with dark skin the color of her brown eyes and gorgeous curls in her shiny hair. She had been withholding a secret from everyone, and even herself.

"Yeah what?" Gavin, also seventeen and pretty. Orange hair and freckled, rosy cheeks. Her icy eyes were a mirror to her icy soul. It was crazy for her to be friends with Olivia, due to social rank.

"This is really hard for me, Gavie. But I need to tell you. I've known this about myself for what feels like forever. I'm sapphic." Olivia kept her eyes on Gavin, who was clenched.

"What does 'sapphic' even mean?" That was not the reaction that Olivia wanted.

"It's like being a lesbian. I like girls. But I can see myself dating girls who are bi, or lesbian, or trans, or pan." Olivia didn't move, but Gavin did. She moved away from Olivia, a few inches at a time to avoid detection.

A day later, Gavin asked Olivia if she had a crush on her. Olivia immediately said no.

A week later, Gavin told her more popular friends about Olivia and her sexuality.

A month later, most of the girls in school would change in rooms away from Olivia, scared that she might look at them naked. That's what happens when you live in Kansas City, nobody is accepting.

A few months after that, Olivia was not spoken to, not looked at, and made fun of. A few guys tried to get her to be with them to make her 'normal, which was terrible.

Gavin and Olivia hadn't talked in such a long time that Olivia forgot how Gavin's voice sounded when she sang Ariana Grande songs, and how her eyes watered any time that Olivia would eat spicy food.

The memories of their friendship were like waves in an ocean, slowly fading into nothingness.

Olivia's mother and father weren't much help. The plan was to come out to Gavin, who would be supportive, then to her parents, but after the incident with her ex-friend, she kept putting it off.

"Honey, where's Gavin?" Olivia's mother, Mary, asked. "I haven't seen her in a long time. Is she okay?" Olivia wanted to cry and hug her mother, but she used all her energy to not do so.

"Yeah, mom she's fine." Mary didn't believe her daughter, so she asked her husband to press on.

"Well we haven't seen her around the house, sugar," Olivia looked at her dad, standing tall with his arms crossed. "Did something happen?"

"No, it's fine," Olivia continued to evade questioning as best as she could.

"Livie-"

"Mom, no!" Olivia stormed out of the kitchen and into her room quickly enough to hide her tears. The second her door shut, an eruption of tears and sniffles took her over.

It wasn't just wrestling with this secret that made Olivia tremble. It was the fact that her friend, Gavin, sweet, sensitive Gavin, would react so poorly. Olivia understood that not everyone will congratulate her or thank her for telling them, but Gavin was acting childish.

Her friend for years was not more of a stranger than anything else. She was the bully. She was the cruelty. She was not the coming out story that Olivia wanted. She was her worst nightmare.

Over the next few days, Olivia passed Gavin in the halls and smiled at her, hoping for a smile in return. Gavin would just turn to her friends, whisper something, and burst out laughing.

During PE, Gavin convinced the coach to let the girls change first and then allow Olivia to enter the locker room. It was an atrocious thing to do, and it made Liv want to die.

One fateful day, on the bleachers, Gavin and her friends were eating salads and watching the track team practice. Olivia was sitting under those same bleachers and stuffing french fries into her mouth.

"Hey, what happened to that girl? The gay one?" A girl that Olivia recognized as Amber asked.

"I heard she jumped out of a window."

"I thought she left town."

"I hope she died tho. She shouldn't be walking around and trying to make others gay."

Olivia felt tears form in her eyes. The girls on the bleachers all looked over at Gavin.

"What happened Gav?" Martina adjusted in her seat and leaned in. "We know you were friends with her. We don't know why but-"

"I was family friends with her. And also, she's still alive. And she's not gay. She's sapphic." Olivia looked up at the bleachers with a sliver of hope. Maybe Gavin didn't understand it, but she must have gotten a long way to correct her friends.

Olivia found herself standing in front of Gavin's house after school, her hands shaking and her breath uneven. After Gavin technically sticking up for her, Olivia wanted to try to talk to her again.

She rang the doorbell and right away saw Mrs. McMann incessantly smiling. She pulled Olivia inside and turned toward the wooden staircase.

"Gavin, company!" She sent Olivia up the stairs and to the young McMann.

On entrance into Gavin's room, Liv noticed some changes. She saw that the once pink walls were a shiny shade of yellow. The Shawn Mendes posters had been removed from the wall and replaced with fake vines. The space over the wooden desk was now empty. The pictures of Olivia and Gavin were gone.

"What are you doing here?" Olivia turned to see Gavin with a towel wrapped around her body and an identical one around her head.

"I-i...."

"Get out!" Gavin, with the hand that wasn't holding her towel, pushed Olivia out of her room and slammed the door. "What do you want?"

Olivia wondered. What did she want? She wanted to make things right, maybe.

"I wanted to talk to you." The door swung open to reveal Gavin with her hair, still wet, dripping onto her rainbow tank-top. Olivia found that ironic. But she was reconsidering her answer to the question Gavin asked a few months ago. As she stood there, in short shorts and shiny lipstick, Olivia felt confused.

"Talk about what?" Gavin picked up her towel and wrung her hair.

"You standing up for me. On the bleachers. I just wanted to thank you for doing that. Not a lot of people would." Then came silence. And a kiss. Olivia pulled her ex-friend into a kiss, her first kiss with a girl. She didn't know why she did that, but she didn't regret it. Until later.

"What the hell is your problem!?" Gavin pulled away and shouted. "I'm not gay! I don't like you that way! And it wasn't standing up for you! Being what you are is wrong and you will rot in hell for it!"

And those were the events that led up to the untimely death--well, suicide--of Olivia Jamieson.

I told you it was sad.