Modern Love

Modern Love

By Natalie Leinbach

Passing through the doorway to first-period American History class, I smiled as I was welcomed into a roomy, open space. It was a lot homier than I expected for my first day of high school. My eyes scanned the room frantically for a familiar face. When I spotted one, Tori, a middle school friend, I quickly snagged a seat next to her. Tori gestured to the desk in front of me, where I noticed a small yellow sticky note labeling the desk with a student’s name. Not me. 

Crap, I thought, assigned seats.

I got up and shuffled around the room, eyes jumping from desk to desk, searching for my name. Soon, I found it all the way on the other side of the room. Great.

I looked around for potential new friends. As I did so, a short pudgy kid darted into the room. Tori, Nick, and Amanda saw him and giggled. He was just about the dorkiest looking kid I had ever seen with terribly rectangular glasses, a lunch box the size of a backpack, and a backpack the size of a suitcase. I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath too. I watched him look for his seat. He inched around the room until he found it- right in front of me. 

I rolled my eyes. Even better.

* * *

Not again. I had just entered into my last class of the day, Precalculus. It was my first day of Sophomore year and there he was, the same nerdy kid (with his suitcase backpack) sitting in the seat right in front of the one labeled with my name. “Hey again,” I said. Gabriel and I were in the same accelerated program and therefore shared all the same classes. I got stuck sitting next to him in every single one. He turned around. “Do you know anything about Ms. Ocular? I heard she is really tough.”

“Yeah, I heard that too. Apparently, she doesn’t give As,” I said.

“I’ve never gotten a B in my life ... only As,” he said.

“Yeah, same.” I looked around the room and sighed. Gabriel turned his head and I could tell that he noticed it too- no one else in our program. “Well, at least we have each other,” he said with a shrug. I let out another sigh.

The bell rang and Ms. Ocular charged into the room, shutting the door behind her. She immediately began lecturing about the syllabus and within minutes she sprang into action, drawing graphs on the board. Gabriel and I scrambled to keep up and soon began scribbling down parabolas. After a few weeks, we got used to her speed and became less frantic. We treated Ms. Ocular’s rushed class as more of a game than anything else, fun to play but important to win. In this class, I realized one thing that Gabriel and I had in common: our unwavering competition. We rushed down the halls to class, whipped open our notebooks, and made time to tease before crunch time. But, when the bell rang, the race was on. Every day was the same in Ms. Ocular’s class: we would sprint to hand in our homework, compete to take neater notes, battle it out for first-prize in completing the classwork, and then finally run out the clock to see who could finish more homework problems before dismissal. Every day our rivalry grew stronger but nonetheless, we couldn’t deny that we made a good team. We got in a habit of checking our answers together before turning in the classwork, and before I knew it, we were on Facetime every night, helping each other complete the homework too.

Everything was a competition between us. Junior year it was making better points in AP English class discussion and fighting for the first clarinet chair in Advanced Band (we sat next to each other in both, this time, by choice). Senior year, I earned a coveted 9, the perfect essay score that he was never able to attain, on my Classic Literature essay, which I was all too happy to rub in his face. For almost four years we competed for a reason we couldn’t explain, like two preschoolers fighting to be the line leader on the way to the playground where everyone would play together anyway.

***

When my parents left me at college for the first time, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with myself. I sat in my room alone, trying to think of something to do. I reached for my phone to check my messages. Snapchat, CNN, and an incoming text. Gabriel. I swiped open my messages. Hey, are you finished moving in? He asked.

Yep, my parents just left, I responded.

My mom is still here, but we’re almost done. Want to come over?

Sure, on my way.

I hopped off of my bed, snatched my key, and slipped on my Birkenstocks. His building was halfway across campus, but I was happy to make the trek. I marveled over the place we had both chosen to call home. When I got there, I texted him that I was outside. Soon after, the basement door flung open and I was greeted by a tall, lean Gabriel with a glowing white smile. His hair was at the perfect length and swooped effortlessly to one side.

“Don’t laugh at my shoes, I just slipped them on to come open the door for you.”

Naturally, I glanced down. I chuckled at the sight of his brown leather flip flops fighting his white ankle socks to fit comfortably between his toes.

“I’m more concerned with why you have on a pink hat with a red T-shirt,” I said.

“Relax, I had on sneakers and a yellow hat earlier, I just popped these on to come down,” he assured.

“I remember when you got that shirt,” I said. “You really committed that costume. When I asked you to be the Pauly Bleaker to my Juno for Character Day, I didn’t think you would buy his actual T-shirt from the movie. What was that, Junior year? That was so funny.”

“Hey, I like this T-shirt. Yeah, it was Junior year and I still wear it. It was an investment, not just a costume. And it does not clash with this baseball cap so shut up.”

I giggled as he brought me up to his room. We saw each other regularly, sharing lunches and dinners together, listening to music in our rooms, and learning to play racquetball through countless YouTube videos, Wikipedia pages, and heated arguments after ambiguous plays. We poured our hearts out to each other in every conversation. We spent hours next to the ice cream machines in the diner learning more about one another than we ever wanted to know while the heads of strangers turned critically towards us in response to our unapologetically boisterous laughter. I talked about careers after college, the co-ed frat I was pledging, the new friends I was making, and the guys I had a crush on. Gabriel focused mostly on the difficulty of his engineering classes, his lack of friends, fights with the few friends he had, and hatred for his roommate.

“Dude, you will never guess what Matt did yesterday,” Gabriel started. He went off on his roommate for at least 20 minutes. When I finally got a chance to butt in, I asked, “did you talk to him about it?”

“Yes but he keeps doing everything I have a problem with. I hate him so much.”

“Hate is a strong word.”

“I literally hate him. I hate living in the middle of campus too. My only other friends live on North Campus so they never invite me to hang out with them. It’s so annoying.”

I shuffled around the sweet potatoes on my plate. “Try to make some friends on your floor or something.”

“Everyone on my floor is in the Arts Honors program so they’re a bunch of obnoxious theater kids.”

“Just talk to people in your classes, then,” I said.

“I don’t like talking to random people.” Gabriel looked down at his plate. “I have too much homework for friends anyway. I am getting dessert, do you want something?”

“Get one of everything and we’ll share.” He laughed and rolled his eyes.

Every time we were together I could tell that every little annoyance was weighing on him, heating him up like a kettle on the stove seconds away from screeching. Finally, after one big nonsensical blowout, Gabriel reached his boiling point with his roommate. Within days he was scheduled to move out into a new place. His new room in Prince Frederick Hall was a single- no roommate. Sure, I wanted to see his new place. But he really wanted me to see it. He asked me every day if I would come over for dinner and then head back to his new room to check it out. And when our schedules finally lined up, I agreed. We met at the South Campus Diner to grab a quick bite as per usual, but instead of unloading his stress like normal, he listened to me quietly. He seemed different, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. When he looked at me I tried to read his mood through his eyes, but he withdrew his gaze too quickly for me to tell.

On that walk over to Prince Frederick Hall, we suffered from a similarly troubling silence. Worried, I cracked jokes and teased him like I always did, and tried racing him to the front door- he played along but I won by a landslide. I wondered if it was something I had said. We walked into the lobby.

“Wow, this place is sweet. It looks like a fucking hotel,” I said.

“Yeah, the elevators are way faster than in your building too.”

We entered the elevator with another girl. Good, we’re not alone yet, I thought.

“What floor?” she asked.

“Five,” he said.

She pressed the buttons for floors 3 and 5. No one said anything, so I noticed how fast my heart was beating.

We entered his room and the overhead lights were so bright I squinted. He shuffled across the room and switched on his bedside lamp, emitting a soft warm glow into the room.

“Hold up, flick that switch off, those fluorescent lights are crazy bright,” he said.

Reluctantly, I set the mood. My heart rate increased.

“Gabriel, this is huge!” I cut in.

“Dude, I know right! It’s actually a handicapped room. Here, check out the bathroom.” It was huge too. He walked back into the room and sat at his desk. I selected the seat across the room, farthest away from him.

“Yo, wait until you hear this new song I found,” he said, opening his laptop.

“Okay, I bet it’s weird just like everything else you listen to,” I teased.

“Hey, you like some of the stuff I show you.”

“I know, but you listen to some weird shit, don’t even deny it.” 

He laughed loosely like usual. Finally.

He queued some tunes and brought his laptop to the floor and sat on the rug. I looked at my phone, trying to avoid eye contact. My heart was racing.

“This actually isn’t bad.”

“I know right,” he said, “I told you it was good! Come on, I listen to good music.”

I didn’t look up from my phone.

“Hey listen…” his voice was timid and shaky. I kept my eyes cemented to my aimless scrolling.

 “I want to tell you something.”

“Yeah, what’s that champ?” I smiled and chuckled nervously at my phone screen.

“This is hard for me to say.”

Hesitantly, I looked up to find him sitting cross-legged in front of me. He looked smaller than normal.

 “It’s just that I’ve known for a while and...” He was rocking back and forth as he spoke. 

I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know my face was bright red. I felt a million things in a millisecond. Don’t do it, Gabriel. Don’t ruin our friendship, I thought.

“...and I have been waiting for the right time to tell you, but I really want you to know.”

Our history flashed before my eyes. Facetime Precalculus and history. AP Exams and college acceptance letters. Band concerts and graduation. I want to be friends forever, please don’t do this Gabriel. I frantically planned my response to him. We can’t ruin our friendship. No. I don’t feel that way about you.

He looked up at me, and I could tell he was as scared as I was. Finally, he spoke: “I’m gay.”