We'll dance again

I can’t face school the next day “you can’t stay out every day” mom said half out the door. Yea I know but I can miss the worst of it. The page has an insane amount of likes. Literally more likes than students in the school. Checking, Alison has invited everyone on my friends list to like the page so there are the few hundred students from my old school too. Topping it off my main offender in my old school posted a picture to the page I never thought anyone had. How did he get a picture of me kissing a guy? How do people have access to this shit? I haven’t spoken to the guys since a photo of me in a poor attitude pose was posted to each of their pages. I’m sure that weirded them out enough to never speak to me again.
I decide I’ll spend the day lying on the hall floor. I come down stairs for food but lose the will to move on the way and just fall to the floor. It’s still a bit damp here from where I lay down yesterday. It’s nice and cold too. Maybe I’ll catch hypothermia and die.
That thought makes me sit up. Not from shock at my thoughts of death but from shock that I think I could get hypothermia from my floor.
“Idiot,” I groan at myself, “they should call the page hardcore idiot ballet fag.”
I make myself toast and sit staring gloomily out the kitchen window at the rain. It’s nearly November now. Soon the rain will turn to sludge. It’s nearly November which means it’s nearly Halloween. My birthday. I’ll spend my turning 17 in my room alone probably eating toast and drinking vodka that will get me grounded more.
The doorbell rings.
“Uh, one second!” I shout, running upstairs to find trousers. I hop across the landing one leg in and then run down the stairs. I open the door as I close the button and someone jumps on me. Under the weight of the person I land back on the cold, damp hall floor. “Hey what…” I mumble trying to rub the back of my head they just smacked off the ground.
Pete sits up, straddling me. “Awh man are you alright? We all got invited to like the page and knew that it was probably that bitch trying to fuck with you. Don’t worry she did the same to me once, posted my nudes all over Facebook, made a page in dedication and everything. Total bitch. It stayed up till the police took it down but my dick is probably still on google images. Point is she has no creativity and people will get bored fairly soon, they’ll leave you alone after a while and forget about it.”
I stare up at Pete trying to make sense of everything that just happened. “Could you get off me?” I manage to say at last.
He grins and nods then rolls off me hitting the radiator by the stairs. Bert, from the doorway, extends me his hand and pulls me to my feet. “Thanks,” I say and pull up my pants which Pete never let me close.
“Welcome.”
“So, uh, you saw all the pictures?” I say a little awkwardly. Everyone nods. “Want to come in?” Everyone nods again.
They all sit in my kitchen, dripping with rain water. Gerard’s eyeliner has run and is pooling at his chin. Mikey looks dishevelled and slightly confused. Gabe and Pete are grinning constantly and Bert sits quietly threatening a smile. “So…” I say in the silence.
“You okay man?” Mikey asks looking up through his cloudy glasses.
“As okay as I can be I guess…” I grumble. “I mean my social life is ruined and so is one of my friend’s school election campaign that he was working really hard on and now everyone is probably going to know that I did all that horrible stuff to those who pissed Alison off and my stomach hurts. But yea I’m fucking fabulous.”
Everyone sits rigid. Even Pete looks at loss for words.
“Uh, why’d it happen?” Gerard asks looking at his feet.
I sit up straight. I really didn’t want to have to tell them. I was really hoping I’d get embarrassed and that’s that. “Well, I was spotted by lead bitch’s sister at ballet when I was failing and she videoed me…” I tell them everything right up to Brendon’s power point. I don’t leave out any details. I talk about doing Carl’s homework and about the gay porn story. I mention how Ellie got in the way and the one sided bitch arguments where Alison just screamed at Madison and Madison just screamed at Alison. The guys sit silently listening to it all, turning over the horrible things over in their minds. When I’m finished I slink into silence. No one decides to speak next.
After a painfully long while Gee speaks, “We don’t care that you do ballet though Frank. Explains why you have good balance and to that thing where you point your toe when you’re boarding. I think it’s fucking awesome you so ballet actually.”
I raise my eyebrows because what is he actually saying. “Yea its fucking cool you do your own thing man,” he explains.
The others nod in agreement. “You could have told us all of that shit man! While it was happening! Plus I bet you’re not as bad as that bitch makes you look. You were so beaten up in the video I’ surprised you could even stand,” Gabe smiles.
“Could we go to your next show?” Gerard asks. He’s grinning but I think he’s actually serious.
“Wait, really?” I say sliding off my kitchen counter.
They all nod eagerly. “Yea, sure, I mean why not. I’m the male lead. I’m the only guy but still in past years they gave the male lead to a girl,” I say proudly.
“Fucking awesome!” Pete says.
“Um do you want food?” I say feeling like I should offer the five most awesome humans something for making me feel like dying of hypothermia on my hall floor is no longer my only decent option.
“Sure.”
I make a lot of mac and cheese to the sounds of “I knew it, it’s still on the internet!”, “how did they get pictures of you kissing a guy” and “are you wearing a fucking tutu? That’s fucking hilarious man.”
We eat and play GTA. The guys snuck out of school just to come over and try cheer me up and I can tell you now it’s fucking working. At like two o clock I decide to go on Facebook again just to see if any further damage has been made.
“You have an Ask.fm?” Gabe asks shaking his head, looking over my shoulder.
“Yea… I know pretty stupid but everyone got it…” I feel really stupid.
“You get bullied and you have a way for people to say shit to you anonymously?” Bert blurts incredulously.
“Yes, it’s obviously dumb, let’s drop it?” I hate looking or feeling dumb. I know it’s stupid to allow people to say shit anonymously and honestly I don’t even remember getting it in the first place.
“Got any questions?” Gerard says sitting all but on top of me on the couch.
I click on the icon. “Uh yea like thirty.”
“Wanna answer them,” he says. I look up and he’s grinning devilishly.
“Uh, what.”
Everyone is looking at Gee now. “Oh come on, if they’re being assholes lets be assholes back.”
Pete sits in on my other side and somehow six guys manage to squeeze in on the sofa.
“Okay uh the first question I see here is, “Why u still doin ballet fag”,” I say reading a question that came in almost immediately.
“Say; “So I can put on a show for all my gay lovers,”” Gabe suggests. I type it in grinning.
“Another is “Do you have no self-respect” ouch,” I say looking down at another anonymous statement.
“Say “Possibly”” Mikey says leaning across his older brother. I type it in and press send. Giving calm and sarcastic replies are the only good thing about anonymous hate. If you can even think there’s a good thing.
“This one says “why don’t you go die there’s no need for you to stay if you just embarrass yourself”” Well that is a bit dry.
Everyone turns this one over in their mind. “Uh maybe just say “no”,” Gabe suggests.
“Or maybe “right back at you,”” suggests Gee. I make a small grunting noise and type it in.
We answer all the questions with the same dry unamused sarcasm. “Homosexuality is a sin” “So is judging”, “I don’t like you” “I’m so offended”, “Lol that tutu is so gay” “So am I”, “If ur gonna do smthn as faggotty as ballet you could at least b gud” “If you’re going to do something as pointless as insult me you could at least spell”, “Why did you try hide your gayness everyone knew you were a fag the ballet would have justified it” “I didn’t know I had to justify my sexuality. I’ll make sure to wear rainbows and tutus from now on, no hiding the homo”, etcetera. It was really enjoyable. So fun that after a while I forgot these were all direct insults at me.
The guys leave at three and promise to return later to hang out. Even after the fun with Ask.fm I don’t feel like being seen by anyone really.
My mom comes home but spends an hour shouting down the phone. I know straight away she’s talking to the school and she’s not happy. She’s talking about transferring schools, bills, bullying and all that. She goes from politely asking to rage when they challenge her. I even hear “why the f- , ehem, why ever not?” being screamed. Oh god Linda Iero is angry when she starts cursing.
We eat dinner and mom glares at her plate. It’s silent for a while then she can’t hold it in anymore, “What is the point in an anti-bullying policy if no one enforces it, at all. I’ve heard all sorts of stories from a woman in work whose daughter had her hair dyed black by some popular girl trying to get revenge on a friend. What even is that?” She pokes her pork chop angrily. “And another thing I heard is that the teachers didn’t even look into any of it until school equipment and sports stuff started getting destroyed.”
I look down at my plate, guilt ripping through me. “Excuse me,” I say standing up.
“Not hungry, are you feeling okay?” Mom looks worried now.
“Yea I’m fine,” I say leaving my plate at the sink and running outside. I could have put my plate in the dishwasher but leaving it to my mom isn’t exactly the worst I’ve done.
I skate down through the street and meet Bert at the entry to the park. We skate toward the library, joking about all the insult attempts we retaliated earlier.

Everyone stares at me from the moment I get out of my mom’s car. People whisper to each other really obviously and laugh and one guy offers to sell me his sister’s tutu. “It would probably fit you”.
“Yea that’s a good one, putting that in my list of most hurtful insults,” I shout back and people snigger. Laughing with me or at me I don’t know and don’t want to know.
Ray runs over to me when I reach my locker and starts gushing about how sorry he is and how he has Ryan and Brendon working on taking down the page and that it’s all slowly getting deleted. “Why didn’t you tell us you did ballet? You must have known that she had those videos, we could have helped or something!” Ray says looking rather hurt.
At lunch Brendon apologises constantly as we move up in the lunch line, “honestly, it’s okay, it wasn’t you” I try reassure him but he just seems so sorry.
I get a lot of jeers all day. Chemistry Carl stays awake specifically to try piss me off. English is brilliant though because the teacher decides to force Billie Elliot down our throats. It’s a story about a boy who lives in a rough part of England during a serious strike. The teacher holds me after class to see if I’m okay and I think it’s safe to say she’s my favourite teacher.
Jeers upon jeers until I finally lash out, “yea I’m bi it’s hilarious. Unless you want to blow me fuck off!” After that it dies down a little.
The day ends in a flurry of gay jokes and degrading campaign posters and god I just want to go home.

Notes

Woot woot one more chapter! It'll be posted in about nine hours I'd say because then I've got to go leave the country xD Thanks so so so much for reading guys and all those comments are literally what gives me motivation to write and for that I'm hella grateful because it's fast becoming my favourite thing. Thanks ya'll :3 xxx