Afraid of love

Shit. He noticed my bruise... what now? I had no excuse. I thought nobody would notice it, let alone comment on it.

"Oh... it's nothing. I don't even know where I got that bruise from," I said nervously.

Ben looked at me, then at the bruise again. "It looks like-"

Fortunately, the bell rang, and our lesson was about to start. "Oh, come on, we need to get back in time," I said quickly.

Ben stood up and followed me to the locker rooms. I noticed he was deep in thought. I just hoped it wasn't about the bruise...

When we got back to the classroom, we both sat down.

"Would you like to meet up sometime?" Ben asked with a smile.

I looked at him, a little surprised, and replied, "Umm... I don't know..."

"If you don't want to, that's alright. I get that some people like to be alone," Ben said understandingly.

"No... I just... I feel like I'm a boring person. I don't do any hobbies or anything cool. I'm just an ordinary guy with nothing interesting about me," I admitted sadly.

Ben looked at me and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Mike, I don't care about that. I'm not an interesting person either. I just want to spend time with you... and if you're bored, I'll be bored with you," he said, laughing.

"How can you say you're not interesting? You literally play the violin. I heard it's one of the hardest instruments to play," I replied with a weak smile.

"Well, yeah... but you have no idea how much time I had to spend learning every single note. It took me, like, five years to play my first 19-second song," Ben chuckled.

I smiled. "Yeah, but that's exactly my point. You're cool, you can play the violin, and I can't."

"Hey, stop trying to prove you're worthless. Don't tell me there's nothing you're good at that nobody else is," Ben challenged me.

I thought about it, but nothing came to mind. "Nope. I'm completely boring," I said, my voice dripping with irony.

"You know I'm not falling for that, right?" Ben smirked.

"Benjamin! Michael! Keep it quiet back there!" our teacher barked.

"We're sorry, Mr. Lancaster," Ben apologized.

We spent the rest of the lesson quietly because Mr. Lancaster was known as the teacher of unreadable expressions and surprise tests that could ruin your entire week.

When the last bell rang, everyone rushed to the locker rooms. I quickly changed and stepped outside.

"Mike, wait!" Ben called after me. "I just wanted to ask if we could really meet up? I think it'd be fun," he said, smiling.

"Alright, just send me where you want to meet. Do you have my Instagram?" I asked.

"No... I don't think I do," Ben replied.

We exchanged Instagrams and then went our separate ways home.

The moment I got home, I threw myself onto my bed and passed out. I was so exhausted, from today, from everything. I must've slept for four whole hours before I woke up.

Then I remembered, I had to do Luke's assignment for tomorrow. I quickly opened our chat and checked the requirements. When I saw that the minimum length was five pages, I nearly started crying. It was already 8 p.m., and I had to write a five-page paper.

I didn't hesitate and started working. It was fairly easy, I just copied some pictures from the internet, grabbed text from articles, then ran everything through an AI to make it look more professional. And just like that, I was done. It only took me... two hours...

Completely drained, I collapsed onto my bed again. I took out my phone to set my alarm but noticed a message notification.

It was from Ben.

[Ben]

Hey Mike, I wanted to ask.
What's your favorite place to go?

[Mike]

Well... this will probably sound childish,
but I haven't been to an arcade in a long time.

[Ben]

I've never been to an arcade before!
That means we have to go.

[Mike]

I don't know if that's a good idea...

[Ben]

Why not? We can just play together.
Since you miss it and I've never been,
we'll have a lot of fun.

[Mike]

Alright then. When do you want to meet?
Friday after school?

[Ben]

Friday after school it is.
We can talk about the details in school if you want.
By the way, how's Luke's assignment? Did you finish it?

[Mike]

Yeah... but I have to admit, it was painful.
I spent two hours doing it.

[Ben]

Two hours?! WOW.
You must really care about him.

When I read that message, I couldn't even describe the overwhelming urge to finally tell someone the truth about Luke. If I did, I'd be free. I wouldn't have to deal with this anymore.
But I just couldn't.

So I played along.

[Mike]

Yeah, we're really good friends.
We help each other all the time.

[Ben]

That's nice to hear.
I wish we could be like that too.
I didn't have many friends at my old school,
so I hope we can become good friends. 😉

[Mike]

Yeah, I hope so too.
I don't have many friends either.

[Ben]

What about Luke?

[Mike]

Yeah, well, he's my friend...
but we don't talk much.

[Ben]

Yeah, I get that.
I had a lot of friends like that in my old school.

[Mike]

So you had friends?

[Ben]

Well, I thought I did.
But they were all faking it.
I didn't realize it at first.
Then they started bullying me...
And then my parents...

[Mike]

I'm sorry to hear that, Ben.

[Ben]

Don't worry, it's alright.
I reported the bullies, and my parents just divorced.
It's not like the world is ending. 😄

[Mike]

Yeah, but still-
It's admirable that you pushed through it
and got back on your feet.

[Ben]

Thank you. It was a long road
 to peace... but I made it.
Alright, I think I'll head
 to bed now. Good night.

[Mike]
Good night.

I sent the message, then glanced at the time.

MIDNIGHT?!

I had been texting with Ben for over two hours. How the hell did time fly by so fast? I scrolled through our conversation again, and yeah, we really had been chatting for two whole hours.

Then, for the first time, I realized I hadn't even looked at Ben's Instagram profile yet. Curious, I tapped on his name.

It was private. He was only following six people, and I was one of them. Only three people were following him back. Maybe he wasn't very active on Instagram, I thought.

But that wasn't what caught my attention.

I clicked on his bio and saw...

Ben Harper
17 y.o. 💖💖
Playing violin 🎻
Gay 🏳️‍🌈💖