The Gay Equation

Content warning: self-harm, suicide attempt

Photography: Dani Vivanco on Unsplash

Something had been gnawing at me for some time. It was the reason I forgave my supposed best friend Chloe for all the mean things she did to me; it was the reason I hung about after hockey practice to help Miss Jackson clear away the equipment; it was the reason my walls were plastered in Little Mix posters while my friends obsessed over One Direction; it was the reason I went out with Plukey Peter even though he made me squirm.

I didn’t even know all those things were connected to each other let alone to that constant gnawing in my tummy until another fight with Chloe. She’d told me that she wanted Leeann to join our group of friends and I knew what that meant for me, her existing best friend. I’d be relegated to the bottom of the pecking order again – it wouldn’t be me carrying her schoolbag because of her supposed trapped nerve, it wouldn’t be me doing her maths homework because she was too busy watching Gossip Girl and most importantly, it wouldn’t be me who was in her Facebook profile picture.  It wasn’t entirely unexpected, I had taken the place of Maxine not six months before who’d replaced Jill before that but I’d hoped that my sparkling wit and charisma would have kept me in pole position longer than those who’d failed before me. What hurt most was her choice of replacement. Leeann Cooper. Leeann the swot who was the only person in school to wear a blazer! Leeann who was a prefect! Leeann who had a National Trust for Scotland badge pinned to her school bag! It was an insult.

I suppressed my emotions until I got home because I knew a tantrum would only be fodder for Chloe and her new best friend but as soon as my bedroom door was closed the stopcock popped and a torrent of tears and fury was released – mainly against my Little Mix cushion with poor Jesy’s face taking the brunt of my fists. When I had cried myself dry, I lay there and allowed my swirling mind to settle. I began to pull at the gnawing, hoisting it to the surface until I had that corny lightbulb moment that Einstein must have had when he discovered that E=mc2. For me, my equation was more like:

M+C+MJ+LM-PP=L

(Me + Chloe + Miss Jackson + Little Mix – Plukey Peter = Lesbian)

It all added up perfectly and at first, I was relieved because now everything made sense and for a while, the gnawing abated. I enjoyed having my own little secret, something that neither Chloe nor anyone else could get at. My diary became my best friend. I’d tried writing one before but had nothing to say bar the mundane of what I ate that day but now, I could not stem the flow of words. I traced all my feelings back and I wondered how it had taken me 14 years to figure it out; at five I’d fancied my babysitter and that’s why I’d refused to go to her wedding – because she wasn’t marrying me; at seven I had wanted to be Joseph in the Nativity so I could hold hands with Mary; at ten I’d taken all those creepy photos of Michelle our holiday rep because I had a crush on her; and now, the reason I was hanging about after hockey practice was so I could have time with Miss Jackson alone.

I filled two diaries within weeks, revealing all my crushes and I started scouring the library shelves for books to read that might feature a lesbian character but unused to dishonesty, the secrecy and the gnawing caught up with me

I filled two diaries within weeks, revealing all my crushes and I started scouring the library shelves for books to read that might feature a lesbian character but unused to dishonesty, the secrecy and the gnawing caught up with me. It didn’t help that my friends, spurred on by Chloe of course, decided that Miss Jackson was a ‘lezzie’ and they all shivered and said how gross it was that she was allowed to be in the changing rooms with us. We made her life a misery, and although it made me sad because I loved her, if I didn’t join in, the big gay spotlight would have focused in on me. I couldn’t allow myself to be this way. These feelings I’d momentarily delighted in, would only cause me harm.

In a bid to rid myself of being a lesbian, I ripped the pages from my diary, tore them up into tiny pieces and stuffed them into the garden compost in the hope they would rot away and take my feelings with them. I started holding Plukey Peter’s hand in public even though his coarse skin made me queasy and I stopped going to hockey to remove the temptation. But it was futile because I couldn’t unknow what I did. I couldn’t “ungay” myself and this conflict of being someone I didn’t want to be permeated my nightmares.  Every night I was tormented by faceless abusers and I’d wake up in tears to find mum dotting lavender on my pillow. Instead of being thankful, I’d push her away because stinking like an old woman at school really wasn’t cool. I couldn’t have told her what was wrong even if I’d wanted to because now, the flow of words had been stemmed.

I thought maybe if I dressed differently, traded my “tomboy” attire for whatever tiny skirts my friends wore, my brain would follow suit. But that didn’t last long because riding a bike in inch-long skirts only amounted to indecent exposure  

I thought maybe if I dressed differently, traded my “tomboy” attire for whatever tiny skirts my friends wore, my brain would follow suit. But that didn’t last long because riding a bike in inch-long skirts only amounted to indecent exposure.  When Plukey Peter dumped me and I no longer had his skinny frame of teenage hormones to hide behind, I was sure that my friends would figure me out. In the same way I couldn’t speak to my mum, I began to speak less and less to my friends for fear my feelings would betray me and leap out of my mouth to tell them I fancied them all. Only Leeann ever commented on my status as a near-mute.

“You don’t say much these days,” she’d said one day, but I knew she was only asking on behalf of Chloe who wouldn’t have wanted her curiosity mistaken for concern.  They got closer to each other and on the very few occasions I got Chloe to myself, Leeann would appear wanting to know what was happening and off Chloe would go, which really hurt because I still loved her.

One evening, after Chloe snapchatted a selfie of her and Leeann ice skating without me, the gnawing began to eat its way around my intestines like Pac Man eating his way through a maze to level-up. It moved upwards and wedged itself in my chest until I couldn’t breathe. I thumped my chest with closed fists to dislodge the mass but it wouldn’t budge.  Not knowing how else to get rid of it resulted in self-harm.

I was careful in gym class the next day to ensure no one saw my wound because I didn’t want to be perceived as an attention seeker.

But I must have gotten sloppy when taking a shot at the netball hoop because Leeann approached me afterwards.

“Did you do that yourself?” She asked brazenly, pointing to my arm.

My face burned and I told her not to be so stupid, that I wasn’t mental, that it was next door’s cat but she pressed the matter. 

“If there’s something you want to talk about,” she said with a look I couldn’t place and at that, I flipped.

I screamed at her and told her to get her ugly face away from me and she burst into tears. I don’t know why I said it, she was actually quite pretty for a swot, a bit Hermione-ish, but I didn’t feel too bad for her: this was all her doing. 

Given how I’d behaved, I was sure she would tell Chloe and the others that I was an attention seeking lesbian freak and knowing how they would react, I couldn’t allow that.  Murdering Leeann to secure her silence wasn’t an option so I decided I would have to find another way. I don’t think suicide was exactly what I wanted, I think it was just sheer desperation of wanting my racing thoughts to stop.

I sat on my bed and held two pills in my hand. They oscillated gently in my palm, until they straddled the head and the heart lines, lines that according to my hippy Aunt Sue, meant I was an “overthinker” destined for an “abundance of love”. What airy fairy nonsense! I may be an overthinker but given everyone hated me, I didn’t foresee an abundance of love coming my way anytime soon.

I popped them in my mouth and chased them with a couple of others. I didn’t feel anything: not sad, not relief, not regret. Nothing. Then mum appeared at my door to tell me Chloe and the others were here – had I forgotten we were going to watch the school play tonight?  I had but I told her I wasn’t feeling well so I’d give it a miss. She pleaded with me to go, told me it would be good for me. She obviously wanted me out of her hair. That she didn’t want me around either only cemented everything I was feeling.

“Fine!” I huffed. I’d have to finish whatever this was later.

We watched the play and Leeann had muscled her way in as usual so I had to sit beside her, not Chloe. The dim lights and the paracetamol dispersing around my insides made me sleepy and I kept nodding off. Every time my eyes snapped open, Leeann had her head turned in my direction, staring at me, and I imagined she was calculating when best to ruin my life completely.  I felt in my pocket for the pill packet and held it, feeling some comfort that it was there. At the interval we went to the tuckshop to chat about just how rubbish these amateurs were but I was sure no one was speaking to me. I thought this must be part of their plan and it was only a matter of time before they publicly shamed me.

I snuck off to the toilets, my legs wobbly and my eyelids heavy. I stood over the toilet, not knowing quite what to do next. Suddenly the door burst open and I expected, hoped even, to see Chloe – finally she had come to save me – but when I turned I saw bloody Leeann.

“Give me the pills,” she demanded.

Unable to protest, I let her go through my pockets and she took out the packet. She told me I needed to make myself sick and I let her guide me to my knees, head hanging over the bowl encrusted with leftovers from the last user but nothing came. She told me to stick my fingers down my throat and I began to cry, told her to get out, told her I hated her, that she had ruined my life. Crouched beside me she rubbed my back and repeated that I had to make myself sick.

“No, I don’t want to be here anymore,” I sobbed.

“I’ll get a teacher if you don’t,” she retorted.

“You have no idea, I want to be dead and no one would notice anyway.”

“I would notice,” she murmured but I thought I must have misheard as my hearing was fuzzy and everything was spinning so I turned to face her.

“I would notice,” she repeated but before I could digest her sentiment, the undigested paracetamols and tuna sandwich I’d had for lunch lurched south, all over her Sketchers and splashing up her bare legs. She yelped and directed me back toward the toilet. I heaved and I heaved until everything was gone, even the gnawing was ejected into the lumpy abyss.

We sat together on the toilet floor, ignoring the stench of my vomit and someone else’s excretions, and for a while we were quiet.

“What did you mean, ‘you would notice’?” I asked her, hoping that in my chemical haze, I hadn’t imagined her saying that. “You don’t even like me! You hate me just like Chloe hates me.”

“Of course I don’t hate you! I like you! I was only friends with Chloe to get closer to you but I guess it didn’t work.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean you like me like me? Or do you just think I’m funny and cool?”

“Um well, you haven’t been very funny or cool to me so I must really like you like you.”

I couldn’t believe I had gotten everything so wrong – couldn’t believe what had been right in front of me all this time.

“One more thing… Your Mum is waiting outside but I haven’t told her anything, just that you’re not feeling well. But she’s worried about you, I think she’d understand.”

My heart sank. Mum. What would she think? Would she disown me? Swap me for some girly girl who would marry a Plukey Peter, not a Plukey Petra?

Leeann got me to my feet and put her arm through mine to walk me to the door where Mum was waiting.  She let me go to allow Mum to sweep me into her bosie. Mum squeezed me hard and smoothed my hair and for once, I let her.

“Everything will be ok,” Mum soothed

“Everything will be ok,” Mum soothed and Leeann smiled at me over her shoulder. The pleasant warmth burbling in my tummy told me she was right, everything would be ok, better than ok in fact. Looks like hippy Aunt Sue’s prediction wasn’t airy fairy nonsense after all.

Fee loves to write. Her work often focuses on sexuality but she enjoys experimenting with voice and has written from the perspective of an endangered whale, an adulterous cat and a teenage quarryman amongst others.  She has been published in various zines including Paper and Ink, Razur Cuts and Glove Magazine. She came third in the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize in 2016 and has work featured in Nothing Is As It Was, a charity anthology on climate change published by Retreat West, and F, M, or Other: Quarrels with the Gender Binary published by Knight Errant Press. Fee is happiest when writing to the soundtrack of her two snoring cats.