PROLOGUE
I lay on my bed in my one-bedroom apartment watching The Notebook-my favorite movie. I was so engrossed even though this was almost my fifth time watching it.
The soft hum of dialogue blended with the faint buzz of my phone. I reached for it from under my pillow and it was a group call- Vero and Gabby of course.
They were my best friends in the world and I reckon I wouldn't have made it this far in Uni without them. They were the light at the end of my tunnel and I really loved and appreciated them more than words could express.
Vero and Gabby accepted me for who I am and I have never felt love like that - not even from my own mother.
I hesitated before answering because I knew what they wanted to talk about and I really wasn't in the mood.
"Simon!" Vero shouted with glee, "we were just talking about you?"
"Well, he wasn't supposed to know that now was he Vero," Gabby's fed-up voice followed.
Vero chuckled uneasily, I could feel the tension through the screen and I knew they were going to ask about what happened earlier. We were going for lunch and we ran into Jack- my high school classmate- and things had gotten very awkward. I might have lashed out a little bit when he tried talking to me.
"So…are we going to talk about what happened today?" Gabby asked, her voice soft like a mother talking to her child. Her voice blended with the sounds from the movie in the background.
My throat tightened and I knew they would probe me harder if I tried to brush it off like I did earlier during lunch.
There was a rather long, odd silence.
"Simon?" Vero's voice gentle voice then came in.
I took a deep breath and swallowed hard, knowing that I could no longer run from this.
"It's a long story," I began quietly, "and it all started in high school where I was stripped of my dignity just because of who I was."