High School Fur - A gay furry coming of age story

Chapter 9

I distracted myself messaging Ella & catching up on what I had missed last night and how much humiliation I might receive come Monday, but most people thankfully didn't see the funny side and were mainly in the 'Eric is a dick' camp who apparently Jackson threw out not long afterwards, a video of a drunken Eric being sick on himself now trending with the #jacksonsparty on Instagram rather than anything of me being thrown into a pool

Scrolling through the various posts, and sure enough there was hardly any mention of me going for a swim, and everyone was instead talking about Eric being sick, what did catch my eye though was a post from Jackson with the picture he'd taken earlier of the cupcake, the caption read 'I don't get to blow out candles every year, so this year I got to make a wish'

What did you do!

I panic as a red heart shows up, I clicked it without thinking, and now I cant unclick it because he will know and then he might think into it more than it means, I threw my phone onto my bed cursing my clumsy fingers, but then it vibrated with a notification.

'hey I never got your number, but thanks for today, I think I've got away with it' he ended the message with a smiley face, I clicked on my own profile wondering what Jackson thought of the dork I was, my random posts which never got any likes or views, and Jacksons cake post already had 340 likes

I wasn't even sure what to message him back, by time I clicked on the message Jackson had already responded again, 'I had fun this morning, we should hang out again sometime'

'yeah that would be cool' I messaged back wondering why he would want to hang out with me, did we even have anything in common? I liked spending time with him, what wasn't there to like?

'great I have a garage which needs clearing out' he texts back with a laughing face, I get he's joking but he still sends another text shortly afterwards '(I'm joking) see you at school' I give the message a thumbs up.

Jackson wasn't like any other friends I had, even if I dared call him a friend already, I'd never been friends with a Jock no less, and not friends with anyone who hadn't labelled me.

It was like being gay I had to hang around with other gay kids, I had to join the LGBTQ club, when in reality I just wanted to be normal, if people didn't know I was gay I would be playing sports, I'd be on the team and they guys would take the piss out of me for something stupid, I just wanted that

And for the first time in my life Jackson treated me like that and the feeling I got inside was just indescribable.

I wondered for a moment if I could join the football team, I wanted to join to the team, the thought of it made me smile, but my thought was more about Sam the football player, when in reality, I was Sam the gay kid, who played football

Fuck the labels, I was sick of being a stereotype, that was my last thought i had as i drifted of to sleep.

I was abruptly awoken by the loud siren on my alarm, i wasn't used to the new phone and the default alarm was shocking, usually when my alarm went off I would just hit the snooze button and drag out the process of getting up, but today I was up straight away and fixing my hair already.

Mom and dad were eating breakfast still in their pyjamas as I came downstairs to make myself some toast, my mom looked over as I placed the bread in the toaster, our kitchen was open to the living room, in fact the whole downstairs was pretty much one room which meant there was no hiding downstairs

Its why I liked my room so much, even if I got my phone out downstairs my sister would be there looking over my shoulder at the screen, she was inquisitive like that but it also meant I had to filter what I was looking at, she had an uncanny ability to read texts out aloud.