Page 33 of Catch Me
“Then, why do you hang out with them?”
“Why do you?”
“It never bothered me.”
“And now?”
I rolled my lips, then shrugged. “It’s old. They’re ignorant, and being negative all the time doesn’t make me feel good anymore.”
The way he studied me made it difficult not to walk away immediately. I wondered if he thought I was being a bitch about the whole thing.
“I saw you talking to Ezra earlier,” he noted.
It was hard to keep my breaths even. “We talk sometimes.”
“If you ever need an ear, I’m around. We’re friends and I’d never out you.”
“There’s nothing toout.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Fuck off, Leo.”
I didn’t want to give him a chance to say anything else, so I started walking while I ordered an Uber to pick me up a few blocks away. My heart was beating so fast that I worried it would stop working.
If Leo saw something and made assumptions, others could too. Had they already? I kept fucking up, even when I decided that I wouldn’t do it anymore. I said no to Ezra today, so that was a step.
I could get past this. Iwouldget past this. There was no other option.
After I was safely inside my apartment, I sat crisscross on my bed and turned on my tablet. When I checked my phone, I saw a text from Travis that he’d sent an hour ago.
Trav:Hey back
The message made me smile. I liked that response and had come to expect it. My drunk brain couldn’t be trusted to talk to him right now, so I just sent him a picture of the drawing with Tessa and the sunset. He replied immediately, which lifted my mood a little.
Trav:I’m stunned. Seems like you’re making it a habit to impress me. Tessa says it’s pawfect. 10/10
I dropped onto my back and let out a breath. I barely knew this guy, and somehow, even the simple things he said made me feel better than the people I’d been hanging out with for three years.
Chapter 11
Travis
I wasn’t going LIVE as often, and people noticed. The list of ‘standards’ I’d been given set pretty clear expectations about what I could do online. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but it still fucked things up for me.
Mostly, I was making regular posts since I could put more thought into them. On LIVE, I said the things that came into my head. People asked questions and I answered. There wasn’t time for me to consider if what I said would violate one of the standards and get me yelled at.
It felt like I was abandoning the people who needed me. I jumped through hoops and walked on eggshells because my career depended on it, and I couldn’t even explain any of it to my followers. I acted like everything was normal and avoided questions about my absence or ones that would get me in trouble.
Somehow, doing less was exhausting. That didn’t make sense.
I navigated to my notifications, ready to read a hundred comments that I couldn’t respond to. My brow furrowed when I saw that someone had followed me. I got new followers all the time, but this one stood out.
It was surprising that Roman would do that. He was firmly on the ‘don’t say gay’ train, and my page wasverygay. I hadn’t been sure if it was him who’d joined my LIVE before, but now I knew that it was. We were professional acquaintances, so maybe it wasn’t all that weird.
No, it was weird. My content would pop up on his feed. Did that mean he wanted to see it?
He’d started texting me again, and since I didn’t want to be rude, I responded. It’d been over a week, and he did it every day. We didn’ttalk, really. We did our standard greeting, then he’d either ghost or send me a picture of what he was working on. That was it. He didn’t even ask for updates.
