Chapter Four : Coming Out
August 1994

    Stephanie couldn't stop the laughter that came out as Alex cracked a joke. She couldn't even tell you a joke. It was just something he said. Suddenly Alex stopped with the laughter so it was just Stephanie's laughs filling the studio. When she realized she stopped as well.

    The way she laughed was just another thing she hated about herself. "Alex?" Stephanie didn't know how to react to what happened next.

    Alex leaned forward and pressed his lips to her. She froze. Didn't even kiss back. Her best friend was kissing her and she didn't want to kiss back. She just wanted to stay so still that she faded away. Then Alex pulled back. "Alex?" She repeated.

    "Uhh sorry. But thank you."
    "What?" She didn't know what to say.
    "Uhh."
    "You just kissed me! Why did you just kiss me!"
    "It's not for the reason you think!" Alex yelled back, tring to calm Stephanie down. "Steph!"
    "Why-Why would you kiss me?"
    "BECAUSE I'M GAY!" Alex froze for a sec, finally saying the words out loud made him scared, "I kissed you to make sure I really didn't like girls. I-I'm sorry. I just need to know." Stephanie stood frozen. She suddenly felt very bad for yelling. She felt bad for even reacting, rather than just letting him explain. "Oh god. Please say something."
    "Oh thank god." She slapped her hand over her mouth. That wasn't what she meant to say.
    "What?"
    "Uhh. Well-I just didn't know how to explain that I just want to be friends."
    "So you don't care that I used you to figure out my sexuality?"
    "What. No, Not at all." Stephanie slid back down, "Alex, I don't give a shit about who you kiss. You're still Alex."

    He smiled, "So you're not pissed?"
    "Of course not." Stephanie gave Alex a soft punch to the arm, "Unless you're one of those people who gets a boyfriend and then stops caring about his friends. Because then I will kill you."
    Alex laughed again, leaning his head onto his best friend's shoulder, "God. You're an angel sent from heaven Steph." If only she thought that about herself.

~

    The walls of Stephanie's room were a pale grey. Just like the rest of her life. The poster on the wall had Led-Zeppelin's signature in each corner. She usd to listen to their music everyday on a cassette, but that cassette was broken in a box in the back of the studio.

    Stephanie was picturing different things hanging around the cleaning of her room. Maybe a plastic chandler, or a poster of the Backstreet boys. She wasn't sure. Not that it really mattered.
    She rolled over on her side as the sun shined through the window. She heard a knock on the door. "Come in!" Stephanie screamed not turning to face the door. The door creaked open.
    "Steph?" Cheryl called to her best friend. "Hey Steph you okay?"
    "Hmm?" Stephanie turned back over so she was facing Cheryl, "Yeah, Yeah I'm good." She lied straight through her teeth.

    "You sure, You look tired."
    Steph rolled her eyes, "Yeah. I'm fine. What's up?"
    "Can't I just hang out with my best friend?" Stephanie rolled her eyes, "Okay, fine. I got a date."
    Stephanie bolted up, "WHO!" The two girl dived into a conversation, Cheryl falling onto her friend's bed.

    Even with Cheryl blabbing on about whatever in the back of Stephanie's head was the ringing of symbols crashing as Luke and her timed a cord perfectly together. The one thing in her sad life that made her want to live it. The five people in her life who actually mattered.

    And somehow to Stephanie it was funny that none of those five people were her mother, he father wouldn't be either if he was still alive. Those five people could travel the world with her and she would be fine. But she would be fine with it. And maybe they had nothing really special other than music. But that was enough.

    Stephanie jumped off her bed digging around her dresser for her green leather journal. "Steph?"
    "Yeah. Yeah keep talking I just have to write this down." She muttered back, pulling out a pen.

    She had no idea what Luke would do with this, but she needed to get the words on the page. 'In times that I doubted myself. I felt like I needed some help. Stuck in my head. With Nothing there. I feel something running out, so unclear, it left me out. I found new ground.'

    That was all she had so far. But maybe it was the start of a real song, not just like the rest of the pages from the last few weeks. Just words that reflected her new found feelings about herself.

    Sometimes she would think about when she was little. How teachers would tell her that girls could really hate their bodies and it led to bad things. How that little version of herself vowed to never be like that. That she was perfect how she was.

    Then she looked at herself now and couldn't find anything she liked. Her skin was too pale, her hair too dark. Her waste was too wide compared to her shoulders. And how her hair wasn't curly but it wasn't straight. Nothing was how she wanted it.

~

    Stephanie pulled open the door of the studio taking off her now wet jacket. It started draining on her way home from walking Cheryl back to her hair. At first it was just a drizzle, then a full out downpour and it was quicker to get to the studio rather than her house.

    The drumming stopped as soon as she opened the door. "Alex!?" She just assumed it was Alex who was playing since the rest of them didn't touch his drums. "Alex? Alexander? You there?"

    "S-Steph? Is that you?" Alex's voice was strained and sounded full of pain.
    "Yeah. Alex what's wrong?" She struggled to turn the light on to see Alex's eyes full of tears as he dumped his drumsticks on the floor. "Alex?"
    "I-I told my parents." He gulped, "I mean-I came out. And they kicked me out."
    Steph dropped what she was holding and ran over to hug her friend, "Oh. Alex." A tear slipped from her eyes as she tried not to think about that conversation. A nervous Alex telling his parents the truth and them kicking him to the curve.

    "I-" Alex hiccuped still crying into Stephanie's shoulder, "I didn't- I didn't know where else to go." And Stephanie didn't know what to do.

~