All Chapters of Becoming Blue : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The day felt wrong from the beginning.Not stormy-wrong. Not obvious-wrong. Just… tilted. Like someone had taken the world and shifted it a few inches to the left when no one was looking.I felt it before I even opened my locker.The air was too quiet. Too watchful. The whispers weren’t loud, but they were sharp. Like razors passed from mouth to mouth.I gripped the edge of the locker door and pulled it open.Nothing inside was out of place. No new notes. No more photos. But the silence itself was loud.I could feel it crawling up my spine.Across the hallway, two girls looked at me, then quickly looked away. A group of guys stood near the water fountain, talking just a little too loudly, laughing a little too much. One of them tilted his head in my direction and whispered something I didn’t hear—but it made the others snicker.I didn’t need to ask what it was.I already knew.---Claire found me at my locker. She didn’t say hello. She didn’t ask how I was. She just handed me a protei

I’d rehearsed it in my head a thousand times.The speech.The confession.The look on her face — shock, disappointment, maybe even heartbreak.I thought I’d cry. Thought I’d stutter. Thought I’d run halfway through and leave her sitting in the silence I couldn’t handle.But none of that happened.Because when I told my mom I was gay… she didn’t flinch.She just blinked once and said, “Okay.”Like it wasn’t a confession.Like it wasn’t a shameful secret.Like it was just a thing she already knew.And maybe she did.---It happened on a Tuesday.Blue and I had just kissed in front of the school the day before, and the entire town felt like it had shifted slightly. My name had become something people whispered again, but this time, they said it differently.With questions.With weight.And I was tired of holding it alone.So after dinner, I stood at the kitchen doorway while my mom washed dishes, and I said, “Can I tell you something?”She didn’t turn around. “Of course.”“I’m… I’m seein

When we drove back Sunday afternoon, the world felt different.Not because it had changed.But because we had.I sat in the passenger seat of Jordan’s borrowed car, our bags tossed carelessly in the back, my hand resting between us on the gearshift. Blue’s pinky brushed against mine every few minutes, quiet but intentional.Neither of us said much during the drive. There wasn’t a need.Sometimes the right silence speaks louder than any apology, louder than fear, louder than love.We were returning to a school that had torn us down piece by piece, one whisper at a time.But now we weren’t fragments anymore.We were something whole.---We got to school early Monday morning.On purpose.We stood by the front gates, watching students trickle in. Most of them didn’t look at us. Some did, then looked away fast.A few held our gaze.Some with confusion.Some with something like admiration.A tall girl with bright red braids passed by and muttered, “Takes guts.”Blue smiled at her. She didn’

The house looked smaller than I remembered.Blue said that softly as we stood on the sidewalk, staring at the pale yellow siding and the crooked shutters like they were ghosts instead of windows.He hadn’t been back since the day he was kicked out.It had been two years.Two years of silence.Two years of shadows.Two years of building a new home inside himself.“I don’t know why I’m here,” he whispered.I looked at him. “Because some ghosts don’t leave until you face them.”He nodded, but didn’t move.The mailbox still had his last name on it: Cartwright.The porch still had that one board that creaked too loud.The curtains hadn’t changed.“I used to think if I ever came back, it’d be because I wanted revenge,” he said. “To show them how I survived. To shove it in their faces.”“And now?”“Now I just want to not care.”---We knocked.Jordan had called ahead — a courtesy Blue didn’t want, but needed.The door opened.And there he was.Blue’s father.Taller than Blue. Thicker. His ha

The Monday after the assembly felt like walking into a storm without an umbrella.I could feel it before I even stepped into the building — the way conversations seemed to fracture the moment Blue or I came into view. Whispers didn’t stop when we passed; they sharpened.By third period, my name wasn’t just Elias Moore anymore.It was that kid who kissed Blue in the gym.---1First came the looks.They weren’t all the same.Some were curious. Some approving. Some… disgusted.But they all had weight.A group of football players passed us in the hall. One of them, Marcus Jenson, muttered “freaks” just loud enough for us to hear.Blue didn’t flinch. Didn’t even slow down.Me? My pulse spiked so high I felt it in my throat.---2At lunch, Claire sat down with a tray of food and the kind of smile that looked like armor.“You’ve officially broken the school,” she said. “Half the student body thinks you’re legends. The other half’s probably drafting a petition to exile you.”Blue smirked. “