Fallen Leaves - Chapter 13: One Thing

Julia cursed under her breath. Her plan had completely backfired. Not only had Cadence not gotten in trouble with the school or her parents, regrettably she found herself liking Cadence more and more every time she was with her, which had become quite frequent in the past month. Cadence had this essence to her of extreme insecurity, a striking boldness, and an intense vulnerability. She was truly the most fascinating person Julia had ever met. It made a lot of sense why Kerass had fallen for her, but that insecurity and boldness can get old really quick.

The truth was that hearing about Cadence’s family situation and about her expulsion and reacceptance to Our Savior gave her sympathy, which was entirely unexpected. If she had in any way attempted to legitimately steal Kerass back, that would’ve been a different scenario entirely, but Cadence just seemed so genuine. No, she couldn’t be trying to steal Kerass back. It just seems to go against her nature, she thought to herself.

Julia picked up her keys and began to shoot out of her bedroom. She gave her mother and father a kiss on the cheek in an attempt to rush out the door.

“Hold up, hold up,” her father interceded. She loved her parents and she would take time out of every morning to talk to them, but this morning she was in a total rush.

“Ok, Dad, but I don’t have a lot of time this morning,” she said explaining that she had slept through her alarm clock.

Her mother gave her father a look instantly causing him to back down. “We would just like to know when we would get to meet this boyfriend of yours,” she said calmly.

“Right, your mother and I want to invite him over to dinner this weekend.”

“I’ll ask him today,” Julia said rushing out the door. “Love you!” she yelled out racing toward her car. She had never had a boyfriend home for dinner. The truth was she had never had a boyfriend as long as she had been dating Kerass. This one seemed serious and it was nice that her parents noticed the difference. She started the car pleased that she could share him with her parents.



Jay journaled pressing his pen to the paper so hard that the black ink bled onto the following three pages. He was angry but he didn’t quite know why. He felt he had been lied to and that infuriated him. His thoughts were racing and the page caught every word, but he was very scatter brained that morning. He knew rereading the entry wasn’t an option because it wouldn’t make any sense. No, this morning it was simply therapeutic. He had to vent and he didn’t believe anyone would actually listen to him. Neither did he trust anyone enough to be that vulnerable. His heart was fragile. Going through the coming out process was taking a major toll on him and he was afraid of getting hurt one more time.

Going through this process made him think through his early years. Did he always know? Well, he wasn’t entirely sure to be honest. He never knew his mother. His mother died giving birth to him and for some reason he never felt compelled to ask his dad about her…until now. With his weird non-revelation about his sexuality it seemed all the more pressing that they needed to talk, but he was afraid. What he might discover, the uncertainty of it all, it was just too much to handle.

He packed up his things and walked towards the door.

“Hold it!” the voice of his father came stopping Jay with his hand on the doorknob. His father continued saying he was hoping they could sit down and talk this morning.

“Dad, I’m about to miss the bus.”

“But I usually drive you, son.”

Jay sighed saying he had an extra question about his Algebra II assignment and he wanted to get there early enough to ask it before the assignment was actually due.

“That’s just an excuse. I can read it in your eyes,” his father continued saying that he recognized Jay’s avoidance card.

Jay sighing with defeat said, “All right, I’m listening.”

His father’s eyes welled up. A tear slowly fell down his face. Jay couldn’t even look him in the face he was so uncomfortable watching his father cry. Recognizing there was no going back, Jay decided to ask the question he had never thought to ask before.

“Dad, I know I’ve never asked this before but can we talk about Mom?”

It was then that his father started balling. Jay’s thoughts told him to go over and comfort his father, but his body wouldn’t listen to his mind.

Finally, after his father calmed himself down, he said, “I never knew her.”

Jay was speechless. “What are you saying?”

“I’ve never been with a woman, Jay. I adopted you.”

Jay couldn’t believe his ears. It was almost like he was frozen in time. The only thing that was calm and steady inside of him was the beating of his own heart. He felt like everything he believed about who he was and where he came from was a lie. In...out...in...out. Breathe! he told himself. All of this happened within 5 seconds as he noticed his father continuing in mid-sentence.

“but you mean every-”

Jay had heard enough. He stormed out of the house slamming the door behind him. He didn’t care how long it took him to get to school or how late he would be as long as he was as far away from his father as possible.



“No!” Kerass shouted louder than he intended to. He avoided Julia’s eyes knowing that she was either offended or disappointed, more than likely a mixture of the two.

“No?” Julia asked incredulously.

He responded saying that it wasn’t her or that he was ashamed to be in a relationship with her. “I just don’t really trust adults is all.”

“I’m calling bs on that! You know that’s a lame excuse,” she continued saying that it made no sense.

“It makes total sense!” he replied defensively.

“No, it doesn’t,” she sighed. She went on saying that he wasn’t a troublemaker. “You always submit to authority, Kerass.”

“It’s not adults…exactly,” he said tentatively. “Listen, the last time I had a dinner with the ‘rents my dad just derailed me in front of my date.” He finished saying he would never allow it to happen again.

“You don’t have to worry with my parents-” Julia began.

Kerass cut her off saying, “I said no and I meant it.”

“Whatever,” she said shoving him out of her way.

Kerass stood his ground not even turning to look at her.



Jay didn’t even know why he was here. He wasn’t a music person…at all. He was a theater embryo, but he just didn’t know if he felt safe in that kind of environment anymore, which made no sense at all, he admitted. Truthfully he wanted an extra curricular and fast to spend the least amount of time at home that he could. He saw the sign up sheet in the hallway and during his study hall period he made his way down to the band room.

The room was completely empty. The teacher was busy listening to some band piece that Jay didn’t recognize. Jay knocked on his office door. The teacher held up his finger not turning his chair around to see him.

Jay waited a minute before saying, “Mr. Martin?”

Again the teacher didn’t turn around while shushing him. Jay waited another minute until finally the piece ended. “I just love that piece,” Mr. Martin said turning his chair around. “It’s called Aurora Awakes composed by John Mackey. You ever heard it?”

“Um…” Jay paused not knowing what to do. “No,” he said revealing the truth.

Mr. Martin smiled and told him that he would be happy to play it for him now.

“That’s not the reason I came in actually.”

“I’m all ears,” Mr. Martin told him with a smile on his face.

Jay sighed, he couldn’t believe what he was about to say and he felt so gay for saying it out loud at all. “I want to join the color guard in your marching band.”

Mr. Martin raised his eyebrows. “I’ve gotta be honest with you, we’ve never had a male in the color guard,” he said. He continued saying that he was totally open to the idea, but Jay was far behind and he would have to spend several hours after school every day to catch up.

“That sounds perfect, when do I start?” Jay asked too eagerly.

“Not so fast,” Mr. Martin said holding his index finger up. He turned over to his computer putting One Direction on and said, “Show me what you’ve got. Dance.”

Jay smiled recognizing his favorite band. The first move he made effortlessly flowed into the next. He felt he was born to dance in that moment. He couldn’t help but belt along. Mr. Martin remained stoic looking at him dance and sing the whole song. The song ended before he knew it. Mr. Martin didn’t offer any feedback either positive or negative, which only made Jay more nervous.

“You have no rhythm,” Mr. Martin began, crushing Jay’s hopes, “but you have something very special. You’ve got that one thing I’ve been looking for: spontaneity. I like you.”

Jay beamed bigger than he had ever beamed before.

“It will take a lot, a lot of effort, but I’m willing to work with you.”

Jay bit his tongue to prevent himself from screaming out loud.

“You’re in.”

Jay moved forward to hug him, but deciding against it at the last moment. He instead held out his hand and they shook. He was thrilled to have to work so hard to be a part of the color guard. Anything that was a major distraction was a blessing at this point.



Cadence closed her locker. Looking over at Kerass, envy filled and enraged her. She felt bitterness course through her veins. She wanted him back, but she had messed up. There was no possible way that she could get him back now. Gus came over and stood next to her locker. He looked over at Kerass, then back at Cadence.

“You’ve got the hots for him.”

“I do not!” Cadence said defensively.

“Lying isn’t going to help you get him back,” Gus said smugly.

“Oh yeah? Then what will, huh?” Cadence challenged him fire burning in her eyes.

“Date someone who would make him jealous.”

Cadence smiled. “That’s not a bad idea,” she whispered to herself ignoring the fact that Gus was still there. She looked over and saw Damien walking down the hallway.

“Cadence!” Damien called out hugging her.

She looked over and made sure she had eye contact with Kerass before she kissed Damien on the lips.

Fallen Leaves - Chapter 12: Right Now

Kerass walked down the sophomore locker hallway searching for her. It had been a week and he had only seen her once briefly catching her eye on the first day of school. They didn’t have a single class together and he couldn’t help but feel that she was avoiding him. He found himself at a standstill. He was angry at Cadence for avoiding him, but he knew that if he pursued her Julia would be angry at him. He didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden it made sense to him why Cadence was avoiding him. He still blamed her for being a coward and he was still mad at her, but he understood why she created a distance between them.

The moment he and Julia became official he hadn’t talked to Jay. He felt bad for ditching his best friend for a girl, but she helped him forget all of his problems and well Jay was a constant reminder of them. He just wanted the school year to be over and it was only the second week. Sophomore year was going to majorly suck.

Finally giving up on seeing Cadence he stopped by his locker and pulled his Chemistry book out for first period. A guy was putting his stuff into the locker. That locker had been vacant a week ago. The guy had a completely shaved head, a full beard, jeans with holes up and down them and a t-shirt that had holes around his stomach. His hand lay inside the hole in his t-shirt as he pulled out the same Chemistry book that Kerass had pulled out. He closed his locker and looked straight at Kerass.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, uh, I’m Kerass by the way. What’s your name?” Kerass asked.

“Gus.”

“Cool name,” Kerass said and then instantly shook his head. What a stupid thing to say. Trying to move on quickly to not sustain the embarrassment he said, “You got Ms. Williams for Chem?”

Gus nodded his head.

“Do you have her first period?”

Gus shook his head.

“Ok, I guess I’ll just see you around then.”

Gus shrugged putting ear buds in his ears while walking away. Kerass felt so inferior to Gus it wasn’t even funny. The craziest thing was he didn’t say anything that would have implied that Gus felt superior to Kerass, but just his nonchalant mannerisms in the conversation made Kerass boil inside. A lack of passion was worse than death to Kerass and Gus appeared to not have a single drop of passion running through his veins. Taking a few deep breaths, calming himself down, he walked upstairs and prepared his mind for chemistry class at 7:20 in the morning.



Julia sighed as she started to walk down the sophomore hallway. While it was at least passable to talk to sophomores it was still way uncool as a junior. She was looking for Kerass but it looked as if he had gone to class early…again. Rolling her eyes, Julia continued to walk down the hallway. A girl caught her eyes putting her books in her locker. She looked familiar, but she couldn’t tell from where.

Walking straight up to her Julia said, “I recognize you from something. What is it?”

“I have no idea I’ve never seen you before, emphasis on the never part,” Cadence replied.

Julia thought back trying to remember why she stood out to her. “Oh, I remember!” Julia exclaimed. She continued saying that she recognized Cadence from the peer support group flyers the previous year.

“Well that was a bust,” Cadence said slamming her locker shut. “No one showed up except for one person. It didn’t even go past a single meeting.”

“I’m Julia, by the way.”

“Cadence,” She replied holding out her hand. Julia shook it. Cadence continued asking why the sudden recognition. “I mean that was a long time ago. Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“Duh, you were a freshmen then and it’s high school suicide to talk to freshmen, it’s sacrilege.”

Cadence smiled. Julia felt it was a fake smile, but she didn’t care. She wanted Cadence to be her friend and that would happen. When Julia wanted something she got it. Plus, from her heart for peers she felt Cadence would be great friends with Kerass. She wanted to be the type of girlfriend that was totally ok with letting her boyfriend have friends that just happened to be girls. She wasn’t the jealous type and looking down at Cadence she thought what would she be jealous about anyways? Cadence wasn’t a knockout in any sense of the word…still she wondered if Kerass could handle having a friend who was a girl. There seemed to always be strings attached when it came to Kerass. On second thought, it made more sense for Cadence to be her friend first as opposed to bringing Kerass into the equation.

“What are you doing after school?” Julia asked with the peppiest voice she could muster.

“I have no plans. I mean, it’s only the second week.”

Julia asked Cadence if she wanted to meet up after school that day. Cadence replied that she would love to. “It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other better, you know?” Cadence said.

“Awesome. I’ll just come over and grab you,” Julia said. She told Cadence how nice it was to have finally met her and then turned around and walked away. Cadence intrigued her and she didn’t know why. The warning bell rang. Julia casually walked into her English classroom with a smirk on her face. It finally dawned on her. Cadence had been Kerass’ first girlfriend. In their first week of getting to know each other he never stopped talking about her unless they were making out with each other, which truthfully was quite often after the first day. She was letting her boyfriend’s ex get close to her…what was she thinking? She smiled. I’m just keeping my enemy as close to myself as possible, she thought to herself. She had made fast friends with her boyfriend’s ex and just as quickly labeled her an enemy and decided she would ruin Cadence’s life. All of this was happening way too early for 7:20 in the morning. It was definitely going to be an interesting school year.



Cadence sat down in her sophomore Pre-IB English class. They were currently reading Lord of the Flies. As dull as the book had been, the class discussions were even worse. The book killed trees by wasting paper considering there was no heart in it. Now THAT would be a worthy discussion in class. Looking over at her assigned desk she realized that Gus had finally made it to school. She sat down next to Gus without making any introduction. They waited for the teacher to arrive. He was usually late anyways. After 15 minutes of waiting, they decided they would just talk to each other and wait until the teacher showed up.

“Hey,” Gus said looking over at Cadence.

“Hey,” Cadence replied and then looked over at the class schedule on the board beside her.

“You’re not very talkative are you?”

“Not at 7:35 a.m.”

Gus started giggling. The longer he laughed, the louder he became. It got so loud that all the other conversations stopped. Cadence couldn’t believe it. He seemed like he was high on his first day at a new school! As quickly as his laughing fit started it stopped. Cadence scowled at him. She hated being even near the center of attention and Gus had just had everyone focus on him.

“Sorry your bluntness just took me off guard.”

“Really?” Cadence asked and added that he should get used to it. “Oak Stream is littered with blunt people. I’m actually considered quiet here.”

“If you’re quiet I don’t think I ever want to meet the loudest person here.”

“Who are you anyway?”

“My name’s Gus if that’s what you’re ask-”

Cadence shook her head. “I mean, what are you passionate about? What makes you tick?”

“Nothing really,” Gus replied shrugging.

Cadence wasn’t frustrated, she was curious. “Maybe you don’t know what you’re passionate about yet and that’s ok,” she said unleashing the counselor inside of her.

“Don’t analyze me. You can just stop wasting your time now. Not even professionals have been able to crack me. What makes you think that you, a sophomore high school girl, could figure that out for me?”

Gus’ voice had risen showing some form of passion. If he really lacked any at all, he would have been monotone, deadpan. His eyes had been alit with fire in defense when she suggested that he didn’t know what he was passionate about. She knew that he knew, but he appeared like he would take that passion to the grave.

“You don’t have to get all defensive,” Cadence whispered.

“What’s there to be defensive about? There’s nothing to talk about now is there?”

Cadence bit her lip. “You were the one who had started this conversation…” she said trailing off.

“Well if I started it then I should end it, shouldn’t I? We’re done talking for today. Leave me alone for the rest of the hour.”

Cadence and Gus sat in silence for the rest of the hour. The teacher never showed up in the entire hour and a half block. When the bell rang, Cadence shot up out of her desk pushing the door open as hard as possible causing it to slam against the wall. She wanted to get away from Gus as quickly as possible. She had been packed a solid half-hour before the bell was going to ring.

She noticed the movement before she recognized his face. Damien was now standing beside her with his bright red Seniors shirt on. He pointed at the word with the goofiest smile on his face. “Pretty cool shirt, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah it would be if I could wear it,” Cadence snapped back. She hated how seniors flaunted class ranking around like a caste system.

“Oh you’ll be able to in due time. It’s only 3 more years right?” Damien smiled and told her it was great to see her again.

“Please don’t say you waited for me all summer,” Cadence said secretly hoping that he had.

Damien shook his head. “I didn’t, don’t you worry about that. I had a very eye opening summer, went through a ton of changes. I feel like I’m truly happy for once. I want to savor every second of senior year that I can.”

Cadence sighed realizing that when she left for Our Savior, she had left people’s thoughts at Oak Stream. Her decision to return constantly seemed like a mistake. “I’m happy for you,” she paused taking a deep breath, “really.”

“We should talk, catch up soon, yeah?”

Julia waved over to her beckoning her to come, her car keys jingling. The second block hadn’t even begun. She decided then that she was going to ditch the rest of the day and spend it with Julia.

“Cadence?” Damien asked.

“Yeah, soon. That’s chill.” Cadence told him she would see him later and walked away. She felt empowered being a sophomore ditching her first class. Julia smiled at her. Right now the only thing she wanted to do was ditch. She knew then that this was going to be a day to remember.

Fallen Leaves - Chapter 11: I Wish

I wish I could start all over again, Cadence thought as her alarm clock woke her up in the morning. It went off earlier than she had anticipated. She got to sleep in later at Our Savior. They didn’t officially start classes until 8:30. Oak Stream began class at 7:20. The summer was spent overseas in London. She wanted to get away from everything: her mother, Kerass, and her ‘friends’ at Our Savior (she used the term lightly in her mind). Everybody wanted something different from her and it was incredibly overbearing. Her mother wanted her to succeed, but the pressures from everyone else around her for personal attention or a different sense of morality only made the pressure to succeed that much greater. Kerass wanted her to be as pure as a white rose, but she was already red. She was utterly convinced that he was still pining over her. She didn’t exactly know how she would break it to him that it was over. Her peers at Our Savior relished in the fact that she had broken the rules and wanted all the dirty details, which only disgusted her. It was a personal matter and should never be talked about outside of those intimate relationships. They also itched to know what public school was truly like. The only thing she could tell them was that it was even more dramatic than the soap operas on television.

Rolling herself out of bed was harder considering she was suffering from jet lag. The day after the school year ended, she was on a plane to London for the summer. It ended up being a decision she lived to regret, but she didn’t want to dwell on it now. She didn’t fully know why but she had decided to go back to Oak Stream for the beginning of her sophomore year. She hadn’t been kicked out, she just didn’t feel a religious education, or a religious life for that matter, was something that she wanted.

In the last week alone, she had done all of her summer reading assignments. Her time in London was distracting to say the very least. Luckily two of her classes had the same book to read: Lord of the Flies. She found it both boring and pointless, but she would never say so in an analysis she was going to turn in. She wouldn’t praise the book either. She would just parrot what the teacher had said, but that’s impossible to do for a summer project, so she played it safe and just gave it slight but not overwhelming praise. Looking over at the clock she knew she had to head on out of the door and fast. She wouldn’t be the most presentable, but hardly anyone was the first day of their sophomore year of high school.

She heard her mother’s voice the instant she began to walk down the stairs. “Did you have a great time at London, darling?” she asked adding that she hadn’t asked because Cadence had looked so tired the previous afternoon.

“Not now, Mom,” she said harsher than she had intended. Taking a breath she stated that she was sorry and that she had to rush out the door because she still hadn’t adjusted not only to the time zone but to an earlier start for school again. She kissed her mother on the cheek as she ran out the door.

Cadence saw the bus in the distance. She ran to the bus as fast as she could stepping onto the bus just in the nick of time. The bus driver commented that she was cutting it kind of close. “Thanks for waiting,” Cadence said. The bus driver told her to have a seat. She sat down in the second seat of the bus.

All of what little energy she had that morning was spent trying not to turn around and see if Kerass was sleeping at the back of the bus. She didn’t know what to do. Even though she accused him in her mind of dwelling on her all summer, she had in fact been thinking of him even though it was trying to escape him. She couldn’t help but return. It seemed like an inevitability. She drummed her thumbs on the seat in front of her. The rhythmic beating of her thumbs seemed much louder this morning because she was so tired. The monotonous motion her thumbs made didn’t help at all in distracting her thoughts.

Biting her lip caving in to her inquisitive nature, she turned around and looked for Kerass. The only thing was that he wasn’t there. While it was a relief at first, a second later it became a huge disappointment. There was a lack of closure between the two of them, romantically speaking of course and that came about from her own stubbornness and an undying fear of confrontation. It saddened her that he wasn’t there, but she hoped that she would see him at school and maybe, just maybe they could be friends.



Jay woke up with a start as his alarm welcomed the morning. He didn’t feel up to journaling this morning. It was the first day of school…again. All of the excitement over the first day of freshmen year was gone. The first day of sophomore year was going to be a nightmare. High school no longer felt like a novelty, it was simply school now and that made the days a major suckfest. It took all of his energy just to get out of bed, but once he was up, he was up. He quickly dressed for the day and began to race to the door. He wanted to avoid his father that morning at all costs.

“Can’t we just sit down and talk about this?” Jay’s father asked while Jay had his hand on the doorknob.

Jay turned around rolling his eyes at his father. “No, we can’t! There’s nothing to discuss because there’s nothing wrong about me. It just is.”

“Look, Jay,” his father paused taking a breath, “I understand how you feel. I had the same feelings when I was your age, but they went away over time. Those feelings, the attraction, it was fleeting.”

“Wait, you’re gay, Dad?”

“No, I,” he paused sighing. “I’ll have to explain all of this later. You’ll be late for school if you don’t run and catch the bus.”

“Can’t you drive me?” Jay asked timidly. He was begging his father to love him. His eyes glistening, he couldn’t read his father’s emotions. His father was almost emotionless. The first conversation about Jay’s sexuality had been incredibly awkward, but there was no yelling, no tears. Over time though, Jay got this sense that his father was incredibly disappointed in him and although he would never admit it to his father it destroyed him inside. He felt so unloved and uncared for. His coming out process had been rocky from the start. He guessed it was always like that, especially if one came out in high school, but simply knowing others had gone through the same hardships didn’t make things any easier to deal with. It was all so depressing being gay and Jay felt cheated on life. Why did it have to be this hard? Why couldn’t this be something that was never questioned, but he knew thinking like this was pointless. If racism after all these years still existed homophobia would always exist. Through it all though, Jay knew his boyfriend would stand by his side, a fact his father detested.

“Sure, I can drive you,” his father finally said. Jay smiled back at him and walked out the door to the car.



Julia pulled into her assigned parking space in the Oak Stream parking lot. Kerass smiled at her. He couldn’t believe it. He had only known her for a month that summer, but he had fallen head over heels in love with Julia. They didn’t seem to have a lot in common, but that was all right because the kissing was so wonderful. They made out like crazy that summer. It drove his father up the wall, which only made it all the more appealing to do.

“You ready for the start of your sophomore year?” Julia asked. She was a junior and the oldest in her class.

Kerass replied that he guessed so. “It really doesn’t seem all that special or all that different from freshmen year,” Kerass said.

Julia responded that it would and that he would feel it the instant he saw all the freshmen enter the school. “Want to have some fun before the school year begins?” Julia asked with a smirk on her face.

“You just read my mind,” Kerass said with a big goofy smile.

It was then that their lips met. They only broke their kisses when they needed to come up for air. The passion he felt for her was always fleeting and it honestly felt horrible after it was all over, but it was so much fun in the moment that he couldn’t stop. Blocking his mind from how he would feel later, he completely succumbed into his feelings and passion for Julia.



The bus pulled into Oak Stream’s parking lot. Cadence took a deep breath as the bus doors opened. She had made this decision. She had decided to return to Oak Stream and because of that, she knew she had no reason to complain if the first day was miserable. She stood up and walked off of the bus. She walked onto the sidewalk and immediately saw some loose change on the ground. Quickly before their rightful owner would notice, she dropped to her knees and picked up what added up to $1.37 in change. A smile crept on her face. The day wouldn’t be so bad after all. She was $1.37 richer.

When she stood up she finally saw him. Kerass was sitting in the passenger seat of some girl’s car. She didn’t recognize the girl. She wouldn’t have been able to even if she had known all the girls at school. She only saw the back of her head as they were making out publically but in a way privately. Although they couldn’t hear anyone outside, their make out session was on display for all to see. Cadence’s heart dropped. The initial excitement over the change she picked up was turned into a deep sadness. She was wrong. He hadn’t been pining over her all summer the way she had been pining over him she finally admitted to herself. He was over her. A tear fell down her face. The pain she felt couldn’t be described in words. The only words that came to her mind were that it felt like her heart was crying, but even with all this sadness she couldn’t help but keep on staring at him. The couple finished kissing. When Kerass looked up, he locked eyes with Cadence. Cadence gasped.