Chapter Text
((RAYLA’S POV))
Friday
October 7th, 2022
“Rayla, your stupid boyfriend is here,” Nyx said, pointing at Jesse. It wasn’t long before she waved me bye and left.
Jesse is a year older than me, he goes from a different school and is on a rival soccer team we compete with. We grew close and started dating a few months ago. Almost everyone on my soccer team hates that I date him, him being on a rival soccer team and all. He’s a good guy, and I really like him.
“Hey,” he says. His eyes are dark brown and his hair is curly. “How was soccer practice?”
“It was fine,” I said to him. “Nyx scored more than two goals and she went crazy over it.”
“She scores goals?” Jesse joked, laughing at his own joke.
“Jesse! Don’t say that, she’s perfectly fine,” I rebutted.
“Half of the girls on your team aren’t that good, you are the only one who surprises me,” He said.
I scoffed. “Am I supposed to take that as a compliment? I’ve told you to stop that and they are my friends-“
“Okay! I get it. I’m sorry,” he said. He turned around and started walking to his car, gesturing to me.
“Anyway, I wanted to take you out tonight. You’ve been working hard and since it’s Friday I thought we could go out to eat.”
“I’m in my soccer clothes,” I said, putting my hand on my waist.
“So? Since when have you cared about how you looked?” He said.
Since forever. I have albinism, all my life have I had to deal with bullying and people calling me names. It hasn’t been bad since middle school but I still think about it once every often. Everyone saw me differently because I have white hair and purple eyes with pale skin. I have a constant need to look good in any setting, even at home when I’m relaxing on the couch watching tv because of my past experiences.
It’s been fine in high school though, I just get an occasional glance or someone pointing at their friend about me. I've got a friend group now who could care less about it, and Jesse says it makes me even more beautiful and all that mushy crap.
I don’t blame him for thinking that. I have over the years made it look like I don’t care, that it’s never affected me. I never really opened up to people since getting bullied in middle school. It’s even worse when people point out I have two dads as well. Being homophobic was basically the personality of almost everyone at my middle school.
I never opened up to Jesse, I didn’t want him to know and I didn’t plan on opening up to him ever. He was sweet but he wasn’t the most sympathetic person.
Instead. I decide to push it back and say, “Right, let’s eat out.”
The beautiful restaurant we decided to eat at was McDonalds. They do have the best fries. I ordered a burger, Large fries, and a Large iced tea. Jesse got six piece nuggets, fries, and a blue raspberry frozen coke. We had to order inside because their drive through was out of order.
Walking in sucked, some kid pointed at me to his mom and said, “mommy why does she look like that?” His face seriously looked disgusted. I was already in a sweaty shirt and shorts, I didn’t need a kid to say that to me. Jesse looked past it. He was too busy being enthralled by his nuggets.
We ate in the car, I was extremely full after. I usually don’t order that much, but I had skipped lunch to take a test I missed on Wednesday.
“That kid, surprised that mom had her cool so low,” Jesse said after some silence.
“It’s whatever, let him think what he needs to think.” I replied.
“You are one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met. How do you do it?” Jesse asked in awe. I think he thinks I’m more brave than I actually am.
I shrugged. “ I just don’t care what others think.”
“You’re beautiful, you know that?”
I laughed, “ yeah I got you to remind me.”
He smiled at me. Then he leaned in for a kiss.
After we broke apart, he looked at me tenderly.
“Rayla?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you”.
>-<
I love you.
My boyfriend of five months just said he loved me, instead of smiling, instead of saying “I love you” back, I just looked at him, frozen.
“Rayla?”
I snapped back into reality, my voice was way more alarmed. “Yeah?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah…”
His eyes widened, “are you gonna say anything back?”
“I- I… Well, I, uhm. I wasn’t expecting that,” I said, a small nervous laughter came out of me.
He was sad. He looked so disappointed. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never loved anyone like that. He was my first boyfriend. I… I don’t know how to feel.
Finally after what seemed like a million seconds, he spoke. “You don’t love me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say anything!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to react. I know saying ‘I love you’ to your partner is normal but I didn’t think it was going to happen 𝘯𝘰𝘸-“
“It is normal, it’s pretty fucking normal to say you love your girlfriend!,” he raised his voice at me, I flinched. “Then again, you aren’t normal are you? Is this a part of your condition? Because you’re not even normal?” He said in a cold voice.
I looked at him for a few seconds, trying to process what he said before going in to full anger. “What the fuck? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦?”
“It’s true! You aren’t normal!”
“And that makes me immune to saying words?”
“It seems to me, yes.”
I got out of the car. No way was I going to let him talk to me like this.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you.”
“Rayla-“
“I’ll get a ride, see you Monday.” I said to him, slamming the car door.
Okay. Great. We had arguments before, but he never said that to me. He never said I wasn’t normal. He seemed so… he looked at me different. He looked at me like I was some creature because of how I look.
I cried. I cried so hard. I didn’t have a ride home. I’m stranded in a Plaza. What am I going to do now?
I sat on a bench and sobbed. Rides are the least of my worries right now.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. My eyes were puffy, I don’t need a mirror to know my eyes are red. I kept using my team shirt to wipe snot and tears.
“Rayla?”
I looked up to see a boy with brown hair and green eyes. His hair was messy, he was wearing a black shirt and a blue flannel with jeans. He had takeout in his hands.
“Oh my god Rayla, are you okay? What happened?”
My eyes were blurry from crying, it took longer to adjust for me to make out who he was.
“Callum?”