3
Alliance

As school finally finished up, I made my way toward the classroom Ryan told me to go to. My mind was still spinning after what I discovered. Ryan, of all people, was not only bisexual but only starting a GSA club. My thoughts were cut short as I stood in front of a familiar door. It was Ms. Castillo’s room, H404. I sighed. Out of every teacher, the club had to be hosted in her room. I held onto the door handle for far too long. It was better than being exposed to the whole school, right? I held down the handle and finally let the door swing open.

The classroom was familiar yet a little different, being organized differently compared to how it usually was. Instead of the desks being organized into rows, they were instead shaped into a circle. In the front of the room, there were six desks with some buzzers set up. Other than that, it was the same standard classroom I saw every day.

“Oh, Jacob, I didn’t expect you to be here,” Ms. Castillo exclaimed as she looked up from her book. “I suppose that you’re here in order to—”

Oh no, she clearly thought I was gay.

“No, I’m just here because of Ryan,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m not, like, part of the LGBT community or anything.”

“Ryan?” she said, blinking. “I didn’t know you two were friends. But it’s good you’re showing up to support him, I hope you can build a community of friends here. You should go take a seat.” She gestured towards the six empty chairs.

I looked around and chose a chair on the edge. I hoped that it would attract the least attention, and allow me to just sit silently through the whole meeting. I was the first person in the classroom, so I scrolled through my phone. People entered the room one at a time, taking a seat. After a few minutes, all five seats were filled up. I recognized a few of them, but I didn’t know any one of them very well. But, to be fair, I didn’t know many people well at all.

Finally, Ryan walked into the room, breaking the silence, holding a clear file folder and phone in his hands. “Is everyone here? Okay, let’s get started.”

* * *

“Here we are,” Ryan said. “Welcome to the first meeting of the GSA, or Gender-Sexuality Alliance, club. We’re technically not official yet, I’m assuming the school’s a little scared of the gays taking over the school. But, we now have a sixth member, who I totally did not blackmail into coming, so we should be recognized soon.”

I awkwardly shifted around in my chair. There were a few mumbles from the other members as they snuck glances at me.

“So, I think most of us know each other but let's introduce ourselves to our new member. Standard procedure, tell us your name, gender, pronouns, sexual orientation, and an interesting fact about yourself. Don’t tell me you don’t have an interesting fact about yourself because I know all of you do. So, I’m Ryan Morgan, your local dumbass.”

“Ehem,” Ms. Castillo let out a slight cough.

“Sorry, your local idiot,” he said. “I’m male and you can use he/him or they/them, I don’t mind either. I’m on the bi-cycle, as always. An interesting fact about me is that I’m the best football player in the school.”

“That’s debatable,” a voice called out. “I think Daniel or Zach outshine you.”

“Nope, I checked with myself and I’m definitely the best,” Ryan said. “And just for that mean-spirited comment, you can have the privilege of going next.”

“Okay,” the person said. “I’m sort of questioning everything right now so it’s a little hard to answer the question,” they said, rubbing the back of their head. “But I’m Alex, and I would appreciate it if you used they/them pronouns and referred to me with gender-neutral terms. An interesting fact about me is…” they trailed off and bit their lip. “Well, I’m super into movies. If anyone has a Letterboxd account, please let me know.”

Ryan gestured toward the girl sitting next to Alex.

“Okay, hi. Well, I’m Jasmine, Jasmine Lim to be exact, I’m a girl so you can use she/her for me. I’m a lesbian and—” she hesitated for just a second. “An interesting fact is that I’m dating Zoe,” she blurted out.

“Oh my god, why would you say that,” someone, who I assumed to be Zoe, said.

“I just couldn’t hide it anymore, especially not here of all places,” Jasmine said with a big smile. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Zoe said with a laugh.

“Yuk, couples,” Alex said.

“Yeah, get a room guys,” Ryan chuckled. “Well, I guess this is the room with the least amount of people in it at school. Unless you count the bathroom.”

“Those two should be in the bathroom if they’re going to do that,” they said.

“Hey, I’m not the one who started it,” Zoe said. “Anyways, same for me. My name is Zoe Jackson, I’m a lesbian girl and you can use she/they for me. I really like animals and I’m hoping to be a zoologist one day.”

“Okay, so it's my turn, right?” a guy asked. “My name is Thomas Clark. You can use he/they for me and I’m into guys. I know everybody’s going to ask me about it eventually, so something interesting about me is that I’m 6’5. No, I do not play basketball. Although the new basketball team did do their best to recruit me.”

Finally, the attention was on me. Everyone stared at me in awkward anticipation. Even Ms. Castillo was glancing up from her papers. I was the stranger in the room, the unknown factor. I cleared my throat nervously before beginning to speak.

“Um, okay so I’m Jacob Parker. I’m not that familiar with this but I’m a guy and you can call me he or him or um… whatever. I’m straight and something interesting about me is that I like to collect vinyl records.” I sucked in a sharp breath and let it out, that required way more confidence than I had. I felt out of place here. After all, I wasn’t part of the community that everyone else here was so intertwined with.

“Okay, now that we got that massive info dump out of the way, let’s get started,” Ryan said. “Today, we’re just going to try and get acquainted with one another.”

* * *

It turned out that Ryan put a lot more thought and effort into the meeting than I expected. He had set up a bunch of small activities and prepared food for us. There were a bunch of snacks, and I helped myself to a bag of Cheetos.

“Okay, so the first activity is a trivia quiz,” Ryan said. “I borrowed some buzzers from the Quiz Bowl team. Okay, maybe not borrowed since I didn’t exactly get permission, but they’ll have it back by tomorrow so it doesn’t matter. I basically took their entire kit and set it up. Anyways, let’s get into teams of two.” He walked over to me and pulled me close. “I’ll go with Jacob, so the rest of you figure things out.”

“Why would you just grab me like that?” I asked. My cheeks blushed furiously. It was just so sudden, and the closeness of his body surprised me.

“Oh, sorry. I just figured you would be more comfortable with me since you know who I am,” he replied, letting go of me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just don’t do it again.”

Predictably, Jasmine and Zoe were on the same team. Alex and Thomas grouped up together, they seemed to know each other well. I did have Jasmine and Zoe in a few of my classes, although I never got to know them. I hadn’t expected them to be LGBT, they never showed any signs. The same went for Thomas, he just seemed like a normal person I could come across on the street. I blinked, I suppose there really wasn’t much of a difference at all.

“Ms. Castillo, if you could open the website I sent you I would appreciate it,” Ryan said. “All you have to do is read out the questions and click the plus sign every time each team gets a question right.”

“Let me see here,” she said. “Ah, I got it. Is everyone ready?” She looked around the room. We had each made our way to a table and were sitting down. “First question, how many colors will you find in a regular bag of M&Ms?”

“Umm, let’s see here,” Ryan said. He spoke quietly to make sure the other teams couldn’t hear us. “We have red, green, blue,”

“There’s always the brown ones too,” I said. “The orange ones too.”

“Yes, is that it? No, I think there’s one more. Screw it,” he said pressing down on the button. The buzzer let out a shrill screech. “Six colors.”

“Six colors, that is correct,” Ms. Castillo said. “Good job, team 2 now has one point.”

“Nice!” Ryan said. “I would’ve definitely forgotten brown if it wasn’t for you, who the hell remembers brown M&Ms?”

“They’re my favorite,” I said.

“They are? I didn’t even know they tasted different. I thought they were all the same.”

“For the next question,” Ms. Castillo announced, cutting off our brief conversation. “What is the only mammal capable of true flight?”

“Bats!” Zoe yelled out instantly. The blare of the buzzer rang loudly, as she pressed down on it multiple times. “It’s bats.”

“Yes, I got it the first time Zoe,” Ms. Castillo said with a slight smile.

“Sorry,” she said, fidgeting a little as she looked around the room. “I was just excited.”

* * *

The game continued on until the score was tied between my team and Jasmine and Zoe’s team. It was the final question, the tiebreaker. My hand hovered barely an inch over the buzzer as a bead of sweat dripped down my forehead. Surprisingly, I got into the game a lot more than I expected.

“Okay,” Ms. Castillo said. We all awaited her next words. “Kurt Cobain was the lead vocalist and guitarist of what famous rock band?”

“Nirvana,” I said as I instantly pressed down on the button.

“That is correct,” Ms. Castillo said. “I’m glad you knew that, I was worried that you all wouldn’t know about the band since you were so young.”

“Yes!” Ryan said, holding up his hand. “Good job, I personally had no clue what the answer to that question was.”

I returned his high-five and gave a nod. “Thanks, I’m kind of a nerd about these kinds of things.”

“Hey, that’s a good thing,” he responded with a loose laugh. “It’s good to have something you’re passionate about, isn’t it?”

* * *

The rest of the time passed by fairly quickly. Ryan stuck by close to me the entire time, presumably because he knew it would be difficult for me to interact with the new members. Before I even knew it, it had been an hour.

“Thank you, everybody, for attending,” Ryan said. “I hope this session was fun enough for everyone to return. Actually, please do return because if we don’t this club is screwed. We’ll probably do some more serious stuff as well later down the line, I just wanted to start the first day off with something fun. And that is all, enjoy the rest of your day!”

Jasmine and Zoe left the classroom together, with Thomas following behind them soon after. I turned to leave the classroom when someone called out to me.

“Oh, hi,” I said, looking back. “Alex, was it?”

“Yes, it’s Alex,” they said. “Sorry, it might be a little awkward, but I just wanted to thank you for showing up today. If you didn’t then there would be no chance of this being an actual club. And, well, I really needed a space like this. So, yeah, thanks for showing up today even if you didn’t want to.”

“Oh, no problem,” I said, scratching the back of my head. I didn’t know how to respond, considering I was blackmailed into coming. “I owed Ryan a favor anyways.”

“Okay, well, thanks anyways!” they said. “Having a space like this where I can meet other queer people is really nice. Thanks, Jacob.”

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Ryan asked as he came up behind me. He wiped some sweat off his brow, having moved all the desks back to their original position.

“No,” I replied. “It was actually kind of fun.”

“That’s good,” he said. “You’ll have to attend a few more of these meetings anyways so I’m glad you enjoyed it. Let’s get moving while we talk.” Ryan opened the classroom door to the empty hallway. “Thank you for hosting the club Ms. Castillo!” he yelled out. We walked out and the door shut behind us.

“I’m really sorry about the circumstances behind all this,” he looked back at me. “I know forcing you to come here isn’t really ideal. I do feel sorry about it, but I really do have to make sure this club exists for the people here. I hope you understand.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “As long as you keep it a secret I don’t mind too much. Other people would’ve been worse if they’d figured it out. Having to attend a few club meetings is something I can do.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just show up to a few more meetings and your secret will be safe forever. I’ll throw the memory away out of my mind. But hey, being in a club won’t be that bad of an experience either. Who knows, you might even discover something about yourself while you’re here.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said with a lopsided grin. “My rides here, so I’ll see you later Jacob.”

I watched as he ran across the parking lot. The next few weeks of my life would certainly be interesting now that Ryan was a part of it.