Monday

Never had he ever felt annoyed by being internet famous. People had called him a Social Influencer, it had made him good money, and it had mostly been fun. Never, really never, had he felt awkward that people seemed to know him everywhere he went.

Not until that day, while he simply wanted to vanish yet again, as to not deal with all the stares and the whispers.

So far, he had been thankful his parents had been able to keep his story out of the media, granting him the peace and quiet he needed to recover from all his injuries. No questions, no stares, no words.

Tons of rumors.

And he knew most of them by heart by now. On good days, he would laugh over them with his best friend Jacob. On bad days, some of the rumors would make him want to cry and hide in a corner for the rest of his life. Like the one that claimed he died in an avalanche; completely with an in-memoriam webpage and all. Those types of things stung, and Jacob usually filed reports to have those pages removed.

Jacob had even pulled all their Social Media offline, after Milan felt upset every time he got notifications of people talking on them.

The content was still there; just not for the world to see.

And maybe it had been a great idea to let Jacob post the old content as a warning that he was still out there. You know, just to let the rumors die down before  he’d be facing his fellow students in school.

What he dreaded most, was all of those students attacking him with questions about his absence. He was relieved that hadn’t happened yet, but he knew people were talking about his presence.

He saw them staring at him, he heard the whispers, and he wasn’t stupid; he knew about the Discord channels dedicated to him and his absence. He was in one, just because he wanted to know whenever new in-memoriam pages were made, so that they could be taken down immediately.

He knew exactly what was being said about him, including the flattering words in the fan girl channel. Which was a whole different thing that made him nervously chew on his lip the whole goddamn morning. If it continued, he wouldn’t have a lower lip left, and he wouldn’t need to have lunch either.

All those girls wondering if he’d be into them was flattering, but awkward nonetheless. He simply wasn’t into girls, and he had found out by actually dating one. Cara Dietrich was one of his best friends, and she’d always be. They had started dating four years ago, but both of them figured out, they weren’t really into each other like that. Cara because she crushed on a girl, Milan because he crushed on a guy.

They remained dating for another year, functioning as each other’s beards while figuring out their feelings and sexuality.

And then Milan had his accident and it quickly became clear he wouldn’t just recover overnight; it would last months, if not years, to heal. Cara eventually decided to pursue a relationship with Nicky, eventually coming out as lesbian a few months ago.

Which left Milan in an awkward position; it turned out his ex-girlfriend was into girls, and even he had read the discussions about her coming out; and the question if he had known.

Milan wasn’t exactly ready to come out himself. He hadn’t even kissed a guy. He wasn’t even sure where on the spectrum he himself actually was. All he knew, was that he rather looked at guys, than girls. That he fantasized about his male crush. That he hadn’t been able to perform when Cara and him were on the verge of sleeping together—which happened to be the reason they told each other about their doubts when it came to their sexualities.

All in all, in the eight months he had hidden his life from the public eye, everything seemed to have become way more complicated. Everything was probably going to bite him in the ass soon.

He was just lucky he had his closest friends, who all exactly knew what had happened, kept their mouths shut over the months, and supported him in every possible way.

He knew they would be there for him no matter what.

He just wondered how they would respond when he would eventually tell them the truths he had been hiding; even from them.