Even If We Tried

 

Re-Edited - Draft One

 

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Please don't alter or reproduce my work without first contacting me.

 

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A SIDE NOTE; this is just an updated version of EIWT Draft 1. A full book, with new characters, scenes and plot is coming soon as an Ebook.

 

Contact and find me on these sites. I’ll be posting daily updates on Tumblr regularly.

 

Email - danny2017writing@outlook.com

Twitter - @author_daniels

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For anyone who is interested. I have other stories on nifty. I will list them at the end of the story.

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Many thanks;

 

To my friend and editor Leo, who has spent a great number of hours revamping the face of EIWT. 

To my friend and fellow writer Hunter, for all the support he has shown during the course of my writing. Check out his story Open Hearts.

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In The Last Chapter: Sam becomes aware of his feelings for boys. However, after receiving his first kiss from Austin it confuses him more and sets him on a journey of self discovery. Ethan, Sam’s best friend also tells the girl he’s been crushing on how he feels. This leaves all three boys in the state of first love, and the mixed feelings that will either derail a friendship or strengthen one.

 

Even If We Tried

By D.K. Daniels

Part 3

 

The quiet and stillness of my room was a little piece of heaven. All that could be heard was the silent and rhythmic breathing of Ethan, who was merely less than ten feet away. I didn’t get much sleep after what had happened during the night, I had way too many thoughts running through my mind. I had not bothered to move since I got back in bed after my accident. All that could be heard was the gentle breathing coming from Ethan on the top bunk, and every now and then, he’d rearrange his position and the wooden lattes would creak every time he moved.

I felt the sun rays pour through the venetian blind on my window, and warm my blankets and face. It flooded the room with a golden haze. As I lay quietly I decided to replay the events of last night in my head while I had the opportunity without an interruption present. ‘Did it actually happen, did he really kiss me, did I kiss him? I felt myself touching my bottom lip, faintly with my fingertips. Swallowing my fear, I started asking myself questions. What if Ethan found out, would he think I was weird, or sick even. I did not want to lose any friends, I might probably handle losing some friends, but not Ethan, not him! So, I decided that it was in the best interests of everyone to keep my mouth shut about my feelings for Austin. I didn’t want to have the fear of walking to school and getting jumped. I did not want to be isolated on the school bus in the mornings to school, or coming home for that matter. Most definitely, I sure as hell did not want to be ridiculed and mocked for other people’s amusement. 

I sat up in my bed and placed my hands over my face, and sighed into them. Don’t do this, I more or less warned myself. I knew that if I decided to go down this road that I’d have problems to face. Sitting up in my bed with the blankets covering my lower body, I looked down to the floor where last night’s clothes lay. The garments I had worn to the party lay right next to Ethan’s, whose clothes were equally thrown across the room in the same manner. It was this sight that got me thinking of the possibility of having a boyfriend. I then jumped a little when Ethan’s arm flew down from the top bunk and dangled in mid-air. I felt tempted to pull him out of the top bunk, just for fun. Still, I felt that I shouldn’t as I don’t think he’d have been very happy with me if I did. But then again, I needed something to cheer me up and I decided to go for it. Come to think of it, Ethan would most likely do the same thing to me anyway. So, there was no need for sympathy. 

I pushed my blankets out onto the floor so that he would not fall straight to the floor but would have something to break his fall. Plucking up my pillows I threw them on top of the blankets also. The red glare from my alarm clock caught my attention. It displayed in large blocked numbers 10:43 am. I decided that it was about time to kick start the day. Holding onto his wrist that was centimetres in front of me, I came to notice something that I had never noticed before. His skin looked so soft, and the fine fuzz hairs on his arm looked oddly beautiful with the golden glow coming from the window. I had never noticed this sort of feature about any boy before. I felt that I couldn’t pull him now; I felt that it would be wrong. I questioned myself as to why I thought it would be a good idea to pull him from the bed in the first place.

I got out of bed, standing with my small bare feet on the pillows and blankets on the floor, I looked up at Ethan who was lying peacefully asleep. His shoulders where exposed, and they showed his unblemished skin; it was enticing looking, so soft and smooth. I looked up at his face. He had the face of an angel at that moment, if I really knew what an angel looked like. Because if it looked anything like I’ve been told an angel looks like, it would possibly be the nearest thing possible to describe his beauty. His delicate face showed no emotion as he rested his head on the pillow and his hair was slightly wedged up since he had his head against the pillow. His eyelashes gave him a youthful and feminine look, but still, his eyelashes were nothing compared to his stunning eyes when they were open for everyone to marvel at. Before long I felt myself reaching out to touch Ethan’s skin, Though I knew that I should not be doing this. I was totally crossing the barrier from straight to gay, but I just couldn’t help it. In that moment, he was just too beautiful.

The soft touch and silkiness of his skin felt sublime. The small fuzz of his hairs that ran the length of his thirteen year-old arm was supple. I didn’t want to stop. I felt content softly rubbing his arm, but that’s when my conscience told me it was time to stop. Ethan’s arm slowly started to show goosebumps and he started to vaguely mumble in his sleep. Letting his arm go, I stepped back in case he would wake up all of sudden. I backed off the blankets under my feet onto the carpet and backed myself up against my bedroom door. Looking over at him, I sank to the floor until my bum reached the floor. I felt really confused and I felt that for no apparent reason, I wanted to cry. What the fuck is wrong with me, I asked, but as always there was noone to answer my question. 

Feeling tears form in my eyes, one rolled down my plump cheek. I heard the single plop as it hit the floor. Before long I had started a flow of constant water from my eyes and no matter how hard I tried, I could not stop crying. Sniffling quietly, I tried not to wake Ethan. But as quick as my intentions of not wanting to wake him were interrupted when his breathing slowed, I heard him hop out of bed and walk toward me. Looking up to the semi-naked boy who stood in front of me I noticed he wore just a pair of blue Hollister underpants.

         “Are you okay”, he asked. Looking worried and in a sympathetic voice. 

Leaning down to my level at the door, his muscular legs flexed as he crouched and his bulge became prominent in the thin fabric that shielded his privates.

         “Sam”, he said.

I tried not to look at the lower section of his body. Looking deeply into my eyes he seemed worried.

         “What’s wrong?”, he asked.

I slowed my breathing, but I didn’t want to tell him what was wrong with me. How could I? He wouldn’t be able to understand. Even I don’t understand. I don’t want to be this way; I just am this way. He sat down on the floor next to me with his back toward the door. He didn’t say anything. I assumed that he was waiting for me to tell him what was wrong. But I did not plan on telling him anything of the sort. Especially not the part where I thought his skin looked oddly beautiful and definitely nothing about Austin. His leg softly rested against my bare leg; all that was covering us was the thin fabric of our underwear and I started to quickly grow uncomfortable about that. What if I was to bone up, how would I be able to explain that to him? the Our shoulders touched and it felt nice to have the skin contact, but it shouldn’t have felt nice. Because he was a boy.

A few minutes had passed and no words were said. The room got gradually brighter as it was almost mid-day, and the sun beams became stronger through my blinds. I had not anticipated this or even tried to reach out to Ethan, but just when I thought I might have been able to say everything was okay, he reached out and held my hand that was resting my thigh. I felt my heart race and I started to panic.

         “Sam”, he comforted me in a soft, hushed voice. “I’m here if you want to talk to me”.

I felt my hand becoming a little too clammy for my liking.  Even though his hand was warm, I felt heat building up. I broke the hand contact, but as if the hand thing weren’t enough, I started to have morning wood at the same time.

         “I’m… Okay”, ‘I lied,’ as I stood up and paced toward my desk.

A pair of my underarmour shorts were draped over the back of my chair. Usually for when I go running, just now they quickly served a purpose other than running. Standing with my back to him I put them on as quickly as I could and sat down on the chair so that he would not be able to see the awkward erection.

         “Man, your acting weird”, he stated. 

         “Sorry”, I said with an erratic heart rate.

         “I’m just stressed about things, but I’ll be okay.”. 

He looked at me with a dumbed face and said in a sharp tone,

         “You’re not serious. Do you think I’d buy that garbage?” 

         “Nooo..., I’m...”, I stammered. Ashamed I said, “I don’t know what’s   

      wrong with me; I’m just dealing with stuff”.

Both of us now on the verge of tears, he came over to me. He was still so distracting in his tightly fitting underwear I did not want to think of what was beneath them. I felt that my boner was slowly deflating and I didn’t want it reappearing at this point in time. Standing over me, he looked down at me as I looked up at him.

         “Well dummy, stand up so I can give you a hug!”, he said as he playfully nudged the centre of my chest like he always does.

Drawing in a breath and almost choking on it, I stood up, not really wanting to. I could feel my legs going weak with nervousness and fear. I could feel my heart beating as hard as it had ever done. Standing fully up at this point, I wrapped my arms around his athletic body, as he did the same and we pulled each other into a hug. He held onto me like he was worried about me but then let go before looking into my eyes. 

Suppressing the problems I was facing, I genuinely felt that I had got some understanding from Ethan and a little stress off my chest. Mischievously, I smiled at him and playfully pulled at the leg of his Hollister boxer briefs to initiate a rambunctious game of fuckery with plenty of playful shouting and messing around. 

It worked for the most part, because not long after that we got dressed, ate breakfast and headed on downstairs to see what my mom would have for us to do. Truly though, if she had nothing to do then that meant that me and Ethan could do what we wanted for the day. Since he did not need to be home until around six, and the day looked like it was going to be a fairly good day, we decided that we would go to the arcade to pass a couple of hours and then head to the park for a little bit.

Sure enough, Mom just asked us to run to the shop for her, and buy milk and bread. Doing so, Ethan and I headed to the shop and quickly returned so that we could head off. Saying our goodbyes to my mom, we headed out the back patio doors and to the shed at the end of my garden. Opening the old rusty door, I motioned for Ethan to follow through. Digging into my grey denim jeans, I pulled out my phone and toggled the flashlight on, so that I would not fall over anything while I tried to get my bike from the back of the shed. Pulling it out with lots of effort, I wheeled it out and propped it up against the wall outside and closed the door as soon as Ethan had done his little roundabout of the shed.

“You ready”, I asked Ethan as I rolled and talked with the BMX under   my arm.

“Yeah Man”, he said with a warm smile.

Once we had got out to the front yard I swung my leg over the seat and got on; I then told Ethan to stand on the back pegs and hold onto my shoulders so that he would not fall off. The moment I felt Ethan climb onto the back of the bike I could feel the weight of him immediately. I have had this bike since I was about ten. I remember my mom bringing me to the shop to pick the bike I wanted. Mom had originally wanted me to pick a different bike that was $65 dollars cheaper, but I had my heart set on a blue BMX. Puppy eyes worked though: my sad look made my mom pity me and pay the little extra for me to have the bike I wanted and since then it’s been with me for as long as I can remember. The BMX would have to be the longest lasting bike for me; I mean it’s gone through possibly hundreds of punctures and falls and it still looks brand new.

Pushing off the concrete driveway and onto the centre of the road, I started pedalling. I felt it was heavy going since we were not kids anymore and we had grown up quite a bit.

“What the fuck are you eating,” I teased Ethan as I had to pedal harder in order to make some speed.

“Shut up”, he squealed in a chortled laugh.

“I mean…”, I panted.

I was feeling the pressure in the back of my legs,

“At this rate, we’ll never break the sound barrier”. 

Ethan just went into hysterics and started laughing at the remark as I pedalled down the road toward the arcade. Arriving at the arcade, we got off the bike and went inside. I didn’t want to leave my bike outside, so I asked if I could bring it inside. As I went from machine to machine I rolled it with me and played a couple of games of pinball and won twice.

Ethan then began playing the merchandise machines; inside one of the machines there was $50 dollars to be won, but for every dollar that Ethan put into the machine, he grew more frustrated with machine. After he had lost eleven dollars he decided to move on to the slot machine. He studied the ledge moving in and out as it pushed the money out before he dropped in any of his own money. But when he ran out of money, he looked around to see if anyone was watching us and started to slowly grind his hips into the plastic on the outside of the slots. He started to break into a hump, and that was when I was getting turned on by what he was doing. He was rubbing himself against the machine and the way his shorts moved every time he did it, made it impossible not to look.

Deciding to break the silence, I asked “What are you doing man?”

Funny enough, he just commented with, “Practicing my technique for the ladies”

“Gross Dude”, I joked in such a sharp tone, that my voice broke.

He jumped away from the machine and laughed. “I’m just messing with you”, he quipped back. We left shortly after and headed towards the park. The rest of the day was a good day out with Ethan, but still no matter how much fun I had, I was starting to have growing feelings that I’d never had before for my friend or any boy. Come to think of it, Ethan has always been that crude sort of guy and I never really picked up on it till now. However, he was a gentle soul.

Having a crush on Austin and now becoming aware of my sexual awaking over my best friend, I felt trapped.

When Monday morning rolled around, it was always one of the days I dreaded most. I mean, why did you have to get up at 6 am It should have been outlawed, I mean even if the government allowed the decent people of America a couple more hours of sleep on a Monday morning, I don’t think that would hurt anybody. But nooo! Doing the same old ritual, picking my clothes out, I decided on a pair of red skinny jeans, and a grey tracksuit top. Rushing into the shower, I washed quickly and got dressed. In the car to school, I made a little effort to talk to my mom and Lauren. I was feeling in a good mood today and then thought that talking this early was not all so bad, unlike some other mornings. Arriving at school I bumped fists with my sister and then proceeded to my locker. Dialling in the combination, I reached into the locker and took out the books I needed for the classes before lunch. Placing them neatly into my bag, I bent down to my bag which was on the floor and placed them in the order of the classes I had throughout the day and zipped it up.

Just as I was standing up I got a message. Using two fingers, I slid it out of my tight jean pocket and unlocked it. Pressing on the icon in snap chat that appeared to be from Ethan, I clicked on it and Ethan popped up in a picture. The picture had a caption across the centre that said,

“I’m not going to be in until after lunch, have dentist appoint”.

Clicking onto the camera button I took one of myself and sent back,

“Okay mate, best of luck at the butcher’s.”

A minute later that snap was opened and he had sent back another snap to me. “Thanks”, he said as he pretended to look rather blue about the situation. Placing the phone back in my pocket, I closed the door and adjusted the lock, before turning to head for class. Seated at the table I felt a little weird since Ethan was not here to keep me company. I did end up talking to a couple of other people who were only casual friends, and after a couple of minutes of interaction with them, I reverted to opening other snaps on snap chat and replied to the list of people who wanted my attention. I found the time going fast and I felt the classroom fill, and I also felt and smelled a familiar presence and scent sit down in the chair beside me. I knew it was Austin, but I didn’t want to look up. What was I going to say to him, “I really liked your kiss?”. No, I couldn’t do that. But sure enough, he started to fidget with things to get me to notice him and look up, being persistent as he was. I wanted to remain where I was without having to look at him.

I didn’t have anything to say to him for now, actually let me re-phrase that: I had no clue about what to say to him. That’s when he broke the silence and tipped me on the arm.

“Hey, morning”, he said as I looked up. His eyes looked full of life,  and he looked happy to see me. 

“Morning”, I said in a low strained voice.

“Satur…”, he began to say before being interrupted by a girl.

She had said good morning to him, and he gave a sweet smile and said “thanks, you too.” Just like that he turned his attention back to me and recomposed himself as he drew in a breath.

“Saturday was great, right?”, he asked.

Looking me in the eye with wide, peering saucers of his own. Nodding my head, I kind of dissed the statement, “Yeah, it was okay”, I stated in a neutral tone, yet feeling very nervous at the same time. After that, he turned away from me while saying, “Yeah it was cool” and sat into his desk and went quiet. I didn’t bother saying anything to him, because I needed my own space right then, so I thought that he could wait. It was not as big a deal as I thought it was, so I just decided to question other things and not question why he turned away. I think I do know though why he turned away; he was most likely referring to the kiss on Saturday night and since I had not given him anything to go on he was probably finding it hard to read me.

The first class started and Ms Campbell took the roll call. She had us for the first class every morning which was English. Today, though, she had an announcement to make. She went on to talk about the school hosting a science convention and that our class had been picked for the project. Ms Campbell went on to mention that we would be working in groups of two and that we would need to work hard for the first place prize. After that, the teaching resumed as normal till lunch. I packed my bag again neatly, while the room quickly emptied. Austin on the other hand got up, lingered a little, but since he saw that I was taking longer than expected, he left and I made my way to the cafeteria on my own. Sitting down, I started socializing with other friends, and still no Ethan. I felt like I was missing one of my arms without him, since everywhere I go he usually is with me. Picking at the food I had been given from the cafeteria, I looked over at Austin, who now had two people sitting at his table. I felt jealous that he had people sitting at his table, that was until I saw my friend Blake approach my table with a tray of food and take his place. 

         “Do you have news?”, I asked as I smiled at him.

“I do, I do”, he said playfully. 

“Okay, what is it?”, I asked impatiently. 

“He’s a faggot”, he said smugly. 

“Oh”, was all I managed to get out as I looked over at him. 

He was laughing and smiling, until he saw me and slowly started eating his lunch. One of the girls that was sitting with him turned around and looked in my direction. 

“Well,” Blake said. 

“Don’t mention this to anybody. Who told you he was?”, I asked, hoping he’d give a name, and he did. The name of Garratt Honan.

“Garratt?”, I asked with surprise.

“Yeah, Garratt”, he said as he used his hand as an amplifier. 

Garratt Honan was the school informer. He pretty much had dirt on anyone you wanted dirt on. If you could pay for his information he would give you what you wanted and he would definitely dig up something about that person, no matter the cost or hassle. I sat back in my chair and felt no longer hungry, and by the time lunch was over, Ethan had made it to school fashionably late for the last segment of classes.

On the way home I thought about what I had been told by Blake. Could it be true? He’s always been a reliable source for information, but to be sure I just wanted to check it out. I decided that I would pay Garratt and visit him tomorrow in school. After dinner, I sat down to do my homework and after a little distraction I finally got it done. For the rest of the night I started doodling in my journal and work on my world I so desperately wanted to create. But as quickly as I wanted to get what was in my head onto the page, I found myself drawing a sketch of Austin. That would take me most of the night to complete, and by the time 3 am rolled by, I was happy with the way it turned out. Austin was a new addition to my journal, for I never drew people I knew in the journal; it had always been fictional people. Somehow, I wanted Austin to be in the journal. I don’t know why, but I just wanted him to be in it. Switching off the bedside lamp, I slumped my head on the pillow;  exhaustion came and I fell asleep.

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The next morning, the same usual routine took place; I went for my shower, got dressed and headed down for breakfast. Since it was a lovely morning out and the temperature was slightly above 55 degrees, the sun glistened through the trees as I made the effort of walking to school today. The heat was nice on my face; I drew in the rays as I walked silently along on my own. Block after block, I finally reached school. Heading to my locker I changed my books. I wandered to the toilet before class and pushed the wooden door open  and entered into the bathroom. Sighing, I stopped in front of the sink bank and placed the palms of my hands on the edge of the counter for support. 

Looking deeply into the mirror, I saw that I had clear bags under my eyes; I felt exhausted. That’s when the door opened from the noisy hallway and the soft footsteps were heard walking on the tiled floor. Not bothering to turn around, I kept looking into the mirror where I could see Austin walking behind me with the darkened cubicles as a backdrop. Shocked, he froze on the spot in the middle of the restroom which had returned to its quite state. Turning around I said, “SUP”, with a nod of the head.

“About to go the toilet,” he said.

He started walking toward a urinal, unzipped himself and a few seconds later a flow of urine could be heard hitting the back of the ceramic bowl. Looking at his back, I checked him out, from his head I slowly followed down in a slow glance, down to the strong looking back to his hips. I paused momentarily on his ass, before continuing down to his legs and then feet. Watching intently now, the cute guy I was now attracted to, shook himself before re-zipping the fly on his red chinos and walked to the sink. He did not try and make much of an effort to talk to me and that was kind of worrying, since from day one he would try and get my attention. Washing his hands, he cracked a warm smile and walked toward me, he leaned in rather suggestively and took paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, which was behind me. I was about to react, as I thought he was going to kiss me again, but sadly it felt as if he was deliberately teasing me.

“See Ya in class”, he said smugly before opening the door hastily. 

“That’s it”, I said to myself. I’m going to make my move; it’s what  he wants, right? 

I left the bathroom and walked the distance to the gymnasium. I completely by-passed my classroom and as I got to the exit door I bumped into Ethan.

“Man, watch where you’re going”, he said sharply before noticing it was me.

“Sorry man, I didn’t see it was you”, he said immediately after.

“It’s cool, I wasn’t looking where I was going anyway.”

“Oh”, he said, “Everything alright?”, he asked, looking up the hallway over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m just going to see Garratt”, I told in an urgent tone.

“I’ll let you go then”, he huffed before adding.

“Talk to you in class.”

Parting ways, I exited the building and walked the bland cemented path that connected the main school building to the gym, propped the door open and went inside.

“The man himself”, a voice echoed from the bleachers.

I knew it was Garratt, and with that I climbed the steps up to where he sat. 

“Garratt, I need to ask you about some sensitive information”, I said in a somewhat curious tone.

Not wasting any time, knowing that I needed to be somewhere and I needed the information, I did not have the time to dilly-dally. Garratt was about fifteen. He had fiery red hair that was cropped short and his face was adorned with freckles.

“Straight down to business”, he chided with a hurt tone and pout.

“Sorry man, I’m in a hurry”, I added.

“Fair enough”, he offered before asking, “what do you need to know?”

“You told Blake that the new kid Austin is gay. I need to know if that is really true.”

Garratt looked at me with a surprised and questioning manner.

“Do you like him”, he teased playfully, while raising one eyebrow. 

“No”, I shot back as quick as the question was asked. “I just want to know.”

“Yeah, my sources say he is”, he declared while folding his arms.

“Sources? What sources?”, I asked knowing that he wasn’t going to give that sort of information up easily.

“Are you cracked in head. I can’t give you that information. Maybe for a price though”, he sneered.

“Will respect and twenty dollars be enough?” I asked.

I dug into my pocket and held a twenty-dollar bill between my index and middle finger. Moms lunch money, I though, it’s a miracle.

“Okay”, he said as he snatched the money out of my hand.

“After a bit of searching I came across people in California. Turns out in his old school he was the talk of the place, that being gay,” he bragged and started to smile. 

I felt a little bad for Austin now, knowing that I had just paid for the information on him. I said thanks and headed off toward class. 

Taking my seat, I turned around to Ethan and started talking to him while the Cali boy just sat there reading a book across from me. The teacher arrived a little early today and asked us to pair up with someone for the science competition that would take place in about two weeks. My first thought was who should I pick, several people came over to me and asked me to join them for the competition. The only thing was I’d only ever consider two people. One being Ethan and the other being Austin. Picking Ethan was the most obvious choice though, since we were inseparable since pre-school. We both offered each other ideas throughout the first half of the day about what we could do our science project on. About ten minutes before lunch though everyone’s phones started buzzing, each dinging within a couple of seconds of each other. So much so that the teacher was annoyed at the disturbance.  Looking around I started laughing at the disturbance it was making, because the teacher was so pee’d off. That was till I felt my phone go off in my trouser pocket.

Digging into my jeans I pulled out my phone that had a message from and anonymous sender. I heard Ethan’s phone ding go off moments later. But then the laughing started to settle down in the room as everyone started opening the message. Clicking it, the message had a picture of Austin with a load of hateful slurs aimed at him. I felt people looking over my way, obviously looking at him. I could not lift my head from the phone. But when I did he looked over at me with such innocent eyes, with no clue of what was going on. I exhaled, turned around to Ethan who looked up from his phone, and looked at Austin with a confused look.

“What, what is it?”, Austin said, looking a little confused and worried at the same time. I could not genuinely comprehend how to say it but I tried, “I eh…“

But before I could say the embarrassing nature of all the message content, someone belted out “He’s a queer!” Just then the whole room broke into laughter except for me Ethan, Austin, the teacher and a couple of other students that you could count on one hand. Looking back over at him and not sure what to do, I saw his eyes started to water up and he swooped down to grab his bag. 

“I will not have that sort of discrimination in this classroom,” the teacher scolded in a cold tone. 

Austin packed everything into his bag and started for the door. The teacher tried talking to him in a sympathetic and caring way, but before the teacher could get in any word Austin had vanished out the door, Leaving the room in an abundance of new juicy gossip for everyone else. I started to immediately fear if I was to come out now, Austin was truly gay and he was out of the closest now. Only I felt guilty for requesting the information from Blake. I thought that if I had not asked for it, it would have turned out differently. I was not sure. Turning around to Ethan, I started telling him about the information I knew, and he was a little shocked but he understood why I might have felt guilty. He was supportive in the moment. dand with that, lunch finally arrived. But instead of getting lunch I pretend to all the lads that sit at the table I eat at along with Ethan, that I wanted to get stuff out of my locker. With that I went looking for Austin. I was afraid at the same time, since he was the talk of the school. None the less I was looking for him. I searched pretty much everywhere until I found him behind the back of the gymnasium, crying. It was to be expected but as I approached him he became afraid of me.

“I’m not going to hurt you; I only want to talk,” I said in a raised and panicked voice, as he was getting ready to get up and run. Then he calmed down a little but remained on guard.

“What do you want”, he said coldly and broken.

“To talk, just talk,” I said slowly. After a long gap, he looked up at me, then back out into the distance. 

“Okay, sit down”, he said as he glanced at the spot beside him, taking off my school bag I sat down beside him not sure where to start or what to ask or say.

Turning my head to him I said “I’m sorry” as I looked at Austin for a sign. He glanced at me and looked me in the eyes like he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Sorry?”, he said as he shrugged his shoulders and widened his eyes. 

“I think this might be my fault”, I added, feeling really worried. Looking at me he remained silent. 

“I only wanted to know more about you; I didn’t think people would say anything about it.” 

He looked over at me teary eyed.

“What did you say?”, he asked in a half-sobbed voice.

There was a slight pause before I paced myself for the next thing I was about to say. 

“I wanted to know more about you from the first day you arrived”.

Looking at me now rather curiously he stopped crying and started to wipe his eyes. “I’ll sort this out, I promise”. Placing my hand on his back for support I started slowly rubbing in a circular motion until the end of lunch approached. By then he had stopped crying and felt that he could trust me to have his back. Standing up, I gave my hand to help him up off the ground. The two of us were so close and nobody was around. I wanted to kiss him but I didn’t. Instead, I reached into my bag, pulled out my journal and flipped through a few pages. He did watch me intently not knowing what to expect, that’s when I got to the drawing of him and hesitated for a moment before I tore it out of my book and handed it to him.

“This is for you”, I confessed handing it to him, and immediately started looking for a reaction. He looked up at me with an appreciative smile before he went back to a saddened face.

“I’ll walk you to the front office,” I offered.

With that he walked with me as a couple of people looked, not everyone knew but a few did and the word was traveling fast. People looked at me like Sam what are you doing, but I felt that I had to do this and with that I left him at the front office as he thanked me before I left. Heading for the class, I zoned out for the rest of the day. I thought about the huge fuck up I had possibly made and I had a few people I wanted to talk to. I wanted to know who sent that text. I felt sickened by the whole event that had happened. The school ended up calling home a little while after that and I went home.

The End of Part 3

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.

Please, comments are welcome. Actually needed, lol.

Regards

Danny (Your Writerly Friend)

 

Contact and find me on these sites. I’ll be posting daily updates on Tumblr 

Email - danny2017writing@outlook.com

Twitter - @author_daniels

Tumblr - dannywriting2017

 

Bibliography; of LGBTQ stories by D.K. Daniels, on Nifty

Even If We Tried (First Draft) - Gay Male, Young friends

Spring Tide (Unfinished)- Gay Male, Young friends

As They Say (On-going) - Gay Male, Young friends

Our Little Darlings (Stand-Alone Edit)- Gay Male, High School

Ghouls, Goblins & Ghastly Boys(Mini-Series)- Gay Male, Young Friends

Light The Night (Mini-Series) - Gay Male, Young Friends

Bibliography; of LGBTQ stories by D.K. Daniels, on Iomfats

Who We Are (Listed under D.K. Daniels Author)