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 the protagonist, Had stead up all night to do drawings in his journal. The next morning upon his arrival to school, he hears of this new student who will be joining his class for the year. The moment Sam see this boy, he feels inclined to get to know him. But could it be a mistake or could it be good thing, only time can tell.

Even If We Tried

by d.k. dANIELS

Part 2

Arriving home I sat down to dinner with the family and then headed on upstairs to prepare for the night ahead. Raiding my wardrobe, I looked for the nicest pair of clothes I could find, that I had to my name. Deciding on a pair of black skinny jeans, a wine 1975 graphic t-shirt (You know that famous indie band) and a light black jacket and placed them on the bed. Fetching a pair of fresh underwear and socks I placed them on top of my clothes that I had laid out on the bed. I then grabbed a towel and raced into the bathroom for the second time today.

Standing under the water, I stood still for a moment after I had thoroughly washed myself clean and looked down at myself. Down there, to be more specific. I had received a few small whisps of brown hair in the last six or so months, so I felt that I might have been a late bloomer. But when I saw the hair starting to grow I was relieved that puberty was finally showing on the outside.

Letting the downpour land on my head I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the water trickling down my body. Before long though I had turned off the shower, and headed back into the bedroom and started ruffling the towel about to dry myself, and I added a little extra pressure and effort into drying my hair. Walking naked back to the bathroom I placed my towel in the hamper and proceeded to get dressed. 

Slipping the small garment of underwear over my toes I pulled them up to cover my private region and then pulled on my socks. Stepping into my skinny jeans I pulled them up and put on a belt for the extra support. Grabbing the bottle of deodorant on the desk at the foot of my bed I applied it in liberal amounts and placed the t-shirt on after I felt I was smelling good. As the minutes ticked away I became conscious of time as I brushed my teeth and formally styled my hair. 

Once I was finished, I waited anxiously watching the two large hands on the clock in kitchen slowly creep toward 8 pm. Sitting on the hard-wooden chair at the kitchen table that had a steep incline for the back, I became a little worked up and resorted to checking my phone every two minutes to see if I had received a message from anyone I knew about information about that boy or just anything in general, really. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me all of a sudden, but I felt the feeling fade and become non-existent by the time Ethan had rung the doorbell. 

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I got the usual lecture from my mom, that I had to be home at this time and I had better not get into trouble, yada  yada. I made a swift exit, as I pushed Ethan playfully while my mom shooed us out the door. The nip in the air was felt as soon as I stepped a foot outside. I turned around to my mom who was standing in the door, I gave her my” I’ll be okay” smile and headed for the gate with Ethan alongside. Turning onto the sidewalk we walked slowly as to not arrive too early and also chat a little.

After a couple of minutes walking, I looked over at Ethan and glanced at him up and down. “You look smart”, I said, complementing his fashion choice. With the crack of a smile, and his face only lit by the small particles of tungsten lighting that the street lights provided, he said with a burst of energy “Well, upstairs is for thinking, downstairs is for dancing”. Feeling a pressure build in my throat and my cheekbones lifting slightly, I let out a laugh at his comic timing. He was always one for coming up with good one-liners and sarcastic responses.

“Aww… man, you do know how to make someone laugh”, I quipped as we quickly got ourselves under control. As we neared the place of the party, we stopped outside on the curb in front of the house, which had all the lights on in every room that we could see from the sidewalk with a hefty amount of people already in attendance. For the first time ever, when I looked over at my best friend he seemed to be a little nervous, it was as if he was contemplating going in. I could sense something was slightly off, since we arrived at this very spot, a shift in his mood had happened, and knowing this awesome guy for almost all my life I quickly tuned in to it. What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t see the signs, I questioned myself.

“Are you all right, dude”, I asked sincerely as he looked from me to the house. Nodding his head at the statement he agreed, but his nod was not one of the usual from the many he had given me throughout the years. “Man do I gotta tell everyone you still have guard rails on your bed?” He looked up from the pavement and smiled a little. “Actually, I…”, he stammered. He tried to get the words out of his mouth the second time when he blurted it out in one sentence.

“It’s about Becky Rhodes”, he said as he tapped the tops of his shoes off the side of the curb as if he was playing football.

         “Oh,” I said. An awkward silence had formed between us as I didn’t really know what to say.

            I felt the only thing that I could offer however was to give him the option to tell me what was wrong.

                  “Wanna go for a walk around the block”, I enquired.

At a grateful nod from him, I gestured for him to lead on and he started walking. So, you must be wondering who is Becky Rhodes. She’s the crush of lifetime for Ethan, he’s been crushing on her hard since sixth grade. He has tried to be sweet to her and he has tried expressing his interest in her. But no matter how much he has done in the past the girl doesn’t seem to be able to take a hint, from what I’ve been told. She is pretty girl, and I could see

the two of them being a couple but then just when Ethan is confident. When he tries to impress her and she doesn’t take the hint, he sort of gets upset and loses a little confidence with her. I know my friend, and I would never see him walking up to her and saying, “Hey I like you” in a million years. But maybe I could be a support for him and encourage him to try and ask for a date even.

By the time we had talked, Ethan felt a little better and I told him to come find me if he wanted to talk more about it and I made him swear by it and he agreed for once without giving me expressionist eyes. I gave him a playful nudge in the arm as we stood back on the same spot in front of the house. “You ready to fuck’n party?” I said in a motivational way. “Totes” He said as he gave me a nudge back in the centre of my chest and we both took confident steps towards to front door. Pushing the solid oak door in of my friend’s rather large expensive home, both me and Ethan were struck with the loud music that came from the dining room area. The house already had quite a turnout of people, of all ages and all backgrounds.

The floor already held filled with party streamers and plastic party cups and other miscellaneous commodities that were  once use by the people at the party. Looking around for a familiar face, over and through some of the older teenagers that Nash’s brother was most likely friends with, we ended up slowly gravitating from the hall into the sitting room, away from the music. The house was really packed, I would have loved to see their parents’ reaction if they had just cancelled their plans and came home early. There was a mix of every social group in the house. There were the athletes, the artsy and political people who are always on about saving the tigers. We had the drama team in one corner and then a few geeky looking guys and emos. I don’t necessary like labelling people, but that’s the way I was always told to perceive them. It makes it easier for everyone to just have a label, so you know what group they belong to. I guess you could’ve called me a geeky and artsy child. It wasn’t long before Ethan had spotted someone we knew. It was Nash, standing in the archway that leads into his kitchen, he was talking to a blond girl.

Nash is possibly the richest kid in the school, he’s not big nosed or snobby. he’s quite a character, actually; he’s very charitable, well, to his close friends of course. He’s mine and Ethan’s age but we don’t really see much of him other than at break time and our personal life outside school. Since he is in the drama department, and different classes altogether.

The young gentleman, as I’d call him since he’s definitely following in his father’s footsteps as for social status and class, seems to be a proud addition to the family name. Standing in his grey cashmere, with tan chinos to show off his fashion sense, you could see that he had money to spend and that he intended to have to finer things in life. Navigating around the people who blocked the straight optimum route, and taking a detour around the couch and coffee table, we snuck up on him. Ethan of course couldn’t control his excitement and jumped on him as he placed both his hands on Nash’s shoulders and leapt up on the spot before landing firmly down on his feet again. The shock on Nash’s face was priceless, but as quick as he was succumbed by shock, his facial expression quickly relaxed and changed to that of a happy smile. 

                  “Ethan…”, he said as he was happy to see us, while wagging his finger, he paced each word separately and    

           emphasised them sternly.

                           “You… Scared... The Crap Out Of Me.”

         “That was the point”, Ethan mocked while one of his arms

      draped over Nash’s shoulder.

Nash was a lot smaller than us. He looked a little more fragile to say the least; his straw-like dirty blond hair was left to go wild and fall into place as if he had just woken up. It didn’t bother me in the least, it was just unusual, compared to what you’d expect from a rich boy, so to speak. “Oh, hey guys, I have someone I want you to meet”, he announced. As we followed him into the kitchen. I was expecting for him to introduce us to his boyfriend, from the way he acted and one could surmise that he was gay. He was quite in touch with his feminine side and that was something that I felt uncomfortable about. I saw that as a big no no. Did I act that way? I thought to myself whenever I was talking to Nash. I sure hoped not. I wasn’t ready to face the pressures of reality; I didn’t want to dig any deeper to find out if I was truly gay. All I knew was that I had a thing for guys and nothing else so to speak.

We reached a small crowded corner in the kitchen were all the alcohol and finger food had been set up by Nash’s older brother who funded the party while his parent were out of town on business. “Guys I want you to meet Austin”, Nash announced, as he tapped the fashionable teen on the back to get his attention. I first thought, don’t tell me it’s his boyfriend. I felt discouraged until I heard Nash say that this was his cousin who had moved from California, his dad was to take over operations of our local mining business here in Spokane. I let a sigh go and everyone must have heard me, because Ethan asked was I okay, merely seconds after I had released the carbon dioxide from my lungs. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be”, I said back as I was relieved at the prospect. He said okay as he directed his attention back to Austin and Nash. I felt Austin eyes looking at me for a moment. It was as if he wasn’t expecting to get introduced to me by Nash. 

                  “Yeah, we met in school”, I stated matter of fact.

Austin was already kind of embarrassed; his eyes went from Ethan to Nash but never stopped on me but for a second every now and then. Over time he did manage to look at me; I felt that he was feeling a little awkward about the interaction. “Hey”, he said again as he looked down at the ground shortly after he had said the word. Was he truly looking down at my shoes or was he looking at my crotch. I couldn’t be sure but he was looking at something intently. He licked his lips as he looked back up and I said, “Is that all you say: Hey,” I chided teasingly.

         “Oh right”, Nash said. “I’ll leaves you to it then, the ladies need me.” He backed off slowly, leaving me and Ethan with the Cali kid.

         “Hey man”, Ethan offered, “You starving? because I’m Starving!”

The boy stepped aside in a bit of a fluster while attempting to say, no, that he wasn’t. Looking the boy over I saw he had changed his clothes. He had on a pair of green jeans and a blue minty plaid shirt. It was the first time I saw his brown hair and hairstyle without a beanie covering it; he had surfer boy written all over it. The hair fell down just over his ears that formed small bangs and it was left slightly parted on the sides and fringe, leaving his hair just slightly falling down over his eyes. Silence was all that was achieved in the couple of seconds that I ended up pushing myself past the boy while I kept my stare at his luscious eyes as I passed him, since he was slightly taller than me, and glared into his soul. “I’m hungry I said as I reached for the food and left the brunette behind me. I loaded up a plate of food and when I turned around he had moved on somewhere else.

Sure enough, a little time had passed and the food was tasty, but the night was still young. Ethan had found me  coming out of the toilet when he handed me a bottle. A dark brownish bottle. 

         “What’s this for”, I enquired.

                           “Eh, to drink”, he said as he took a sip from his bottle and gave the sort of face that suggested he was unsure of the taste and couldn’t   

                                decide if he liked it or not.

         “I don’t know, it’s like bad”, I said with reason in my voice. “Sam, you’re not backing out of this, are you?”, he asked looking at me with  

            disappointment. 

                  “No, I just don’t want to drink it”, I said, hoping that he’d just drop the idea.

I didn’t want to try the drink, and I didn’t want to feel pressured into doing something I didn’t want to do. Even though Ethan was always a safe friend, he sometimes never really thought about consequences and that was what I was more afraid of than actually taking a sip.

         “Please man, I don’t wanna try it on my own”, he said in a ‘please don’t leave a brother hanging,' tone.

                  “Fine, one sip”, I said as I took the bottle to my lips and tilted it and let the liquid slowly pour into my mouth. 

I couldn’t describe it but as quick as the sip was taken, I got a chill through my bones from the bitterness. Playing around with the after taste in my mouth I handed the bottle back to him.

         “Thanks”, he said.

                  “At least we tried it together”, he genuinely looked taken aback from the deed I had done with him.

We were best of friends, so, I owed him that and he owed me that too, to not let each other try something alone. At least that’s what was the most logical thing in my brain at my age. Trying new experiences together felt much better than going at it alone and that was one of the many benefits of friendships. The crinkles by his eyes soon faded and we both did our own thing for a little bit.

He went on the prowl for the girls, while I just mingled from crowd to crowd, as I secretly was steeling glances of Austin from across the room talking to a variety of people. As the night went on Ethan drew the attention of the entire room with his dance moves. That’s when Ethan came to find me when he asked for my advice when his girl arrived, Becky Rhodes. Advice? I thought to myself; I can’t even figure out my own sexuality. Yet my friend wants advice. I thought it was comical. But I did what any friend would do, so I pushed him towards her. “Hey Becky”, I shouted and turned my back leaving Ethan to face her. I admit, I don’t think I’d be able to jump in at the deep end and confess my feeling to someone, but it was easier doing it to someone else, rather than doing it myself, I thought. It turned out that he got to talking to her, and they hit it off pretty well. He told her that he liked her and she was oddly surprised by the statement. Yet she still kept talking to him, so I slowly backed away and left both of them to keep talking uninterrupted. I still hadn’t found the courage to talk to Austin, but did end up dancing with my friend which meant that the whole room was looking at us. I changed my perspective while dancing and saw that Austin was now sitting on his own without anyone. He was looking at me, but I don’t think he thought I could see him very well since he was sitting in a dim area. His legs were spread wide and he had a pillow sitting across his lap. I had a pretty good idea what was happing. Every now and then he’d put one of his hands under the pillow to obviously adjust himself. 

I thought this is my chance to catch him at an awkward and vulnerable time. Slowly I stopped dancing and walked toward the dimly lit sofa where he sat. When he saw it was me, he quickly sat up and closed his legs a little.

         “Hey Sam”, he said in a high pitched voice, so that I could hear him over the music.

                  “Hey, man. What’s up?”, I asked, knowing what was up.

“Nothing, just bored”, he said, although it did feel like he was content I was sitting beside him.

         “Do you wanna drink?”, I shouted back to him, with a nod and a smile I got up and passed the pillow and started for the kitchen.

I looked down at him to ask what he wanted, that’s when I noticed he had been most likely looking at my ass. I turned my bum away from him. I don’t know but it felt the most natural thing to do at the moment. He seemed to have latched onto that pillow for dear life. “Coke?”, I asked, as his eyes bounced around in his head; it was like he was scolding himself for being caught or something of that sort. Arriving back with two cokes I handed one to him and he said thanks and I parked my butt on the sofa beside him. He did seem reluctant to say much about himself, but we did talk a little bit about how the party was going and how his first day in school was, although I think both of us were pretending to be dumber than we were.

Finding myself out by the swimming pool after the cokes with Austin, people were playing some sort of dare game and I quickly wanted to be included in the fun. The famous Austin kid was sitting down playing along with Ethan. Did I feel a little bit of jealousy for someone I didn’t quite know, Maybe. The blond girl that Austin had been talking to walked me through the steps and we quickly begun a new game. The objective of the same was to spin the empty bottle in the middle and you’d have to kiss whoever it landed on, complying with the rules I watched as Ethan spun it and kissed a pretty girl and then it went onto Austin and he ended up kissing a small geeky looking girl. When it got to my turn I spun the bottle and it landed on the blond girl that Austin had been talking to. I could see a hipster boy in my peripheral vision. He watched closely; was this his girlfriend I was kissing, I questioned as I leaned in and nervously kissed her on the lips and jumped back because of the naughtiness of everyone watching. Another round came and went and when it came back to me I gripped the bottle and spun it; only this time it landed on Austin. Looking up I saw Austin on the far side of the bottle, with both his legs folded and he looked at me with an unexpected worry that came flooding in his face.

Everyone in the immediate circle wooed at the situation and tried to egg us on. As nervous as I was, he was the first one to slowly meet me at the halfway point as he leaned in. I leaned in when one of the girls took out a phone. “No phones”, I said as I swiped the phone down toward her lap and then leaned in to Austin. Now centimetres away, I could feel his short exhales of warm air. His eyes were so much more beautiful up this close. His chocolate brown eyes where adorable. Making the move I barely grazed his lips before the both of us returned to our sitting position as both wiped our mouths. It was my cover, I had to pretend I was totally not into it but I really was. The stupidity of the peck could not be classified as a kiss and that made it look like I was just doing it because those were the rules of the game and everyone was doing it.

By eleven ‘clock, I was pretty much knackered. The tiredness was catching up on me and I just sat on the sofa for what seemed like a few minutes but in reality, it turned out to be about forty minutes. I watched as Austin talked to a blond girl in the now darkly lit room on the same sofa were we were sitting on. They seemed to have good chemistry. He was straight, I assured myself. Not long after that I saw both of them get up and walk toward the stairs;

Austin was behind the girl, looking around as they both climbed the stairs and disappeared. Looking back at the empty sofa, I slumped on the chair I was sitting on and exhaled. I watched a couple people dancing and laughing, on till everything faded. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up Austin was sitting in a circle with three girls and Ethan and a couple of others and were doing magic tricks with each other.

I pulled myself up off the sofa. Tired and sad I walked toward the bathroom that was away from the party, past the mudroom on the way to the garage, as it had quieted down. So that the police wouldn’t be called, I sat on the toilet and thought about what I had witnessed. Was I thinking of what might have actually happened with those two? Yes. I felt depressed and I felt that I wanted to go home. I felt that all my partying was done for the night. I got

annoyed at myself for thinking or reading him wrong. I thought he was the same. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I had two text messages from my mom stating that I had to be home in twenty minutes or else. I decided that I was done with the night and placed my phone back in my pocket before I sent her a message telling her I was on my way and that I’d be home before midnight.

Flushing the toilet, I didn’t use, I unlocked the bathroom door and I was about to walk out when Austin blocked the doorway. “Hey”, he said as he showed a warm smile. It appeared that he was having a good time, unlike me. That’s when he looked down the hallway and back at me to make sure the coast was clear. In one swift motion, he said “You found me” and leaned in and pressed his soft lips into mine and actually kissed me. All I could say in my mind was, “OMG, he’s kissing me. He’s kissing me!” When he pulled away, he looked as if he was unsure of how to read me since I hadn’t made an effort to kiss him back. “Sorry”, he said, as he rubbed his arm nervously. “It’s okay”, I said in a low voice not looking him in the face and only looking at his neck. I wasn’t sure what to say, I felt confused. I had just assured myself that he wasn’t wired that way and he kissed me. Somehow my security shield went down.

         “It was nice”, I said as I looked down at the floor.

 I felt my heart race, as I let sensitive material slip from my mouth. “What?”, he said with a sincere look about his face. “Never mind” I said as I tried to brush by him but he still stood in my way. That’s when he said, “Cute drawing, Art Boy”, he emphasised as he pointed a finger at his cheek and then pointed his finger back at me, turning around to find a mirror. I was horrified when I saw the penis drawing on my cheek. ‘Ethan’, I thought. I felt my face redden and blush at his statement, but it was too much to try and handle. So, I let out a rather weak laugh and felt mortified. Smiling sheepishly back at him, he gave an understanding look.

         “See Ya around, Art Boy”, he said again emphasizing the art boy and walked off down the hall.

In annoyance, I turned on the tap and tried to wash the thing on my face off. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, I thought. Once I had washed most of it off, I told Ethan that we had to go.

As I waited for Ethan to crawl off the floor, I hugged a couple of people I knew and said see ya to them. That’s when I saw Austin sitting back with that blond girl in the sitting room. He was whispering into her ear. I was assuming he was giving her all the details of what had transpired. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it didn’t help that she was laughing as she looked at me. Finally, we said our goodbyes, and as I left, Austin waved at me as we headed out the door.

The short-walk home felt like a breeze. With my best friend beside me I felt like there was a new breath of fresh air in my lungs. I had my first kiss, I thought. It happened so fast; it was wet, and kinda sloppy. But despite that I felt as if the night couldn’t have ended better. I started singing some of the lyrics from Chocolate by The 1975, as I walked the deserted streets with my best friend singing alongside me.

When we arrived home, my mom opened the door. She was just doing her job; that was to worry about the two of us. One of us got his first kiss that night and the other was happy that he got to tell the girl he liked, how he felt. Crawling under covers we talked about Ethan’s new found love and how he was going to approach her in school on Monday. But I remained silent about Austin. Falling asleep I felt as if something wasn’t complete and I wondered what Austin was doing as of this moment. Then the sleep took over and I drifted off. The night’s sleep was nice; I felt really relaxed and soft. That’s when I woke up to wet underwear and pyjama bottoms. I had been dreaming of Austin, and as I was stripping and placing my dirty laundry into my wash basket I felt ashamed. Trying not to wake Ethan I quickly grabbed another pair of underwear and put them on and went back to bed, feeling guilty as I let sleep consume me again.

 

The End of Part 2

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. Please, comments are welcome.

 

Regards

Danny (Your Writerly Friend)

 

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

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)