18 Weeks of Twoey - 25. Week Four Thursday September 25, 2014: Twin Exposure

“Wow Danny has a shitload full of trophies. He must be damned good!”

I glanced at Gary, who doesn't know my spies saw Twoey leaving Danny's house, and seized my opportunity. “You Were In Danny's House?”

He said, “Um ...yeah ...a couple Friday’s ago after school. Danny and I went down to the lake to kill some time and we stopped off for him to change. What's wrong?”

Gary said, “Dude, don't ever go into Danny's house!”

I reinforced it. “Really Twoey! Stay out of the whole situation. We're dead serious. There's bad shit going on there. WARNING! WARNING! It's DANGEROUS. Listen, we don't go there and we've known Danny our whole lives! Just. Stay. Out.”

The rest of the run was quiet, even for Gary. I hope Twoey got it.

I decided to wear black today. Maybe it was something about the gloomy run. Maybe it was just ninja thoughts because I was gonna win the Twoey girlfriend bet today! I again refused to talk to Tommy's mother at breakfast. In fact, I haven't uttered one word to her since Monday's explosion. Let her gossip about that too. On top of everything are my suspicions of a Burch connection. I can’t let my personal comments ever get back to him. Tommy’s mother is now barred and forbidden from my conversational sphere.

Before math, Kathy whispered, “Twoey's taking Lanni Dorso to the dance.”

“Holy Shit!” I had to hold myself to a loud whisper. David's FBI scored the victory! But it was a sad victory. Was I angry? Jealous? Nah ...I was furious! I sorta had my eye on her first. This Kathy, suddenly-I’m-her-boyfriend-shit, kept my eye off the goal. Is it my fault? No! This all happened while I was suspended. I knew not being around school to control my life was gonna come back and bite me. So I just sighed, but had to accept it. Really! What did you expect me to do, punch him? Nope …not Twoey’s fault. Well, at least I got the scoop.

As if that wasn’t enough to fuck up my day, Terri’s comments when I returned to my seat were. She passed a note which informed me Ron told her there was going to be a “Pray for David” Church Mothers meeting next week. WTF!

I need to control myself.

I certainly couldn't control myself at lunch. Hey ...he's my friend, he didn’t do anything wrong, I have to ball-bust him. It's expected! And I had to stake my claim for the reward!

Making sure my voice was loud enough to be heard over the entire table, I asked, “So Twoey, did you ever ask Nels who his girlfriend is?” All the eyes at the table landed on me, then to Twoey.

Twoey's face scrunched up as he looked at me, then he glanced over toward Nels. “Um... am I supposed to ask you?”

Nels looked confused. “Well it's no big secret, we've been seeing each other since before last Thanksgiving.”

Big quiet moment.

Twoey: “So ...um ...who is she? I know her name is Lauri, although I have no idea why David would think it would matter to me, since I don't even know anybody in town yet.”

Nels said, “Lauri Dorso. She's a cheerleader and also in the student Senate. Maybe he thinks you saw her there?” All the eyes went back to me, except Twoey's.

“Lauri DORSO? Is she related to LANNI Dorso?” The gang started to chuckle figuring I was onto something.

Nels said, “Lanni and Lauri are twins! Do you know Lanni?”

Twoey turned deep red. “Uh ...well ...I'm sorta gonna take her to the Homecoming Dance.”

Gary dropped his head into his arms on the table. He knew I won! I figured out who the secret girl was! Everybody started talking at once and congratulating Twoey, especially Sam. But Danny seemed quiet.

We explained to Twoey while the girls were twins, they were not identical and were nothing alike. Lauri is outgoing and into all the school activities, but Lanni is quiet, has only one close friend and is super smart. Nels jokingly said, “Watch out Twoey, she's a witch and will read your mind!”

“That’s no problem, I live with one. I'm used to it.” The whole table broke up laughing.

Mr. Cyrnn was absent today, so the substitute threw out a couple basketballs and the class broke into four teams with two games, one on each court. Then the losers and winners each played a final game. The team I was on won the first game but we lost to the other winning team in the final game. Erik was on the winning team who beat us. Erik is a damn good basketball player. Matty and Twoey were on my team. Twoey sucks, but don’t tell him I said so. Matty’s very athletic, and he tried awfully hard, but he’s a bit too short for basketball.

During XCountry practice Cal stayed as far away on the track as he could and never even looked at me. Gotta love those big fullbacks! Of course, once we started running through town I couldn’t see him cuz I never do. He’s not too fast. I don’t think he ever practices on his own. He’s probably too busy chasing cheerleaders.

Twoey wasn’t in the stands today, but it’s because he was with Lanni ...grr! I have to separate my frustration from anger. I’m not angry with Twoey or Lanni. They didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe they’ll break up about the same time Kathy and I do. Ha! Who am I kidding? Lanni’s gonna fall completely in love with Twoey. Oh well, I have to be philosophical. You can’t win them all.

Dinner was quiet. I'm getting to appreciate quiet. I was picking at my food, trying to find something approaching edible when Tommy's mother asked why I thought I needed to see a psychiatrist. So I excused myself from the table and went to my room. I wasn't even hungry enough to go to Kory's tonight.

I finished Catch-22 and it suddenly dawned on me this wasn't a book about WW2 like I thought! This was an anti-war book! So I looked at the title page and found it was published in 1961, right before Viet-Nam! Was this guy psychic? He foresaw the whole anti-war movement? Not very likely. Well, this is gonna take me a lot more research. I might even read the book again. I've never read any book even remotely like it in my whole life!! But then I'm only 15! Maybe there are more books like this out there.

Later, while I was talking to Kathy and thanking her for giving me the victory in my bet with Gary, Tommy slipped in to give me a ham sandwich. He smiled and said he made it for me. So I ended the call and gave my little-brother a big-brother hug. Then we did our pushups and crunches.

Twoey

Both David and Gary were all over me today. I let it slip I was in Danny's house and they acted terrified! I mean, Jeez it's just a friend's house. I know I should probably not be there when his father's there, I get it, but they act like this guy is gonna beat me up for visiting his son! Nobody's daddy's that weird. Not even mine. Whatever.

Somehow David found out about Lanni and his strange sense of humor roiled up the lunch table again. Haha ...he's so unpredictable! Anyway, at least I found out Lanni's a twin and her sister is Nels' girlfriend. Wow, what coincidences. But then, it is a small town. I still need to find out why she got the star.

We played a few basketball games in PhyEd. Eric was on a different team, but both Matty and David were on my team. You probably think Matty was all over David, but he wasn’t. Matty has enormous energy and put everything into the game. No, it wasn’t Matty who was distracted, it was me. I’ve played a ton of basketball and even had a net on the garage at my old house. I can hold my own in any pickup game, for sure. But not today. You see, we were skins. There stood David. His muscled body is breathtaking. I could see them rippling as we played. I could smell the sweat every time he was near me. He tried to set me up lots of times, but I was too distracted. Today I couldn’t even pass straight (hehe). I think I can outrun everybody on the court, but what good is it if you can’t focus enough to take a decent shot or make a good pass! It was embarrassing and humiliating. David must think I’m the world’s worst klutz! I couldn’t wait to shower and escape to the school’s front door.

Lanni and I met at that door and then walked to Tim's for some Lattes. It's getting a little too chilly for iced caps. We had a casual conversation, rambling along about any old thing, and she is seriously smart. It's a nice challenge for me. Wow, we can talk about anything. It was very, very comfortable being with Lanni. Too bad I'm gay. She'd make a good girlfriend. I don't want her to get the wrong impression and become serious with me. I really like her and don't want to hurt her in any way. I think maybe I can trust her. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other next week before the Homecoming Dance. If I still have this trust, and I’m sure I will, I’ll come out to her. I’ll even do it before the dance, so she doesn’t get the wrong idea. I want to be her friend. I’m pretty sure she’d keep my secret. You know, she doesn't have many friends and thinks way too much. Sorta like David. Now she’s the girl he should be going with, not Kathy!

Lanni and I had a lot of fun today. When it was time to leave, I asked her if she wanted to back out. She giggled and said, “No way.” Then she asked a weird question. “Um …Twoey? Why me? Why did you ask me?”

Well I for sure wasn't gonna mention Sam's list or the star (which I still haven't figured out) so I said I thought she was pretty and mysterious and she maybe would be able to tolerate me. She broke out in the cutest smile. Then I thought I would lay some groundwork for the future, cuz I really do like her. I told her however good or bad the dance thing works out, I wanted to stay connected with her and maybe become good friends. She gave me a strange look, but smiled.

Jeez ...I guess I really don’t understand girls very well.