Brandon Smiling: From the Billy Chase Chronicles (2) - 4. Entry 4

Tuesday

Ooooh!

I’m so frustrated with myself tonight! I swear that when anything meaningful ever happens in my life I manage to find a way of fucking it up! I don’t know why I get so weird when something I want gets so close that it can actually be real, if you follow. It’s almost like, if I move wrong or say the wrong thing, this bubble will pop and I’ll find myself waking up from this dream just as far away from my desires as I started! I’d prove to myself, finally, that what I want can never be!

Billy called as promised.

I’d been grinding on just how awkward we got at lunch yesterday and today. How is it we were just fine being together and then, suddenly, when we make a pact to do a little more with each other, Billy and I just begin to fizzle?

It was the same on the phone tonight! We both kept trying to find something cool to talk about. Some things that we both knew we had in common and could get the kind of conversation going that we had in past phone calls. But, we both just kept fumbling until we decided it was time to say goodnight!

What is this? Why are things so difficult between us suddenly?

I’m scared! I’m scared I’m losing him again! I’m so close! I feel so close to making that connection with Billy!

Maybe that’s the problem, I’m so afraid of fucking this up that I’m fucking this up anyway because I’m so scared I’m fucking this up! What the hell?

God! Why do these things have to be so complicated!

Do straight people have these kinds of communication problems? I can’t figure it! Marie and I never had these kinds of issues! Despite her always wanting to get into my pants, we could talk about just about anything and enjoy just that! She always had something cool to talk about that I’d get into! I didn’t even get that awkward when she’d start in with the lovey dovey stuff! I suppose, this was because I was hoping the lovey dovey stuff would save me from my being Gay! I encouraged it and was not afraid to allow it. The only thing that screwed me up on it was me not being able to actually feel that need for Marie that I wanted to have.

Now…what I need, or rather, who I need is right there within my grasp! But, not only am I afraid that the Gay Thing will make Billy an enemy rather than a lover, but that I’ll lose him as a friend too!

That’s the thing…there’s so much at stake here.

No wonder I’m so nervous now with Billy. I’m close enough to taste him! What I want may be within my grasp at last, but if I grab too soon or without being extra careful, I may end up with the kind of heartbreak you don’t get over! The object of all the love I’d ever want to give another human being will become my greatest enemy!

That wouldn’t, necessarily, happen if I liked a girl like that. Certainly, I’d feel the heartbreak of rejection if she didn’t want me like I wanted her and that would be painful enough. But, with Billy being a boy and possibly a perfectly ‘normal’ straight boy, I’d not only be rejected for my feelings, but my feelings would be exposed to someone that would then actually hate me for having them in the first place!

So I have reason to be worried!

I guess, the only way I can handle this and get things back on track with Billy is to pull back again. Keep things friendly, but not as close as I’d like. Maybe then we’ll be able to go back to a more normal friendship.

But, how do I do that when I…love him so much already!

Wednesday

Well, Jimmy LaPlane came back to school today.

Yesterday, Billy had told me he’d be coming back. I was glad to see it. He seemed…ok. Actually, he seemed a bit better than ok! He stood taller and was better able to look people in the eye! He even passed me in the hallway and gave me a hearty ‘Hey, Brandon!’

It didn’t seem like a brave act either. It looked real enough! Maybe, those doctors at the hospital cured him of whatever was eating him up! Maybe, he’ll have some kind of new secret weapon to use against these idiots in this school that like to drive kids into suicide?

One can hope!

Anyways, it was good seeing him back and healthy. A sick part of me was curious to see the scars, but I held that part of myself in check. That’s a very private matter and Jimmy has a right to not be reminded, right now, of how close we came to losing him!

In other news, I was going to have lunch with Billy today, but got sidetracked.

“I want some new clothes!” Jamie appeared and asked me out of the blue.

“Um, ok.” Was all I could come up with. Why was he telling me this? Why do I ask why Jamie does anything? This is ‘Look Squirrel’ kid we’re talking about here.

“I need your help! I have to start dressing better. Leanne said so!” Jamie said with a sad look on his face.

I had to agree with Leanne. Jamie, despite his natural good looks, usually dresses like a dumpster fell on him and some clothes stuck.

“If you don’t have too much homework, do ya think you could come with me to the Mall tonight and help me pick some stuff out. The last few times we’ve gone to parties, I’ve envied the fuck out of your duds! I’d actually ask if I could borrow some of your shirts, but well . . .” Jamie flexed his sizable shoulders under his floppy t-shirt. He is a solid Large in an athletic cut if ever there was one! I’m a solid ‘petite’ Medium ~eye roll~.

“Why doesn’t Chandler take you? He dresses great and your sizes are similar.” I mentioned something that should have been obvious to Jamie, but then…I forgot who I was talking to. In any case, there was a valid reason that couldn’t work.

“Chandler’s off on a school trip! He went to LOS ANGELES!!!” Jamie seemed particularly excited by this. I was impressed too! LA, the movie star capital of the world…Chandler could be discovered and put in as a lead in any number of teen romance movies out there! I’d watch!

“Oh, wow! Why’d he go there?” I should have known better than to ask Jamie, but…

“To do art stuff. That picture he did with the big silver jelly bean, you know the one? The one he named after you! Well, some art people wanted Chandler to hang it in a museum!” Jamie actually did have some amazing information for once!

“WOW! Really! I’m, like…wow!” I am like totally ‘wow’ right now! ‘Brandon’s Gateway’ is gonna hang in a museum in LA! Chandler better be ready for a third degree grilling from me when he gets back! That is beyond coolness!

“So, are you gonna come with me or not?” Jamie can be very insistent when he wants to be.

“Sure. As long as my Dad doesn’t have anything for me to do and I get my homework done.” I promised.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I really don’t need my Dad’s permission to go places much anymore. He knows I’ll finish my homework and he knows I will let him know where I’m going and be dependable at staying where I’m going. I’m a ‘Good Boy’ after all. ~Sighs~

I arrived by bus, per usual. It’s always a little weird coming to the Mall on a week night. It seems ‘forbidden’ somehow! It’s not as busy as during the weekend which makes it nicer to shop, I think.

I was fortunate not to have any Chemistry homework tonight. If I’d had, I’d have had to cancel. That class is hard! I swear I work harder on assignments for that class than for all my others put together! I’m four hours sometimes! It’s basically another math class, anyway, but not like geometry. I…don’t think I want to major in Chemistry when I get to college!

Anyways, Jamie was standing by JC Penny’s front door and he was alone! I have never seen him alone at the Mall before ever, so that was weird, I thought. He was so glad to see me, too! Me! Brandon Nobody And The King Of The Jocks - that’s the name of the movie I felt like I was in!

“You came! You came! I wasn’t sure you’d make it and I’d have to go in here and try to buy nice clothes all by myself!” Jamie complained a little pathetically. The horrors of having to buy ‘nice clothes’! Jamie is so silly at times.

“Well, uh, we could go in here to Penny’s if we have to, but that all depends on how much you’ve got to spend on clothes tonight.” I said, teaching my first lesson in fashion - how the hell much money do you got! It doesn’t have to make a difference, necessarily, but money certainly helps!

He held up what looked like a prepaid cash card. “$200 from my Auntie Junie for my birthday! I’ve been saving it!” Jamie said like it was nothing. Um…could Auntie Junie adopt me? Geeze!

“Well, that should be plenty!” I must have looked shocked and impressed because Jamie smirked as he put his money card away.

“I don’t wanna spend all of it on just clothes, though. Let’s save some for pizza or something later! I get so hungry these days, dawg!” Jamie using the term ‘Dawg’ in any sentence is silly beyond words, but I tried to keep from laughing at him. I certainly didn’t want to offend His Majesty if at all possible. But, I had to remember he was teflon, though. So, maybe I should have taken some opportunities to ‘make sport’ of him, as Cedrick likes to put it. Jamie makes it too easy!

“Um, ok ‘Dawg’! I’m always up for free pizza…” I just had to call the ‘Dawg’ part out! Like I said…too easy.

“So, m’kay, if we’re not going into Penny’s like I always go then where are we going?” Jamie asked suspiciously as I made a bee line the hell away from the old JC. Jamie wants to look ‘fabulous’, as Chandler might put it, so there was only one place I could think of in our budget…

“Top Man!” I told him.

“But, isn’t Top Man for gays and stuff? I don’t want to look gay! Chandler is gay enough for all of us!” Jamie looked worried.

Now, here was a test of Jamie’s ‘gaydar’ and it could have been really dangerous, but I felt this irresistible urge to test it!

“So, like, I shop Top Man all the time and you don’t think I’m gay, do you?” I played it off like it should be a far gone conclusion for Jamie to not think of me as gay. I mean, he defended me from his goons by pointing out that I had been dating his ‘Sissy’, so…

“Uh…I don’t think so! But, so, this place is where you get your cool shirts and stuff?” Not the ringing vote of confidence in my ‘straightness’ that I was hoping for, unfortunately.

“Yeah. If you like my shirts then you need to shop at this place. They have a girls section too, so maybe you won’t feel so weird about shopping there if there are some girls to look at. They’re pretty cute, usually.” Sometimes I amaze myself with my persuasive powers!

“COOOL! I didn’t know girls shopped at Top Man! That’s, like, dope as fuck!” He gave me fist bumps…which I hoped would stop any further ‘it’s gay if…’ commentary. I swear! Why do jocks always get so scared of being ‘Outed’ or whatever?

So, we went to Top Man and, of course, Jamie got lost and started looking at all the girls t-shirts and blouses thinking they might fit him. Um…

So then after I made sure he understood what was what, we went down stairs to the guys’ section. Honestly, there’s never much difference at Top Man between the girls and guys styles…the only thing different would be the cut of the clothes. The patterns and types of clothes were all, basically, the same thing!

Thankfully, being Jamie, I didn’t have to do too much from then on. You see, the two gay male sales associates and the one female sales associate assigned to the guys’ store were on Jamie like wet on a fish! He became a living mannikin with all the styles they chose to put on him. All I had to do was nod or shake my head if Jamie bothered to look for my approval. Easy peasy!

It was fun seeing the Angel Of Football get so pampered. I have never gotten that kind of attention at Top Man! It must be true…blonds do have more fun!

I was a bit flattered, however, because while the sales people were busy using Jamie as their own personal Ken doll, I was looking for styles that might actually suit him. The flattery came from the fact that virtually every shirt or pants or jacket I offered Jamie, he immediately pegged as being ‘a keeper’! He really does look ‘up’ to me for nice fashion sense. If that doesn’t set off what little gaydar he has, I don’t know what will! There was a particularly nice red shirt with white buttons that was really striking on Jamie. I told him he might want to lead off with that one tomorrow. It should impress Leanne if she has half the sense to be impressed by anything a guy wears.

Later, we had pizza and fries at a place called ‘Pizzatainment’ - I see what they did there. Um…that place is a BLAST! Apparently, it’s Jamie’s favorite place in the universe and he and his meatheads go there every time they go to the Mall. I was glad that they’d taken tonight off, however, since I was present. I can only recall going there once and that was when I was a little kid. I think it was someone’s birthday and I think the place wasn’t ‘Pizzatainment’ then, but some ‘Mouse Place’ with bad pizza and smelly indoor playground equipment. Anyway, the memory of that nightmare is probably why I’d never bothered to go into ‘Pizzatainment’. I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding the place! It’s nothing like the ‘Mouse Hell’. It is better geared toward teenagers now. Anyway, Jamie and I had such a blast playing the video games and novelty games that we forgot the time! I didn’t get home till, like 9 PM!

My Dad, though, was only unhappy that I had forgotten to call him when 8 PM rolled around. He didn’t hand out a punishment, just a ‘I’m disappointed’ thing.

That was actually worse than a punishment. I hate letting my Dad down! I guess it goes to show you, though, that this strange new change in our relationship has him treating me more like an adult than a kid! This includes my equally strange reaction to when I mess up. It only takes a word of disappointment or sadness to be enough to make me feel bad enough to remember not to do that again.

I did mention something to him in way of a solution for the future - maybe I need my own mobile phone, finally. Most the kids have one, but I don’t!

Rather than tell me off and send me to bed without a ‘good night’, he said that it might be something to seriously consider. He knows how time can get away from someone and that having that phone might be a true lifesaver someday.

So, despite his disappointment with me, I might just get my own phone out of him! That would be a relief, really. Pay Phones are starting to get scarce these days . . .

This is Brandon, the Disappointment