Living in Surreality - 15. Chapter 15

chapter 15:
: edited by viv :

Matt smiled, his body ached in places he never thought it was possible to ache when he first started and still, he smiled, smelling of stale cooking oil and dead Thousand Island dressing. It was a small smile at first; growing broader as he re-read the simple note he found waiting on his pillow. There, in the still of his room and the quiet that had descended upon the rest of the house, Matt felt like yelling. He felt as if he were about to crest a lift hill, reveling in the thrill of the eminent decent that approached, only to rocket skyward on this coaster of emotion again. He wanted to throw open his window and ruin the calm of the neighborhood by shouting 'Fuck yeah'.

He also wanted to call Jacob, wanted to run across the street and do unspeakable things to show his gratitude. That idea was nixed as well, there weren't enough hours in a day, and the dawn of a school day was destined to come too early. Picking up the phone, Matt shook with excitement, ready to speak the words the rough texture of cotton sketch paper proclaimed, Matt decided against making the call, figuring it was too late, worried that the call would annoy Joanne, or worse Jacob.

Valerie, he could call Valerie at any hour of the day and not have to fear annoying someone. He could bang on the door at three in the morning and have it answered with welcome arms. The only problem with calling Valerie was, Matt didn't know what to say to her. He didn't want to sound like he was gloating over the fact that Jacob had left a note of love resting on his pillow. In the end, he did nothing except bottle up the excitement as he folded the note and tucked it into his wallet, away from prying eyes, but available for his inspection at a moments notice.

Joanne sat alone on the couch, surrounded by four loads of laundry, all neatly folded, and smelling of summer's meadow scented fabric softener, it was a fresh, delicate scent, highlighted with hints of lavender and grass, marred by the pungent aroma of coffee wafting from the lone mug that sat of the coffee table. Her thoughts drifting towards scrubbing the spotless kitchen, she couldn't help it; she cleaned and did laundry en mass when she was worried.

Jacob had been distant at dinner, shrugging his shoulders as an answer to her question of how his weekend had gone, mumbling something she didn't catch when she asked him about their plans on going to the prom. She could have written the whole thing off to teenage angst, the silence, lack of appetite, and general aloof behavior. Had it been any other teenager besides Jacob she would have done just that.

His demeanor had made it impossible for her to mention to him that she had run into someone while in Sacramento. Joanne didn't know if anything would ever come from the encounter. The curiosity was encouraging, but she had long ago let what ever rose of hope she had clung to until her fists bled, fall from her grasp. She had planned to mention the meeting in passing at dinner, but now, she couldn't think of a way to bring it up with Jacob, or if she would ever use the phone number or email address written with haste on a cafe napkin.

"How do you know love?" Valerie asked the question that had been plaguing her. She didn't know the question several weeks ago, but had learned of it quickly in the last forty-eight hours.

Dan appraised his daughter over the chess game that had taken up residence on their dinette table. "You're asking the wrong parent," he stated gruffly as he moved a small lump of granite carved into the shape of a horse.

Valerie studied the black and white board sprawled out before her, a slow smile spreading across her face as she looked up at her father. Dan didn't like the smile Valerie wore, he had seen it many times playing on his daughters lips. He appraised the board in controlled panic trying to figure out what he had overlooked.

"Not me Daddy," Valerie cooed, her fingers grasping a small stone castle and moving it to the right, snatching up the dark grey horse Dan had moved into position. "I mean as an outsider."

Dan's brow creased as he scratched the side of his head trying to figure out how he had overlooked Valerie's rook, and if he could possibly avoid the question his little girl was asking him. "I still say you're asking the wrong parent," he said, sliding a pawn on a diagonal and capturing its opposite. "Now if you ask me how to rebuild a carburetor..." Dan smiled in retaliatory triumph as he snatched Valerie's pawn from the board.

"I'm serious Daddy," Valerie said, her voice taking on a pleading tone she knew her father couldn't refuse.

Dan had to think about the answer a moment. He wanted to blurt out that love was the two that couldn't keep their hands off of each other in some dark corner. That however wasn't love, and he knew his daughter knew that. He had a feeling Valerie already knew the answer to question she was asking, only looking for reinforcement. Settling back from the chess board he appraised his daughter.

"It's the way someone looks at the person they're in love with when they think no one else is looking," he admitted finally, "the way they could care less when everyone is watching. The world doesn't exist in their eyes outside the person they love."

Valerie smiled at her fathers' assessment, which only confirmed what she already knew. She wanted to prod on, to ask what he thought of when it was two guys that shared those looks. yet she somehow couldn't bring herself to reveal that. She wanted to though, wanted to tell everyone she ran across, finding some vicarious joy in the fact that Matt was in love.

"It's that boy, across the street isn't it?" Dan leveled his daughter a disapproving look that shook her from her thoughts.

Valerie smiled, choosing to keep Matt's trust instead of using the truth to assuage her fathers' fears. She stood slowly from her seat at the dinette and padded the few feet that separated her from her father.

"I love you Daddy," she whispered before kissing him on his temple.

"You're going to bed?" he asked, sounding disappointed, "I was going to win this one," he commented forgetting about the boy across the street and whatever threat he might pose to Valerie.

Valerie appraised the board for a moment, studying her pieces in relation to his, "No" she smiled, her hand moving her second rook into play dangerously near his king, "you weren't."

"It was cute," Viola, giggled, sounding much the spring chicken. "Standing there sweating, looking as nervous as a groom standing at the alter."

Viola wore the smile of a child watching a dim dog chasing its tail. A look of wonder and excitement accentuated with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. The response on the other end of the line wilted her features as she listened to a lurid retelling of a selection of choice words she had used in the past.

"It's different now, I'm different now," she promised, haunted by the phrases she had once used.

Viola's mind drifted back to that night. Another fundraiser on a Saturday, only standing out by virtue of the two men talking, leaning into one another, their hands clasped on top of the white linen tablecloth. Disgusting, she had mumbled the word as she turned away from the sight, trying not to think of what the two men were.

"He wouldn't believe you," she gasped, trying to cover the shock with a whisper as her hands fiddled with the hem of the blankets she lay under. The words that responded to her statement were answered by a deep frown on Viola's face. They were the truth; Matt didn't have to believe in them to make the fact any less real.

"How could you?" Viola questioned, her voice near pleading. "He's your son..."

It was a surreal scene, gripping his chest, constricting his lungs, squashing his diaphragm. He remembered this feeling. He had felt the sensation countless times in his life... Sliding down his driveway on Valerie's Strawberry Shortcake bike when he was seven, skidding to a halt in the middle of the street only to look to his left and see the grill of a Cadillac, instead of the row of houses and Oak trees fading into the distance. Wandering around in the large discount store, only to turn and find his mother vanished into a sea of merchandise.

Those were some of the earliest memories Matt had of this feeling which strangled his soul, peering out on a blue marble, glowing with beauty against a sea of velvety blackness. The world looked so calm when viewed from a distance, Matt realized, the hate and fear too small and insignificant to be seen. Also lost with the advantage of vast distance, was the beauty of love and courage. The contradictory thought had Matt rethinking the whole living planet thing he had been taught.

Lost in a tangle of conflicting philosophy, Matt smiled at the pair of arms which snaked around him. One arm pawing at his midsection, pulling him back, the other sliding across his chest from behind. He couldn't help but smile as he was enveloped in warmth, the addition of which made him realize the caustic sterility of his surroundings. Nothing; that was the best way to describe the room where he found himself, a void, constructed of white light emanating from everywhere, the floors, the walls, and the ceiling above, leaving the room oddly absent of shadows. The crispness of the white glow marred only by an oblong window and the black space it allowed to penetrate the white room.

Feeling content in these alien surroundings, Matt curled his palm around Jacob's wrist. No, he hadn't seen Jacob's face, but the smells, the touch, the sound of breathing, and the chin resting on his shoulder were all familiar. Matt stroked Jacob's forearm absently as they watched the earth in a silence that was marred only by an electric hum, which in itself was more a vibration that Matt could sense in the small hairs standing on the nape of his neck.

"It's beautiful," Jacob murmured in a rush of warm air that cascaded along Matt's shoulder.

Matt nodded in agreement, his eyes fixed on a thunderstorm that lulled across the southwestern United States. He watched, content with the view a few minutes more before a longing gathered in his chest. Twisting in Jacob's protective grasp, Matt sought out the light brown eyes which, he hoped, would never lie to him.

"What about Valerie?" he asked the simple question with all the gusto of a kindergartner wanting to know why the sky was blue.

The answer he received in Jacob's eyes was perplexing. A truth, a secret, that brought undue moisture to the pale eyes that Matt was falling into. Jacob's lips parted, ready to give Matt the answer he sought, only to be silenced by a piercing alarm as the room went from its steady white to a pulsing red.

A contrast of light played across Jacob's features and the walls of the room. It was bright, brighter than the white the room they were standing in had been. Matt spun around in Jacob's arms, quickly squinting at the assaulting glare of a Corona, and tail of a large rock as it plunged slowly, languishingly so, towards the earth. Matt watched, feeling helpless and safe in Jacob's arms. He wanted to scream, to try to stop the heavenly body that barreled ever closer to the Earth and its unsuspecting occupants. Valerie was down there, his mother, Jacob's mother, probably going about their lives never guessing what was coming.

In the end, Matt stood silent, a witness as the meteor collided with the blue and white sphere below. He lay watching as the world he had once known was destroyed by a ripple of fire that spread across the surface, shadowed by a cloud of caustic brown. The blue glow of the Earth ceased, as the atmosphere was strangled by smoke and impact debris, all along the siren blaring, sounding more and more like the ring of a telephone.

Matt rolled and fluttered his eyelids, which felt like they weighed a ton each. Glancing at the clock, he struggled against a tangle of sheets to answer the phone.

"Hello," he mumbled, feeling more tired than when he had gone to sleep the night before as he rested his head on an abandoned pillow, allowing his eyes to close briefly.

"About time you answer the phone Matty," Valerie sounded annoyed, her eyes narrowing accusingly, "Matty? You better get your ass up or we're going to be late."

"Mmmhmm," Matt mumbled, snuggling into his bed. "Give me five minut..." his voice trailed off, replaced with the sound of steady even breathing.

"Matty?" Valerie questioned. "Matt," she repeated, listening to his soft snore. Pursing her lips, she pulled the phone away from her ear and hung it up, figuring he and Jacob must have been up late having a talk, and other things. The thought made her smile, wondering if her father would be as worried if he happened upon that.

Jacob was just about to reach out and press the doorbell when the door opened and Valerie stepped through looking very surprised to see him.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" she asked.

Jacob cocked his head to the side as he regarded Valerie and her curious question. Not wanting to state the blatantly obvious, he glanced down at his clothes and back at her, grabbing the straps of the backpack on his shoulders for added effect as he stood on her porch expectantly.

"Where's Matt?" he asked, looking around her at the closed door.

Valerie glanced at Jacob curiously, taking a moment to peek behind her at her front door. "He's sleeping in; just like I thought you would be after staying up all night talking."

"I haven't seen him since yesterday," Jacob said looking dejected. "I was all ready to talk to him, but he had to work until late, and Mom got back from her trip," he continued, looking away from Valerie in the direction of Matt's house.

"So you haven't talked to him?" Valerie asked in an accusing tone.

"I left him a note," Jacob defended.

"How sweet..." Valerie cooed, "But you know what would have been sweeter?" she asked. "Waiting on his doorstep for him when he got home," she answered her own question, pushing Jacob out of the way and marching off across the lawn to the house next door.

"I told you my mom got home," Jacob hollered, rushing to fall into step next to Valerie, "She was telling me about her trip up north."

Valerie rolled her eyes at Jacob's assertion. "You know, for being the big bad protectors of the species, men really are freakin clueless..." she huffed.

Jacob's pursuit halted as they broached Matt's doorstep. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Valerie sighed as she searched out the right key in a mass of key chains. "Sure, when someone threatens your house, or way of life, men are right there screaming 'get the guns', but when it's their own heart they have to battle they..." Valerie paused, "they're just afraid," Valerie finished, turning from the pallid expression on Jacob's face, and sliding a key into the door, unlocking and opening it before she entered.

The house the pair entered was every bit as quiet and still as the art gallery it professed to be. The walls cool and devoid of color, except for that thrown off by a row of hand blown artisan glass dishes that lined the foyer wall to the left of the front door, the vibrant reds and blues muted in the grey light of the spring morning.

"Should we be doing this?" Jacob said feeling the odd need to whisper.

Valerie answered with a huff, Jacob's question only proving her last statement. "I have a key," she answered in a normal tone, holding the key aloft in her fingers. "If your worried about Viola don't be, she left for work two hours ago."

"She has a job?" Jacob asked, his trek halted with this information. "I thought she was a housewife or something."

Valerie turned on her heel, growing impatient. "Do you really want to discuss this now?" she asked, not believing Jacob would let something as trivial as Matt's mothers' employment status hold him back. "If you must know," she continued after Jacob hadn't moved, "no she didn't have a job - job before, she volunteered a lot. With Richard," Valerie hissed the name in disdain, "gone, she got a job at a florist. Now could you please shag your ass over here and play prince charming waking sleeping beauty?"

Jacob grimaced at Valerie, "Aurora," he said pushing his way past her into Matt's bedroom.

"What?" she asked lost with Jacob's statement.

"You said sleeping beauty, her name was Aurora," he answered, stalled once again as he watched Matt sleep.

"Do you honestly think I give a shit?" Valerie hissed to deaf ears as a slow smile grew on Jacob's lips. She was ready to continue the verbal barrage that gathered on her tongue, stopping as she watched Jacob shrug out of his backpack as quiet as a mouse and approach Matt's bed with all the reverence of a priest approaching the holy of holies.

"He's so..." Jacob stopped the sentiment caught in his throat as he looked back at Valerie who had reclined with ease against the doorframe.

Receiving an encouraging small smile from Valerie, Jacob turned back to the sleeping Matt, pressing his palms into the mattress on both sides of Matt's body, his eyes washing over Matt as if he were some precious piece of art, or master's sculpture. Jacob paused, held in the rapture that was Matt. Slowly Jacob leaned in, taking a lifetime for his lips to land on Matt's cheek.

Matt stirred with the additional weight on his bed and the tepid warmth on his cheek, his eyes fluttered open as he shifted under Jacob and stretched as a slight smile turned the corners of his mouth.

"Morning kid," Jacob whispered, grinning as recognition dawned in Matt's eyes. Not willing to let go of the chance of kissing Matt properly Jacob leaned in, his lips curling as they met Matt's in a grin.

"What about Valerie?" Matt asked, repeating the last question he had uttered to Jacob in his dream. Jacob cocked his head to one side, fighting the urge to slide curled finders down Matt's cheek.

"What about her?" Jacob asked, his eyes mimicking what Matt had seen in his dream accentuated with remorse.

"You love her?" Matt asked, feeling vulnerable under Jacob's gaze.

"Yes," Jacob answered, not for a moment regretting the answer.

"Oh," Matt responded, feeling let down by Jacob's response.

"But you," Jacob continued, undeterred by Matt's reaction to his answer. "You; there isn't a word to describe what I feel for you," Jacob paused, "You I need like water, like air. When you're not around, I feel suffocated. Yes, I love Valerie, as a friend. You... you I couldn't live without."

Matt searched Jacob's eyes, paralyzed in the truth he found there.

"You know I could be jealous," Valerie spoke absently from her stance at Matt's doorway, looking every bit as smitten as the two on the bed.

The sudden sound of Valerie's voice startled Matt; he hadn't realized she had been standing near the doorway the whole time. His eyes raced from the lock they held with Jacob, to Valerie's own eyes, which appeared dark in the hazy spring dawn. Valerie couldn't see the rush of change in Matt's eyes, switching from hopeful to regret, as he regarded her. Then again, she didn't have to see his eyes to know the things that were running unbound across his mind as he became aware of her presence. She chuckled lightly at Matt's ignorance, his ground-in weakness of always thinking of what others perceived before acting on what the feelings behind the knot in his chest meant.

"Very jealous," she added pushing herself from the wall and approaching the bed. "Anyone else, and I would be," Valerie continued, her trek towards the bed halted, telling 'her boys' with her hesitation that this was as far as she would go now, or ever again.

Matt gave her a small nod, receiving a smile for his effort.

"I..." he began to stammer out. finding his voice for the first time since being made aware of her presence, wanting to say he was sorry.

"Matty don't," Valerie interrupted, her body pushing forward. Wanting to comfort him with a gentle hand, her rush seized where it began, realizing in the grey light of morning that comforting Matt that way was no longer her job. "Don't apologize, not for this, for scratching my car with your bag sure... but not for what you found in Jacob."

There it was, the one thing Valerie had sought when she stormed across their front lawns and opened Matt's front door with one of the keys the neighboring families had long ago entrusted to one another, Matt's smile. Large and overpowering, puffing his cheeks with a blush of excitement known to any five year old who had ever stared through a pane of glass at their deepest want.

Matt's smile brought out its counterpart in Valerie as a breath of relief rushed from her nostrils. Jacob sighed, glad that he hadn't screwed their friendship up. Valerie was adamant in both words and body language that Saturday had been a grand experiment, a way for the three of them to feel out the boundaries of their relationship. For that, Jacob gave a reserved smile that he didn't share with either Matt or Valerie. The relieved smile faded as he suffocated on the words forming at the back of his throat.

"He kissed me," Jacob choked out, the index finger of his bandaged hand tracing absent figure eights into Matt's bed sheets.

"I have not," Matt balked, looking away from Valerie and at Jacob. "Well, today anyway."

Valerie balked with Jacob's admission, perceiving it as she would if someone had taken the trouble to inform her that water was wet.

"Brendon Murphy," Jacob muttered, chancing a look at Matt, catching the content grin as it melted from his face like ice cream on a mid-July afternoon.

Matt didn't know what to say, while Valerie stared daggers into the back of Jacob's head. Crushed between the look on Matt's face at the feeling of dread creeping its way up his spine from Valerie's look, Jacob was quick to explain.

"It wasn't anything," he vocally stumbled.

"Why'd you do it?" Matt asked, his eyes knitting in a composite of pain and anger.

"He kissed me," Jacob reiterated, trying to tell Matt the truth of what had happened, ready to continue on with how he had pushed Brendon away.

"Why'd you tell me?" Matt interrupted, clarifying his question.

Jacob's slack jaw snapped shut, his reply abandoned, as he tried to figure out how he could keep screwing up where Matt was concerned, wondering if he really was just as stupid as his aunt had kidded he was. He shook his head silently as Matt waited expectantly for an answer. How was he supposed to answer that question? Jacob glanced over his shoulder, looking to Valerie for any indication. All he found there was a pair of scathing eyes set above thinly pursed lips, her fists balled as the memory of her promise filtered through his bumbling mind.

'So help me Jacob... if you hurt him, I'll have your balls swinging from my rearview mirror.'

Jacob sighed, letting his eyes drop to the bed sheets, feeling a failure as his cruel mind played out scenes of him crossing the street, alone. Abandoned; the fear it, bubbled to the surface of his conscious, and he hated it, hated what it was when stripped to its core, an unapologetic undertaker of love. He shook his head, shaking the feeling away like so many droplets of water from his hair.

"I pushed him away," Jacob spoke, unwilling to face the rejection he already saw on Matt's face, even if that vision was only a trick of the self-conscious on his mind. "He wasn't you, so I pushed him away."

The scorn on the face of what would be his harshest critic melted away with the solemnly spoken statement. Her fists relaxed, seeing Jacob more vulnerable then she had ever seen him, and Valerie didn't care for the view one bit, it was too far removed from the Jacob she knew.

"I told you cause' I love you," Jacob muttered, daring to look at Matt's face before he continued, his voice using the strength he found in Matt's eyes. "I love you, and you have a right to know."

Matt's mind poured over a flurry of questions forming over Jacob's revelation, and actions. Questions which he was content to ask some other time, intent for now, as he leaned towards Jacob, on kissing the dreadful look of misery away from Jacob's face. Matt did just that as his lips found Jacob's, a small smile curling the edges of his mouth at Jacob's surprised response. The surprise in Jacob was short lived, as he kissed Matt back, leaving the fire they felt for one another grow from there.

"I'm going to school," Valerie stated, feeling awkward standing as a voyeur in the familiar surroundings of Matt's room. "I take it you two are ditching?"

Valerie's question received a flurry of arms waving an askance goodbye as their minds were centered on other things. Wearing a grin of satisfaction, Valerie retreated from Matt's room and ultimately his house, her mind tickling with the thought of going back and asking if they wanted her to collect their assignments. It was a random thought, lost the moment it formed, her mind intent instead on coming up with a reasonable excuse for being late.

Matt groaned, one hand pawed, white knuckled, at the bare flesh of Jacob's lower back while the other grasped the back of Jacob's head, pulling his mouth forcefully into the crook of his neck. Jacob's shirt had been ripped off and cast aside at some point in the several minutes that followed Valerie's departure. After the barrier of Jacob's chest had been dealt with, twenty fingers fumbled with the denim gateway which guarded Jacob's pelvis, hastily pushing the jeans down until they were trapped between Jacob's knees and the shoes that were still on his feet.

Another moan from Matt vibrated through Jacob's chest as Matt clutched him tighter, exciting Jacob more than the thrusts from Matt, which met his own half-way as their erections ground together, separated only by the pairs of cotton boxers they both still wore.

The pressure of Jacob's body pressing into him left Matt feeling a heady mix of dominance and submission. It wasn't something he had ever imagined, but now that he was experiencing the taught muscles of Jacob's chest and abdomen pressed into his own, Matt couldn't fathom being with out it.

A hiss escaped Matt as his eyes slid closed, sealing off outside of the embrace Jacob held him in, focusing on resisting the urge the friction was quickly building with every huff of warm breath that escaped Jacob's loosening lips.

Compulsion won over will power. A stifled scream erupted from Matt's throat as a torrent of heat spread through the mashed confines of boxers. His grip on Jacob tightened, riding out the wave of sensory overload as it ebbed gradually.

Jacob planted a series of small, slow kisses up Matt's neck and down along his jaw-line, before resting a lazy kiss against Matt's lips. "I gave you one helluva hickie," he smiled, breaking the kiss and staring down at Matt.

Matt's lips spread into a small smile, "If you're going to do that every time, you can give me a hickie anytime you want."

Jacob chuckled, sliding off of Matt into a position pressed right up against Matt's side. Leaving his arm draped over Matt as he kicked off his shoes, struggling the rest of the way out of his pants. Matt slid onto his side, smiling as Jacob struggled free of the knot of denim at his ankles.

"I love you," Matt said, his voice clear and strong, not at all the timid voice he thought it would have come out in.

Jacob shifted his gaze from the socks he was kicking off, to Matt, immediately giving him a smile that lit the room more than the rising sun. "Now I'm happy," Jacob answered, placing a kiss on Matt's cheek.

"Now you're happy?" Matt questioned, his hand finding Jacob's, winding his fingers into Jacob's.

Jacob gave a small nod, "Next to you," he answered, "where ever that may be, makes me happy."

Matt thought about the statement for a moment before nodding his head in agreement. "It's not what I thought it would be," Matt said, "but, it feels right and, I love you."

Jacob chuckled, "You said that already."

Again Matt agreed with a nod. "And I'll continue to say it until I can never say it again."

Valerie slid into the table opening where Brendon Murphy sat eating his lunch with ease. He didn't notice her at first, and when he did, he did his best to ignore her appearance. He knew Valerie all too well, knew the challenging look she had given him the last time she had so coolly brushed him off yesterday as he tried to have a conversation with Jacob.

"So what are you having?" she questioned, attempting to sound friendly as she nodded down at Brendon's sandwich while popping open the plastic lid of her salad.

"A sandwich," Brendon answered stating the obvious like she was a bother, which he found her to be. Valerie frowned, her eyes narrowing as he turned away from her finding the mulling students in the quad more interesting than her.

"So," Valerie began, figuring the time for being nice had just elapsed. "How was that movie Friday night?" she asked in a curt tone.

Brendon paused in mid-chew as he turned to face the girl who sat beside him. With a labored gulp, he swallowed more than just the sandwich he had been chewing, until he caught the implied meaning behind her words.

"It was nice," Brendon, answered after a prolonged silence.

"Hmm," Valerie hummed, turning away from Brendon and opening a packet of salad dressing.

Valerie made no other comment as she spread the thin dressing out across the bowl of leafy greens and tomato wedges. She turned the salad with fork, looking absolutely pensive, waiting for the moment that Brendon retrieved his abandoned sandwich, taking another bite.

"So do you always kiss on the first date?" she asked casually, carrying a fork full of salad to her lips.

Brendon coughed after forcing down another painful swallow. Valerie regarded her classmate with an arched brow as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"Or should I say, do you always kiss other guys on their first date?" Valerie questioned, turning her full attention to Brendon Murphy, waiting patiently for him to reply.

"I didn't know," Brendon stammered, "I didn't even know he was gay."

Valerie openly rolled her eyes at Brendon's excuse, "Jacob is," she paused measuring her response, "complicated."

"It was only supposed to be a rumor," he rattled on, straightening in a defensive posture.

"If it was only a rumor, why did you keep pestering Matt to join the GSA?" Valerie countered with mustered ease. "Why did you kiss Jacob?" she continued, unable to hide the distaste she felt at the moment.

"I..." Brendon attempted, falling short of an answer. Truth was, he didn't have one. He'd been asking himself why he had kissed Jacob. Every answer he could come up with, from helping Jacob discover the truth about himself, to plain old hormones, nothing was worthy.

"Just stay away," Valerie said, holding Brendon in her sight.

"I'm just trying to be friendly," Brendon said, his shoulders dropping. "Jacob made it clear that the kiss was bad..."

Valerie involuntarily stiffened, "Give them time to grow, then be friendly, for now the best thing is to just stay away," she reiterated, her voice firm and unwavering.

She didn't know how or when she had softened to the guy sitting next to her, yesterday, this morning, he was a predator, now he was someone who just let emotion over-run common sense and as hard as Valerie tried, she couldn't fault him for that. The real measure on her conflicting feelings over Brendon Murphy would be if he took her advice or not. A frown crossed her lips as she thought about external pressures on new relationships, wondering if she should heed her own advice of staying away as well