Finding Myself - 18. Chapter 18: Sophomores

August 26, 2019

I walked into school with Chase on the first day of sophomore year, we picked up our schedules at the front desk. My stepbro and I shared an ELA class. “See you later?” I fist-bumped him. He nodded and went to catch up with his friends he hadn’t seen in months. I began making my way to where Jake usually sits before school.

“Hey, Aedan,” Matt Fayette approached me.

“Oh, hey, dude,” I smiled. I hadn’t interacted with him much since basketball season ended our freshman year. I caught up with him as I made my way towards Jake.

“Yo, Jake,” Matt smiled.

“Hey, guys,” Jake smiled as Matt and I sat on either side of our shorter friend.

“Hey, Jakey,” I kissed his cheek. “Hopefully, you’ll make this new year in PRISON a bit more tolerable.” Matt’s blue eyes widened.

“Is there something I missed?” The ginger teen ran a hand through his shaggy hair, a nervous grin showing off his braces.

“Yeah, a lot,” I smirked.

“Do you have any classes with me?” Jake held out his schedule for me to compare.

“Uh, looks like we have French together. Not any others.”

“Yeah, I’m mostly in honors classes. Sorry, Aedan...”

“It’s fine, we can still hang out outside of school,” I said with a grin.

“Nice talking to you lovebirds, but my girlfriend’s gonna be looking for me.” Matt saluted with a grin.

“Nice, see you in Geometry class, bro,” I saluted back to my teammate.

“Oh look it’s the gross gay couple,” Kevin Wilcox sneered while walking along the hall with his twin sister. “Bailey, Jake left you because he was more interested in fucking this dirty hillbilly in the ass.”

I stuck out my right leg to trip him, but Jake reached out and pulled it back. “Aedan, don’t sink to his level. Please.” I nodded, rolled my eyes, and f brought my leg back.

Later, I entered my second period Geometry class with Matt, my jaw dropped when I saw who was in the class: the evil twins Bailey and Kevin. “Fuck...” I muttered under my breath.

“What’s your name.” The teacher, Mr. Pulaski stopped me at the door.

“Aedan Jackson, sir,” I responded to him, slipping my phone into the pocket of my shorts. He checked my name off on his roster.

“Alright, Mister Jackson. And watch your mouth. You’re lucky it’s the first day of school.”

“Yessir,” I nodded before entering the class. My assigned seat was unfortunately next to Kevin and Bailey.

“Aedan... gross,” Kevin scoffed.

“The feeling’s mutual,” I rolled my eyes. I dropped my backpack at the seat and returned to the teacher. “Um, sir, can I switch seats? My neighbors are not…”

“No, you can’t sit with your friends. The assigned seating is final for the trimester.”

“But, sir…”

“You’ve been in my class for less than two minutes and you’re already causing problems. Just sit down and be quiet.”

Kevin laughed as I returned to my seat. “We can be geometry buddies.”

“Yay…” I rolled my eyes.

“Hey, Kevin,” Matt came over.

“Matt!” Kevin shook the hand of his football teammate. “Nice tackling at practice this morning.”

“Thanks, Kev,” Matt smiled and took his assigned seat.

“Please save me,” I pleaded.

“Aw, Aedan’s being a baby today,” Kevin teased as the bell rang.

“Shut up,” I scoffed. “The twins hate me cause I saved Jake from Bailey last year. Kevin’s bullied me about it..” I explained to Matt.

“Mister Jackson, class has begun, please be quiet….” Mr. Pulaski sighed. “You can talk after class.” He began passing out the syllabus.

After Geometry, I made my way to French 2 class. “Bonjour, Madame Vieux,” I greeted the teacher at the door. My French skills suck, so it’ll be a struggle to pass this class. I sat in a seat in the back, hoping Jake would come sit with me. I heard someone sit down. I looked up and saw Vincent Williams.

“Hey, buddy!”

“Hi, Vincent.” Suddenly the bell rang, as Jake walked in. “Jake! Jake!” I called out to him. He noticed the seats near me were all taken so he went to sit in the front of the room with one of his other friends.

“Well, you have me,” Vincent shrugged.

“Okay,” I smiled. Vincent hasn’t been a jerk for a while, so I wouldn’t mind having him as a partner in French. Besides, he was really good at French. He might have French ancestry or something. “It’s probably for the best. If Jake was my partner I’d be too distracted to learn anything,” I laughed.

I went through my other classes, hanging out with Chase in ELA 4th period and with all my friends during lunch. At the end of the day, 7th period was my athletic period, but I wasn’t in any fall sports this year due to the art seminar making me miss tryouts. So, no lacrosse for me. Athletic period, for me at least, ended up being training for basketball season coming up mixed with a couple study hall days during the week. Since it was the first day of school, we had a free period instead of a workout, which I spent sitting in the bleachers in the gym, listening to country music, and drawing, while ignoring the other boys goofing off around me. At some point, the soccer boys came in after their practice. I put away my stuff and walked down to talk to Jake.

“Hey, Jakey,” I gave my sweaty boyfriend a kiss.

“Oh, hey, Aedan,” his cheeks were flushed from exercise. “Wanna come hang out at my place after school? I wanna come out to my parents at dinner. And I want you to be there.” Jake smiled.

“Sure,” I blushed.

Jake and I sat down for dinner with Jake’s parents. We had hung out since leaving school, taking a nap and playing video games together. Dinner was salmon, baked potato, and a salad and for dessert, there were some fresh snickerdoodle cookies that Jake made over the weekend. When my dinner was finished, I leaned back in my chair, feeling too full for a cookie.

“Hey, uh, mom, dad. There’s something I should tell you guys,” Jake blushed. I looked over at him. Coming out was really hard for most people. It was awkward for me, but thankfully I knew mom would support me thanks to my lesbian sister. Jake, being an only child, didn’t have that gauge to go off of. “So, uhh, Aedan and I are seeing each other. Like in a dating kind of way. I like him a lot and…”

“Jacob, dear, you were straight for years. What changed?” Catherine asked.

“I mean, we both like each other,” I answered. “Jake came out to me on his own. I didn’t influence him or nothin’.”

“I still like girls. I just like Aedan a lot too.” Jake explained before kissing me.

“Well, that’s alright, I suppose,” Steven said. “This chav has been a good influence on you, Jacob. He’s made your life a little more colourful and fun, instead of being locked up in this mansion like when you were in primary school. And you’ve been a good influence on his... behaviour issues.”

“You have our blessing, boys,” Catherine smiled. “As long as you don’t let this relationship impact your schooling…”

“I won’t, mom,” Jake smiled.

“Thanks, sir, ma’am, I won’t let y’all down, I promise,” I shook Steven’s hand and hugged Catherine.

September 17 2019

I was sitting in the bleachers watching the JV Boys soccer game. I was sitting with Matt and Chase. “So which one’s Jake?” Matt asked, glancing at me.

“The cute one...” I blushed. “Oh, uh, his jersey is number 16.. Y-yeah...” I laughed awkwardly.

“We get it, he’s your boyfriend...” Matt teased, and Chase stifled a laugh.

I shrugged “I guess he is. We kiss, hold hands, and had sex once.”

“WAIT WHAT??” Matt gasped.

“You lost your v-card?... lucky...” Chase shook his head and brushed his bangs out of his face. “You got some skills.”

When the game was over, I went down to the field to visit Jakey. The team lost, but I still congratulated and kissed him. I noticed he had painted his nails navy blue. Maybe I should paint my nails too! The game was in the morning during 1st and 2nd periods, so I had on a hoodie to keep warm in the chilly fall air I put my phone and ticket in the pocket of my shorts before heading inside to French class 3rd period, assuming Jake would catch up later after showering and changing. 30 minutes passed, and Jake still didn’t show up in class, so I asked to go to the restroom, and went to look for him. I eventually found him by the hallway lockers getting shoved against the hard metal by Kevin Wilcox and a couple other football players, Nathan Bosch and Brandon Lee, in his gang.

“Hey! Stop it!” I ran over and confronted them.

“Stay out of this, Jackson,” Kevin sneered. “We’re teaching him a lesson.”

“He didn’t do shit! Now leave him alone or else...” I growled.

“Or else, what? You two fags against three football players? I don’t think so,” Nathan sneered. I charged at them and shoved Kevin off Jake, knocking Kevin to the floor.

“Jake! Run!” I shouted before Kevin swung a fist at me. I somersaulted out of the way but then Nathan tackled me to the floor. “Get help!”

Jake ran off as I kept getting attacked by Kevin and Nathan. The third guy, Brandon, who I thought was a friend, ran after Jake. “Hey! What’s going on here?” A teacher’s voice was heard. The bullies ran off.

I explained what happened as I got helped up. I was a bit bruised, but thankfully there were no serious injuries. I did get a detention for getting into a fight though. It was justified to protect Jake, but arguing with the teacher didn’t get me nowhere. I did charge in and attacked them anyways.

In Chemistry class that afternoon, I confronted Brandon, my lab partner, during lab time. “Why were y’all attacking Jake?”

“Jake’s a fuckin’ weirdo. He had nail polish on. What dude wears nail polish?! I can’t believe you hang with that creep. Probably because he’s rich and gives you free stuff.”

“No way! Jake’s an awesome friend to me! Rich or not!” I scoffed. Brandon was really being gross. He’d never been close to me in classes or on the basketball team, but he was never this hostile.

“Whatever,” Brandon said, pouring a test tube of red liquid into a beaker of water. “Could you get me the Sodium Bicarbonate?”

“The wut?”

The Asian teen rolled his eyes. “The flask with the white powder. We need... 10 grams of it.”

I got a spoon and scooped some of the powder and then poured in the sodium bi-whatever in. The solution began bubbling up and then formed some blue crystals that fell like snow to the bottom of the water in the beaker. “Woah, that’s so cool!” Brandon gasped. I rolled my eyes. What a fuckin’ nerd.

We filtered out the crystals from the water and measured them and put the amount on the lab sheet.

“So, is that the end of this dumb experiment?” I asked. Brandon nodded. “Great.” I grabbed my stuff and put my earbuds in to listen to music and forget about what Brandon said about Jake.

At my locker, as I was getting ready to go to detention, my ex-girlfriend Nina stopped by. “Oh, hey, wassup?” I asked with an awkward blush.

“I heard about what happened earlier from Bailey.”

“Her?!” I growled and slammed my locker shut.

“Apparently you and Jake were bullied earlier? Are you guys OK?!”

“I’m ok. Just a lil’ bruised. Jakey’s ok too. I saw him at lunch.”

“Jakey?” Nina laughed. I blushed. “So the rumors are true? Bailey said you and Jake were messing around over summer.”

“How does she know so much?! That little SKUNK!” I shouted. Everyone in the hall looked at me. “Sorry…”

On my way to detention, I paid a little visit to Bailey at her locker. “Get away from me...” she rolled her eyes.

“How the hell do you know about Jake and I?”

“One of Kevin’s friends told him, and then I found out from Kevin. I think it was...” she tapped her chin. “Matthew. The weird ginger one.”

“Gross,” I shook my head. “Anyways, I gotta go to detention. See you around, I guess.”

“You? Detention? What a surprise,” Bailey said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Detention as expected was a bore. The teacher in charge was my geometry teacher, and he made me work on the assignment that they did in class while I was watching Jake’s soccer game. Kevin, Nathan, and Brandon were also there in detention. Serves them right for tormenting my boyfriend.

I rode my bike home and saw Chase and Matt playing basketball in the driveway. “Hey, Aedan,” Matt waved.

“Fuck you, Matt,” I growled before walking my bike into the garage.

“Bro, what the hell was that for?” Chase asked me, clearly upset.

“You heard me,” I said. “Matt told the two worst people in tenth grade about Jake and I messing around, and Jake got bullied for it.”

“Woah what, oh my God I didn’t know that was supposed to be a secret!” Matt set the ball down.

“Well some things obviously should stay secret,” I growled, and shoved Matt backwards, he stumbled and I tackled the ginger boy to the grass.

“Get the hell off me,” Matt wrestled me off of him and pinned me to the grass.

“Aedan! Matt! Stop it!” Chase tried to pull Matt off me and Matt tumbled into my stepbrother.

“Y’all are lucky Jake didn’t get hurt,” I got up and stormed inside. I grabbed a banana to eat and ran down to my room and locked the door to cool off. Snowball was laying on my bed. After eating, I plopped onto my bed and scratched the bunny’s ears as he chewed on some lettuce. I eventually cooled off and fell asleep, feeling awful for lashing out at a friend in anger like that.

Oct 11 2019

It was the night of the homecoming dance. The football game last night had been a blowout for the JV guys, as Kevin, one of the better players, had been removed from the team for his behavior, which had been bad this year. The final straw had been when I caught him cheating on a test in Geometry. He was looking at my paper. Why would he cheat off me anyways? I’m not smart. I told on him, he threw a tantrum and kicked over my desk. What an absolute fuckin’ brat. Anyways, tonight was supposed to be fun. I showed up at the country club with Jake, Chase, and Chase’s girlfriend Hannah, in Connor’s car, as he turned 16 in September and got his license. I had been to the country club a few times, since Jake’s parents are members.

My stepbro left Jakey and I alone to have our date while he and his girlfriend had theirs. Jake and I danced together and chatted most of the night. We were sitting down and drinking some water when Bailey approached the two of us.

“Hey, you two…”

“We’re trying to have a nice evening. Leave us alone…” I scoffed.

“Aedan!” Jake gasped at my blunt remark. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to apologize. I’ve missed you Jake and I acted dumb.”

“Yeah, you have. And he’s mine now,” I held my boyfriend’s hand.

“And Kevin’s not here either. He wasn’t allowed to come because of the cheating incident. He’s been acting weird too,” Bailey explained.

“He sure has,” I rolled my eyes. “He’s a real pain in the a—“

“Aedan why don’t you go to the restroom and let us discuss things… CIVILLY…” Jake suggested.

“Fine,” I rolled my eyes and went to the male restroom to piss. When I was finished, I opened the door, which bumped into Matt, who was in line for the restroom. “Oops, sorry,” I blushed.

“Geez, Aedan, don’t hurt me again.”

“Dude, how many times do I have to apolo---”

“I’m kidding, bro,” Matt patted my shoulder. He understandably hasn’t hung out with me since our fight though.

I took a seat on a bench and checked my text messages because Jake and Bailey were probably still chatting.

I looked up when I felt someone sit next to me. “Hey, Aedan,” Nina smiled. “Nice nails.”

I looked down at my green fingernails and blushed. “Oh, thanks.”

“Why aren’t you with your boyfriend? You and Jake make such a cute couple.”

“He’s setting things straight with Bailey. He didn’t want me around because I can’t talk in a civil manner,” I said before an awkward silence. “So, how’ve you been?”

“I’m here with Jimmy.”

“Goth Jimmy? Or Gay Jimmy?”

“Who do you think?!” Nina laughed. Definitely Goth Jimmy.

“I’m sure you’re having a dull evening...” I chuckled.

“I am...” she laughed. “I’m, uh, glad we can stay cool. Even after what happened a couple years ago.”

“Oh, right,” I blushed. “I’m, uh, really sorry about how much of an idiot I was in 8th grade around you and other girls.”

“It’s literally fine,” she playfully patted me in the arm. “Now, seriously, go be with your boyfriend.”

“Alrighty then,” I stood up with a blush. “I’ll be seein’ you in art class then.”

“You bet,” she winked as I walked off.

Nice going, Aedan, that was awkward as HELL...

I returned to Jake. “There you are,” he reached up and pecked my cheek. “Bailey just left. She apologized for her and Kevin’s behavior.”

“Ok, well I hope she meant it. They caused us a lot of problems,” I looked around the ballroom. “Wanna head out?”

“We can go to my house and snoodle?”

“You mean make out?” I asked with a laugh.

“Shh... let me use my fun euphemisms...”

“Fun youfa-what??” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he giggled as we walked out. I grabbed my backpack from Connor’s car, and we walked three blocks to Jake’s house. At their house, all was quiet, as Jake’s parents had already gone to bed. I changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and made out in bed with Jake and that led to something more again after our clothes came off.

November 15 2019

I got up out of the orthodontist chair after my braces had been removed. I had those dang things on for a little over two years! I also got a retainer which I had to wear at night, like Jake does. River, who had turned 14 a few days ago, was also here for his monthly check up and adjustment. The orthodontist was impressed with how clean my teeth were. Which is nice cause I’ve never had a cavity in my almost 16 years. I returned to the waiting room where mom and River were waiting. “Ready to go back to school, boys?”

“Yeah,” River mumbled. He was taller than me now, and had acne, and was also stronger than me. He had a football game this evening.

“Not really,” I groaned.

Mom dropped River and I off at the middle school and I walked over to the high school next door. I checked in at the front desk and handed in my doctor’s note. I got a pass to go to my locker and then to French class.

As I closed my locker, I heard another one opening around the corner in the hall. I stepped over to the corner, thankful my Air Jordans were quiet shoes. I peeked around the corner and saw Kevin pull something out of his locker. It was a pistol!

I moved back to my side of the corner and held my hands over my mouth to quiet my now heavy breathing. I hate guns so dang much. When I was little, I saw my dad use them to kill small animals back in Appalachia. They are violent and do nothing but harm. I quietly made my way back to the front office. “I need to talk to Principal Williams immediately.” I said.

“What’s wrong?” the receptionist asked.

“I saw a gun...” I said shakily.

She immediately led me to the principal’s office. “Hello, Mr Jackson, what brings you in?” The middle-aged man sighed as I entered the familiar office.

“Kevin Wilcox has a gun,” I said. \

“This better not be some kind of bluff, Mr. Jackson, we take safety very..."

“Why the hell would I lie about this?!” I blurted out. The principal seemed to take me seriously for once. The school immediately went on lockdown, the security guards sent to find Kevin, and the police called to come as well. I really hoped Jake was okay. He and I would certainly be top targets for Kevin. The middle school also apparently went on lockdown as River had texted me about it, making sure I was okay. Maybe he’s not that much of a brat after all...

After what felt like hours, the lockdown was finally lifted, and I could leave the principal’s office. “Well, kid, it looks like you were right,” a cop said in a heavy New England accent. “Thanks to your quick report, you probably stopped a school shooting.” I looked over at Kevin, who was in handcuffs. They had found him with a loaded gun heading towards the foreign language hallway. No one had been injured, thankfully.

School had let out early in the high school, but not the middle school, so Chase and I went home early without River. “You actually are kinda a hero,” Chase smiled. He and I hadn’t been on super friendly terms either since I hurt Matt.

“Well, I still feel sick to my stomach...” I groaned. “I was only six feet away from that thing...”

“Bro, it’s okay...” Chase hugged me.

December 2 2019

It was the most exciting Monday of the year. It was Jake’s 16th birthday. His parents had gone to get his gift while we were in school. I could barely pay attention all day cuz I was so excited for the surprise. Not that I pay much attention in school anyways. Jake met me outside the locker room when I finished up basketball practice at the end of the day. I made the JV team this year and hopefully would get more playing time than when I was a freshman. I excitedly walked home with Jake to his house to celebrate his big day.

“Aedan, you’re in a really good mood today,” Jake kissed me.

“Well, yeah. I’m excited for you to see your surprise.”

Jake’s parents were waiting for us in the kitchen and they led him to the garage for his surprise. Jake opened his eyes and his face lit up. In the garage was a car. Not just any car, though. A Ford Mustang convertible in dark blue. My dad would have (literally) killed for a car like this. It was probably worth more than our run down old house in Tennessee. “Ohmygodd seriously?” Jake jumped up and down.

“It’s all yours once you pass your driving test next week.” Steven patted him on the back.

“I think this is the nicest car I’ve ever seen! Thanks mom and dad!” He hugged them.

“Your boyfriend helped us pick it out.” Catherine noted. A blush crept up my cheeks as Jake turned to me. He ran over and hugged me too, almost tackling me to the floor!