From Where I Stand - 3. Chapter 3

The rest of the week was literally a blur to me...but a good kind of blur. School started to pick up a little more, so I actually had homework to do. Still, it wasn’t so bad and honestly it was all easy...at least I thought so...to the point where I could finish most of my work in about an hour each night. So much for the teachers’ ideas of “spending at least four hours each every week on each class.” I made a mental note to shoot myself if I ever became a high school teacher. Aside from schoolwork, practice was going pretty well and the team looked like it was shaping out nicely for the upcoming game. Coach Matthews was even annoying me less than normal and I think my personal performance at practice was higher than expected...or rather higher than I expected. I didn’t know why, but I seemed more motivated than before and I was pushing myself a lot harder. Also I seemed more relaxed in general...that may have had something to do with hanging out with Jason and company...they were pretty good at getting me to unwind. Justin had made up with Katie the day after her bitchy PMS tiff, so most afternoons he was pretty occupied.

I hung out with Jason a couple times after practice, both with and without Eric and Paul, and we even all got together once to study...it seemed that they all had some issues with chemistry and since I tutored and was a teaching assistant for chem, I had it down pretty well. Did I mention I was a busy boy in high school? Normally they didn’t even have teaching assistants for chem, but seeing as I had taken all the courses they had by junior year and had already passed the AP test...I got a 4, woot!...they thought it wouldn’t hurt to have me help out. I figured, why not? I got to sit in the class and did not have to really pay any attention. I just had to give demos every once in a while...hehehe, explosives are cool...and basically I ended up being a study group leader for the class. By the end of the week, I had managed to get myself into leading two study sessions and scheduled a few for the following week after practice. Besides, who needs sleep anyway? Sigh.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was already mostly in weekend mode. Though it pained me greatly, I was on time to school and practice every day that week, but Friday, I wasn’t so lucky. I woke up to Justin shaking my shoulders and yelling.

“CHRIS!!! UP NOW!! IF YOU DON’T GET UP RIGHT NOW, I’M GOIN WITHOUT YOU!”

The thought of him leaving right then so I could get some more sleep seemed pretty appealing, so I just rolled over and mumbled, “alright, see you later...” and proceeded to go back to sleep. Justin laughed a little, mentioned something about it being my ass on a platter at school and left. I could have sworn I felt him hug me briefly, but that may have just been my imagination...either way it was a nice feeling. I slept in for another 30 minutes and managed to get up and drag myself out of the house. After arriving at school 30 minutes late, I decided to just hide out in the library until first period ended. The school didn’t have much of a late policy for school as a whole, but if you were late for a class, you would be better off just skipping it and getting an absence. I had a bit of a free reign in the school since I was pretty well involved with various things and was always running around for different things...from grabbing chemicals and tutoring students to fixing computers...so most of the people there didn’t think anything of me being in random places, even during class periods. Also my absences, which were supposed to add up and get me detention or something at some point, often disappeared since most of my teachers liked me and I never fell behind.

As I strolled into the library and headed to the science section...yeah I’m a dork, so sue me. I spotted someone putting back books from a cart. My eyesight was...and still is...kinda bad, so I got a bit closer and realized that it was Jason. I smiled and felt my heart nearly skip a beat...despite my efforts to the contrary, I managed to develop a pretty strong crush on Jason in just a few days and I would take any opportunity to spend time with him. He seemed always up for hanging out with me, be it going out to do something or even studying. He usually initiated, but I felt it wouldn’t hurt if I came up to him for once.

“Hey Jase.”

“Huh? Oh hey Chris! What’re you doing in here? Don’t you have class?”

“Um yeah, but I overslept so I’m laying low until second period.”

“Ha ha, yeah that’s cool.”

“So what are you up to? I thought you only worked here before school.”

“I have a study hall first period, so I just come here usually to work or read.”

“Oh, nice. Well I hope I’m not bugging you.”

“Nah man, it’s soo boring in here. Besides, there’s no one in here this early.”

We proceeded to talk for a while as he put books away. At some point, he had to run to the back to get something, so I sat down where his stuff was to make sure I had everything for second period. The school had this dumb policy about no backpacks in class, so we all had to lug around our books and shit. I noticed that on top of Jason’s things was a small leather-bound notebook that looked like a journal or something. “Oh, I guess he keeps a journal when he’s bored in class or something,” I thought to myself. It was kinda cute and only accentuated the deeper sides to Jase. During all the time we had been talking the past week, I had picked up a lot of little things about him. I knew he had at least some family issues as he always looked very tense and attentive whenever we talked about family, especially anything related to my own past issues with my father. I also found out he had a bit of a passion for writing and wanted to pursue journalism or something similar later on. He played soccer for fun and to stay in shape...also Eric and Paul talked him into it early on in high school. He had a knack for math and was in the other section of honors calculus, so we decided to start doing homework together when it got tough. I made a little fun of him for being a writer who could do complex integrals in his head, to which he laughed and claimed that math helped writing...in a way we mortals could not hope to define. I think he was grasping at straws on that one.

“Hey, what are you looking at Chris?”

I hadn’t even noticed that Jase had come back around. “Huh? Oh nothing, just saw this thingy. Thought it looked cool,” pointing to what I assumed was his journal.

“Oh this. Yeah I just write stuff in it or doodle when I get bored in class.”

“Cool. I just doodle in my notebooks. There isn’t much empty space on most of the pages and I go through pens like nothing.”

“Ha ha, yeah me too. Oh, the bell’s about to ring. Let’s get going.”

With that we picked up our stuff and entered the halls, seconds before the bell rang and the masses of students poured out of the classrooms. Jase patted me on the back as he passed me to head to his class and I smiled and waved as I headed to mine. I couldn’t wait to see him at practice. “God I’ve got it bad,” I thought as I got my day started.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was a little chipper again. I had started alternating between sitting with Justin and his friends and with Jason, Eric and Paul during lunch. I really hated high school...even eating lunch had to be a complicated social affair. A few of Justin’s friends had remarked that I was abandoning the group or something and of course Katie couldn’t have been happier to see me go. I still sat with Justin a couple times during the week though...I couldn’t let her win after all and Justin was still my main comfort zone. That day I ran into Justin before hitting the lunch room and he told me that Katie was in full PMS mode...I swear her cycles are like a day long...and suggested I sit with Jase today with a wink. He also remarked that the last thing he wanted was for me to get bitch slapped by Katie because I was bound to the way she was going that day. I gave him a brief hug for thinking of my well being and told him I’d catch him later. He had been over at my house three nights that week and that night probably wouldn’t be much different.

As I wandered over to Jason’s table, I felt someone nudge my shoulder. I turned to see Paul with his food. “Hey Paul,” I greeted him.

“Hey Chris! So you’re joining us today? Trouble in paradise?” he joked.

“Haha, yeah sorta. Katie is apparently on a bitching rampage today, so I thought I’d avoid the war zone.”

“Ha. Yeah she needs Midol or something. Maybe your boy Justin isn’t sexing her enough.”

“Heh, well I still don’t know how he does it. I have a feeling she’s one of those chicks that just won’t shut up, even when she’s getting fucked.”

“HA! I bet.” Eric and Jason showed up a minute later and we all started eating. Lunch was relatively quiet as we were all winding down from the week and just wanted it over. Idle conversation was continuing slowly among us, but that was soon interrupted by something very loud and bitchy.

“WHAT?!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE NOT COMING?!” I groaned. It was Katie. The lunch room at the school was pretty big, but she was screaming loud enough to get most people’s attention. She hushed a little after that outburst and I saw her arguing with Justin. After a few minutes, she got up and stormed off out of the lunch room. Lunch was about over anyway.

“Woah, what’s up with her now?” Jase asked me after I had turned back from staring in Justin’s direction.

“I have no clue. Um, hey, I’m gonna go talk to him, ok? I’ll catch you guys at practice.” With that I got a chorus of “later” and I walked over to Justin. He didn’t look so great. He was usually smiling and energetic, but at that moment he was scowling. I saw Andy trying to calm him down and he spotted me coming up.

“Oh hey Chris. Maybe you should take over on this one man,” Andy told me as I sat down. Everyone else got up to get ready to go back to class, but Justin kept sitting there. His fists were clenched and he was more than visibly pissed. I’m pretty sure most of his friends would have been afraid to speak to him at that moment because he looked pretty intimidating.

“Hey J. Dumb question, but are you ok?” I put my arm around his shoulder and I could feel him tense up for a second before slightly relaxing as he realized it was me.

He barely croaked out, “hey Ace. Um, what do you have next period?”

“Uh, just chem. I don’t really need to be there, I don’t have any demos or anything and I already told Mrs. Janssen that I may not show. You wanna talk?”

“Yeah, let’s go, I can’t be here right now.”

With that we headed out of the lunch room and made our way to the school exit. I just followed slightly behind him. He seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go, so I figured that I would just stick with whatever he had in mind. The school was pretty lenient about upperclassmen leaving the school for lunch on occasion, and since there were three lunch periods no one would gave us any shit for leaving. We kept walking for a little while until we reached a park near the school. Justin and I would go there on occasion if we needed to get away for a little while or cool off. We found our favorite large oak tree and he sat down against the massive trunk and closed his eyes under the shade. I sat down next to him and waited for him to be ready to talk. It took about 10 minutes, but he eventually opened his eyes and looked over at me.

“I think I’m gonna break up with her, Ace,” Justin blurted out, kinda catching me off guard.

“Wha? Um, J, are you sure? I mean I know you guys have fights every once in a while, but you always seem to work it out.” Nothing would have made me happier than to see that bitch lose Justin because she didn’t even deserve to speak to him, but I didn’t think that would make him happy so I kept that thought to myself.

“This isn’t just once in a while anymore Chris. We’re always fighting. I can’t stand it. I told her that I didn’t want to go to some party tonight and she just fucking flew off the handle and started bitching me out. She was like, ‘why don’t you ever care about what I want?! You’re such a bad boyfriend!’ or some shit like that. God I can’t fucking deal with her anymore.”

I felt my own blood pressure rise a bit and my fists clenched automatically. That fucking cunt had no right to say anything like that to anyone...least of all my Justin. I suppressed my urge to tell him to lose the bitch and be done with it and tried to calm down a little. “Look Justin, maybe you just need to cool off for a little while. You may not think the same way in a day or two, so don’t go off the handle like her and do something you’ll regret.”

“That’s the point Chris. I don’t think I’ll regret it. We’ve been going out for a year and I don’t feel anything for her. God I feel more sleeping with you and I do with her,” he said with a little chuckle and sly smile. I smiled myself and that sentence became burned into my memory. “But seriously dude, I think I need to just dump her and move on. This isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, you know how I feel about her, so hopefully this’ll sound sincere enough. I think you should just give it the weekend before you do anything. Just in case. I mean everything isn’t all bad with her you know. I’ve seen her make you smile and laugh. And also there is that one thing she does with her tongue...”

“HAHAH!! God I can’t believe I told you that. Maybe you’re right. Well, think you’ve got time to hang out with ol’ Justin this weekend or do you have plans already?”

“Hey, no force on this earth could keep me from trying to cheer you up when you need it.”

Justin leaned over and gave me a hug. I closed my eyes as I hugged him back and just melted into the moment. “Thanks Chris. I love you man. I don’t think I really tell you that enough.” It was barely a whisper, but it meant everything to me. I take in a little whiff of his scent. He hardly ever wore cologne or anything like that...he just had his own scent that was warm, clean and very familiar to me. I was sorry for the moment to end, but I pulled out of the hug.

“I love you too J. Now come on, we can’t skip the entire day...no matter how much I want to. Haha.” We collected ourselves and trudged back to school. The next class period was about to start as we got back, so Justin gave me another quick hug and then ran off so he wouldn’t be late while I did the same.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. My mind kept wandering back to Justin. I seriously thought he would have been more broken up over the whole Katie situation, but he seemed pretty normal. Maybe they weren’t as right for each other as I had previously forced myself to believe. A fleeting thought entered my head...my subconscious was trying to convince me that maybe Justin would be receptive to me...I quickly shook that thought out as preposterous and tried to pay at least a little attention in class. As much as I told myself that Justin would never be that way, I guess a part of me was always ready to leap at an opportunity if it presented itself.

As the day ended, I walked out of my last class with Justin. He decided he was going to go and work out at the school gym while I was at practice and we decided to meet up afterward and just spend a leisurely afternoon at home hanging out. I thought maybe I was the only who really missed that, but from his expression I could tell that he missed it too...at least a little. We reached the field house and he headed over to the gym lockers as I walked to the sports lockers. My eyes met with Jason’s as I entered the room. The bright blue orbs gave me a slight chill as he smiled and greeted me.

“Hey. Ready for this week to end or what?”

“God yes. I’m still half in summer mode dude.”

“Ha ha, yeah me too. Oh hey, how’s Justin? I kinda heard about the fight a little from one of Katie’s friends.”

“He’s doing ok. How’s Katie?”

“Hah, do you actually care?”

“Not especially, but I thought I may as well check up on her for Justin, in case he wanted to know.”

“Ah, she’s still pissed as hell. She’s throwing some party tonight or something and got really mad cause Justin didn’t want to go. I’m guessing you’re not going either.”

“Heh, like she’d ever invite me. If I showed up, especially without Justin around, she’d castrate me.”

“Haha, damn. Well it’s probably true. I’m actually opting out too I think. What are you up to tonight?”

“Justin and I are hanging out tonight and this weekend a bit. I kinda went into full ‘best friend mode’ so I could try to cheer him up a bit.”

“Oh. Yeah that’s probably a good idea. Well hey, I was thinking about wandering around a little on Saturday with Paul. You guys are welcome to join us.”

“Oh, thanks Jase. I’ll see if J’s up for it.” I proceeded to get changed for practice and Jase and I walked out to the field together. We were starting to get pretty buddy-buddy and seemed to gravitate towards each other whenever we were around the other. Practice went off without much of a hitch and much to my surprise, Coach Matthews didn’t call me off as one of the people who needed extra work on Saturday. I decided to not give him the chance to change his mind, so I dashed a little faster than everyone else back to the field house. I heard someone come up behind me.

“Hey Chris, slow down!” It was Jase.

“Huh? Oh hey Jase. Sorry, I just didn’t want to give coach a chance to change his mind.”

“Haha, come on. You’re doing great. You don’t need any more work.”

“Thanks. You’re off the hook too right?”

“Yup. Thank God. Last thing I need is to spend my Saturday trying to avoid getting hit in the balls by all the forwards.”

“Haha yeah.” It was pretty cool and breezy that day and practice wasn’t especially intense, so a lot of us opted out of showering. Jase and I got changed and headed out. I told him I was gonna go find Justin in the gym and he decided to tag along. I spied him in the corner doing reps on the bicep curl. I admired the view of his sinewy arms lifting the weight practically effortlessly as I approached.

“Hey Ace. Oh hey Jason, what’s up?” Justin greeted us.

“Hey Justin, we just got done with practice,” Jason chimed in.

“Alright cool, I’m done here. I was taking it pretty easy today.” We walked back towards the gym lockers so he could get changed. He went in and Jase and I told him we’d wait outside on the steps. Just as we were sitting down, Jason suddenly stood back up.

“Oh shit. I forgot that I needed to go pick up my brother after practice. His school’s at Wollaston. Sorry I gotta run.” He quickly grabbed his bag and started running towards the T station.

“Oh ok. Later Jase!”

“Later Chris. Hey, I’ll call you tomorrow sometime, k?”

“Yup. Later!” Jason disappeared around the corner shortly after.

As I sat back down I noticed something on the ground next to me. I looked and saw Jason’s leather-bound journal on the pavement. It must have slipped out when he grabbed his bag to run. It was open and face down. I bent over and picked it up. I dusted it off a little and turned it over to the open page. I absentmindedly glanced at the page and I suddenly caught a glimpse of a word on the page...Chris. My curiosity getting the best of me, I read the surrounding couple of sentences.

“I think I’ve got a crush on Chris. I’m really glad he finally decided to hang out with me. It was so great. I can’t wait to do it again,” it read. My eyes must have widened so much that they could have easily popped out of their sockets. I shut the book quickly and, my knees a little wobbly, clumsily sat down on the ground where I was standing. I was quite literally floored by what I had just read. Just as the gears in my head started grinding full speed, Justin came out of the building.

“Hey Chris. Why are you sitting like that dude? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“Huh? Oh, nothing, I just thought I forgot something.”

“Oh, ok. Hey where’s Jason?”

“Um...he forgot he had to go pick up his brother.”

“Ah. Let’s get going. Um, are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah, yeah...let’s go.” I tried to act as normally as I could as we walked to the T station. My mind was nowhere near prepared to process what I had just read in Jason’s journal. I mentally kicked myself for even looking at it. It was obviously personal and I just disregarded his privacy...at the same time I could feel a kind of excitement that I had never experienced before. I always assumed that there were other gay people at my school, but I never would have guessed Jase...I had no idea what I was going to do about it all.

Justin and I got home after a pretty quiet train ride. I knew I had to get Jase out of my head for a little while...I was supposed to be helping Justin keep Katie off of his mind.

“What’s that Chris?” Justin asked, pointing to Jason’s journal in my hand.

“Wha? Oh, it’s Jase’s. He dropped it when he ran off. Oh by the way, he wanted to know if we wanted to go hang out in town tomorrow with him and Paul.”

“Oh cool. That’d be great. I’ll finally get to see you...dun dun dun...socializing!”

“Heh, yeah whatever.” As we got into my house...which was empty again as my mom was off on a business trip for a week...we threw our stuff in my room and proceeded to forage for food in the kitchen. I kept trying to push Jason’s journal out of my head, but it just wouldn’t leave.

So many random things had happened that day and I just couldn’t wrap my brain around them all. Justin decided to shower, so as he was doing that, I took Jason’s journal in my hands and just held it. It hadn’t been long, but I was really starting to like Jason a lot...and with the little revelation about how he felt on my mind, I decided that I should try to talk to him. I just couldn’t decide whether I should tell him that I read his journal or not. After struggling on that point for a few minutes, I decided that honesty was probably the best, though not the easiest, approach.

I put the journal in my desk drawer and lay down on my bed, thinking of how I was going to talk to Jason. It wasn’t long before I started dozing off. Half-conscious, I was partially aware of Justin as he came out from the shower and plopped down on the bed next to me. He seemed tired himself, so we just lay there shoulder to shoulder and let sleep take over us.