The Tide Began to Rise - Repost - 23. Chapter 23

[Brent’s POV]

I’m not sure what time we fell asleep. I woke up with Tyler lying on my stomach. I sat up a little; I put my hand on his shoulder and shook him a little. He opened his eyes. He looked around to figure out where he was. Then he looked at me and smiled.

“Good morning babe.”

“Morning. How did you sleep?”

“Good. I got to sleep on you, so that makes it better.”

“So do you want to talk now, or later?”

“I would rather talk later.”

“Ok, let’s go get some breakfast. Then we need to clean up. I’m sure there is a huge mess.”

We both got out of bed. Tyler went and opened the door. As soon as there was a crack, the smell of food hit my nose. Who is in my house, and why are they cooking?

We left Tyler’s room and went straight to the kitchen. The smell got stronger the closer we got. I could tell, whoever was cooking, made pancakes and bacon. The mystery cook has great taste. I pushed the door open and found not one person cooking, but 7; James, Brad, Jennifer, Brie, Chad, Kurt, and Rob. They must have just stayed the night. It would be really weird to go home, and then come back here to cook breakfast in a friend’s house.

“What are you all doing here? I thought everyone went home.” I asked.

“Well, James and Brad made sure everyone else left. We told them we are your friends and that were not leave until we know your ok.” Rob said.

“Yeah, we argued about it for a good 20 minutes.” James said.

I looked over at Tyler. He just stood there staring at Brad. Brad was doing the same.

“We all decided that since you guys hosted the party, that we would clean up for you. We picked up all the trash, took down all the lights, put all the tables and chairs away, and straightened up the house.” Kurt said.

“Wow; you guys, and gals, are great. You didn’t have to do all that.” I said.

“Sure we did. And the girls here are nice enough to cook everyone Breakfast. We were just about to wake you two up so you could eat with us.” Chad said.

We all sat down and ate. Tyler and Brad still hadn’t said word; all they did was look at each other. I know that before too long either they would leave to talk on their own, or I was going to make them.

Just as the thought finished in my head, they both stood up and went towards the living room. When they were out of the room, James stood up to follow the, I grabbed his arm.

“They need to be alone. We are going to give them the privacy they need. Now sit back down and eat. I said.

James went back and plopped down on his chair. We ate in silence.

[Tyler’s POV]

From the moment that the kitchen door opened and I saw brad, I knew that we would be talking. All I could do was staring at him while we were in the kitchen. Now we are walking in to the living room. I sat down on the couch, Brad sat next to me. I didn’t look at him. All I could do was look at the floor. I guess in the hopes that Brad would be the first to say something. We sat in silence for a couple minutes. I had to start.

“I’m sorry Brad. I, in no way, meant to hurt you. I love you. I love your friendship. I never want that to end. Your one of my best friends, and I didn’t know how you felt about me.”

“Now you do. I don’t just have a crush on you. I am way past that. It was a crush when we were in middle school. Now I love you Tyler.”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t just leave Brent because you are in love with me. I can’t do that to him. It is not fair to him or to me.”

“But how is fair to me?”

“I’m not saying that it is. If I had known before I got together with Brent, I would have loved to date you. But that is not the case. I promise you Brad, I promise that if things don’t work out between Brent and me, you will be who I turn to. You wouldn’t be the consolation prize. You and I have a lot in common.”

“Even though that sounds so wrong, I will wait for you.”

“This is going to sound really rude, but I need to ask this of you; if things are not going to work out between us, that you let it happen in its own time. The Only reason that I’m saying this is because I know you have a tendency to do anything you can to get what you want. So please, please let things run their course.”

“I will” He reached over and gave me a hug. I hugged him back. As we broke the hug, Brad kissed my cheek.

“So can we still be friends, and can we still hangout? I don’t think I could stand it if we stopped hanging out.”

“As long as you don’t mind that I will have a hard on every time I see you.”

We both laughed. The others must have heard us, because they came in the room. They were all smiling. Chad, Kurt and Rob were smiling but I could tell that they had no clue what was going on. I would have thought that while Brad and I were talking, the others would have filled them in.

I told everyone to come in and sit down. I explained what had happened between Brad and me to Brent’s friends. I had deiced to keep what we had discussed to me. Brad must have felt the same, because he didn’t add anything.

“So babe, do you want to talk about last night?”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Jennifer said.

“I want you to know……………… Last night, when Brent and I were walking around talking to people, someone caught my attention. At first I wasn’t sure who it was. All I know was that I know who it was. Whoever it was knew I was trying to find him, and he was avoiding me. I finally caught up to him by the computer. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. I spun around and saw that it was David.”

“David who? I know him but not his last name.” Brent said.

“David Cox, he is my cousin. I don’t know why he was here. I made sure that he was not invited. But there he was. He had a huge smile on his face, while I had a shocked look. I asked him why he was here. He said “I wanted to hang with you cuz. I thought, not a better time to do that than at your party.” I responded with “you weren’t invited. I didn’t invite you for a reason. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. So why the hell would I want you here. I’m not going to be an ass and kick you out, but don’t talk to me.” I turned and started to walk away. David shouted “Don’t you turn your back to me, you fucking queer……………………. Fine, run and tell your boyfriend that I’m here.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I started looking around at all the people. Everyone had stopped talking and started staring at me. “Oh, did I hit a nerve there fag boy?” I heard from David.

“Why did you stop? Why didn’t you just keep going?” Kurt asked.

“I don’t know. I wanted to. Trust me; I wanted to be as far away as possible. I didn’t want to be in that moment. Nobody does. It would be one thing if I wasn’t gay. I could have dusted what he said right off my shoulder. But I am gay. I proved that to him when I stopped. I proved it to everyone that heard what he said.

“One by one people started to murmur to one another. I spun around in a circle, looking at the expressions on everyone’s face; the disgust and hatred in most of their eyes, the shock in others. I stopped at David. He walked up to me as I was wiping tears off my cheeks. “Why David, why?” He got a shit eating grin on his face. “Because you and your boyfriend are fucking disgusting.” He turned and walked back to where he stood before.

“I dropped to my knees. All I could think about was “how did he know?” People started laughing, mocking, joking, and throwing their garbage at me. I just sat back, pulled me legs into my chest and began to cry. At that point I felt like I was back at home with my dad. I felt small, worthless, scum, like a freak. I wanted to die. Then that’s when you came up Brent. That moment I heard you voice, I knew I wasn’t at home with my dad. But at the party, and you were there for me. Then Brad spoke out. Right there I knew, not matter happens, I have friends to help me. I guess you know the rest.”

“Wow” Chad said.

“I know right. Why do I have to come from such a fucked up family?”

“Every family has problems. Yours just has more.” Brie said.

Everyone laughed. We discussed what we wanted to do today. Once the plan was set, I went to my room and changed cloths. Brent went to his room and did the same. Everyone else left to do the same. They said they would meet us back here.

[David’s POV]

“That didn’t go as well as I thought it would.” I said.

“But it wasn’t a total loss. There were quite a few people that were ready to kill both Tyler and Brent.” Tristan said.

“It is not good enough. We are going to take this into the school.”

“Ok, what do you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure. I will let you know.”

I hung up the phone. I lay back on my bed and began to think of things that we could do to make Tyler’s life miserable.