Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 08:16:44 -0700 (PDT) From: "[iso-8859-1] Ray Morales" Subject: Heartache 10 This story continues where Heartache 09 left off in the story 'Heartache' in /High School/. Thanks to all who emailed. I am always grateful with the support via your emails. I appreciate those who gave good inputs that I sometimes used in the series. You know who you are. At the moment, I am working on several new stories as this one is coming to an end very soon. Note: This story is fiction and is by no means depictive of the life of any person, place or thing. It contains no penetrative sexual acts between males YET and should only be read if it is legal to do so in your area. Read at your own risk. All names are made up and any similarities are just dumb luck. Heartache 10 By Fjord I knew that Jake was psychologically on the edge since we found out that we loved each other. But I didn't realize that I had the same problem as Jake, if not worse. I had this idea of a perfect union with Jake, as lovers, as best friends and as partners for life. What I didn't expect was a curve ball from life's pitcher. I had been on denial since the beginning. I had placed Jake on a pedestal that even I couldn't reach. I wanted everything to be perfect and that was my, or rather, our downfall. I blamed me. I was wrong to be such a perfectionist but I couldn't help it. It was part of what made me, well, me. The signs were there but I just ignored them, as they would not fit into my perfect world. I portrayed myself as a perfect teenage boy, perfect schoolboy, perfect son, perfect student and perfect best friend for Jake. Nothing could faze me. I could handle whatever was thrown at me. That was until last Friday. That fateful day, Jake gave me the red pill* and I swallowed it willingly. A whole new world was opened to me. However, this new world was beyond my control. It didn't stop me from trying though. I had tried my best and I screwed it all up. I screwed up big time. I couldn't make Jake perfect. He had a past that I was not privy to. Like me he kept his own secrets but unlike me, his secrets are dark. I had no idea that he was already so sexually active. I had no idea. To me he was still the innocent 14-yeard old boy that took my heart away with his cute smile. I didn't know him at all. For example, he had never told me about his old girlfriend in Seattle before last weekend. That was how much I knew Jake. It was a scary thought. The throbbing pain on my head brought me back into consciousness. There was this small but painful lump on the side of my head. Thankfully, my hair covered it. I didn't want to explain to anyone how I got the lump. The image of Jake lying dead at the park filled me with an indescribable dread. I felt angry and disgust with myself. I got up slowly and made my way towards the mirror and saw somebody alien to me. It was the face of a murderer, I thought. A fleeting thought of ending my life if Jake was dead chilled my heart to the core. He couldn't be dead, I prayed. There was only one way to know. I looked at the time and it was 6.20 am. I decided to call Jake, if he wasn't dead already. What a morbid thought, I thought. It was as if I was having an out-of-body experience. I was watching myself making my way towards the telephone at the hallway. I saw my left hand pick up the phone and my right index finger pressing Jake's number. I heard a faint ringing sound. It went on for several rings before a voice said hello. I just stood there rooted to the spot with my left hand gripping the phone tight. He was still alive. I thanked God in my heart. "Eric, i...is that you?" Jake asked hesitatingly. "Yeah..." I answered softly. We didn't say anymore for like a minute and were just listening to the sound of our breathing. I felt relieved. "Can we talk?" Jake broke the silence. "Yeah..." "Skip school today?" "Yeah..." "I'll go to your place after your parents are out." "Okay..." "Bye..." "Bye..." I placed the phone on its hook and a sad smile crept into my face. Jake was alive. I had a second chance. We had a second chance. We had to do it right this time. "Eric, you're up early," Derek startled me from behind. I turned around to face him and saw him look at me with concern. I must looked like hell. "Oh, yeah... I slept early last night and woke up too early." "You were calling someone just now?" "Yeah... just a friend." As soon as I said that my heart felt heavier. Jake was not just a friend. "You don't look too good." He sounded worried. "Yeah... you're right. I'm gonna skip school today and stay in. By the way, you'll have to walk to school today. And tell Mom I had already gone to school, okay." I said to him. My Dad usually would send Mom to work at about 7.30 am. They wouldn't suspect anything. "Okay Eric but this will cost you. I usually don't lie on my second day. Seriously though, you need some major shut eye." Derek smiled. "You still look pretty though." That comment made me smile as I watched him get into the bathroom in his cute Mickey Mouse boxers. Just what I didn't needed right now, another flirt. **** I got in bed and slept while waiting for Jake. Well, I tried to sleep but only managed to do so fitfully. In my semi-conscious state, I heard him enter the room and slowly opened my eyes. He stood between the bedroom door and the bed, looking at me. I couldn't read his face. It was unreadable or maybe I didn't trust my judgment anymore. In my heart, I felt such a searing pain as I realized how much I had hurt him. How much I had risked in my 'holier than thou' ranting response to his dark past that he had deliberately hidden from me. I should stop thinking of his past as being dark, I thought. It was just his past and it was a part of him. No matter what he or I did, he won't be able to get rid of it just like I will never be able to get rid of my love for him. I sighed to myself. I wanted to be in his future, not his past. I just hoped he still wanted me. Without realizing it, I called out his name. He didn't move towards me, as I had wanted. Well, I deserved it, I thought. However, he grabbed my study chair and sat down facing me. I sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed. "Eric." He said my name. "I gave it a lot of thought last night, on what happened yesterday." He paused. "I... I don't think we're ready to have a serious relationship. Don't get me wrong. I still love you. But..." I glared at him. "But what? Just say it. You hate me." He flinched and his face just fell. "I don't hate you. I love you, Eric." Jake said as tears glimmered in his eyes. "You know that. It's just that everything's a mess right now." "We can work it out, trust me. I want another chance." I said to him. "How? I am not good enough for you. Remember? You need someone better." Jake replied sadly. "There is no one else I want, Jake. Just you." "Do you really mean that? Even after all those shit you said to me yesterday." Jake's voice was rising. "You know I still want you, Jake. I still love you. But, right now, I don't even know you. I'm really sorry for whatever I said yesterday. But I didn't mean any of it, you've gotta understand. I just wanted to hurt you but I never meant any of it. It's just that I didn't know you anymore. You weren't the Jake that I thought I knew. You lied to me, man." Silence. My big mouth and me called him a liar again. "I'm sorry." I said to him softly. "I don't know how to handle this, Jake. It's just that I love you but..." I paused. "...it's as if you are a stranger. Who are you Jake?" He was sobbing with his hands covering his face. I wanted to touch him but I didn't. I had to tell him everything that was in my heart. "Who are you?" I repeated the question. "Are you even a little like the person I thought of as my best friend. Or am I just looking at a boy who pretends to be my best friend. Best friends don't keep such secrets from each other." "I had to hide them from you, Eric. You would've hated me. All I saw was you, the perfect boy. Everything was perfect about you. I had to be perfect for you too." Jake replied. "I wanted to be with you so badly that I made my parents put me in your school. Remember my first day? You brought me around to meet with everyone. Everybody loved you, dude. Shit, you even remembered all their names. You even introduced me to all the teachers. There were some jealous people that day, I could tell. I realized then, that to be near you I had to be the same. A perfect boy. I did some stupid stuff in Seattle and some of the people there probably still hated me." "I would never hate you because of that. I would've loved you anyway." "Yeah, right... Like you would've wanted me for a friend if you knew that I was a jerk in my last school. Sure, I was popular but it was because I was a jock. I have to admit that I was a major jerk there. I wanted to be a better person because of you." "Did you have any boyfriends in Seattle?" I asked suddenly. I just wanted to cut through all the bull. "No! It didn't happen like that. I told you last weekend. You were the first boy that actually made me want a boy, you know, like to kiss and to hold." ("And to fuck with," I thought.) "After that, I really began to notice other 'pretty' boys around me but I just wanted to be with you." "Did you lose your virginity to Cynthia or to one of these boys?" I asked directly. He looked at me with a pained expression. I had hurt him again. "No, my first time was with the girl in Seattle. I loved her, you know." Jake said as his eyes brimmed with tears. "I dumped her because of you." "So, you're blaming me now?" I said angriy. "No... That's not what I meant, Eric. I couldn't see her being in my future. It hurt but when I thought about you, the boy I saw in Portland, I knew my love for her wouldn't last. I had to be honest with myself." I snorted. "Yeah, right. Like you've been honest with me." I said sarcastically. Jake looked at me in anger as well as in pain. My big mouth gave a comment that planted another big and sharp knife in his chest. "Sorry... that was mean of me." I said to him softly this time. "You're part of this mess as well, Eric. I'm not the only one to blame. If you had told me you loved me earlier, there would not be other boys, no Cynthia. Shit, I fantasized about you all the time. I thought of kissing you and holding you in my arms before I sleep at night. I dreamt of making love to you. The first two years of my life with you was a dream. We were like inseparable. I had you to myself all the time except when you went missing once in a while or during school and holidays or at night. I missed you like mad sometimes." Jake said clearly and slowly. All the time he was looking at his hands. I had to say something. "You know I couldn't tell you, Jake. I was fighting my feelings for you all the way. I love you but I hated myself at the same time. You were part of myself that I couldn't control. You know that I'm a control freak. I couldn't control my feelings for you. I was this perfect boy in front of everyone and behind that act I loved another boy. I was a gay boy." There, I said it. "What is more of a fuck up than being a gay boy in this society? I chose the middle way in the end. I told myself that I had to change my life because of you, Jake. I would wait. I half hoped that you would return my love and at the same time I wanted you to get a girlfriend so that I could tell myself that my waiting for you was a hopeless cause. The first two years you did neither." I paused and looked at Jake. He was looking at me too and I could feel his love for me in his eyes. I so wanted to grab him and kiss him. But I didn't. "Last year, you started going out with Cynthia. Remember the fight we had because I said she was a slut. It was one of the few fights we had. Most of the other fights ended up with us wrestling each other. Remember? That time you just sulked for days. I didn't like Cynthia at all. I thought that you could've done better. I mean if I were to lose you it should be somebody I liked." "You went out with other girls, too." Jake said accusingly. "Yeah... That was only after you started going out with Cynthia. I wanted to spite you, in a way. At the same time, I wanted to see if I could turn it on with a girl." "Did you?" Jake was suddenly curious. "Yeah... I did get hardons when we made out but every time it gets too hot your face comes up. I couldn't do it with anyone else knowing there was a small chance of you loving me. And I have my old fashioned views about virginity. We had arguments about that, last year...." My sentence trailed as I realized the real reason why he had started that argument was because he wasn't a virgin. We were quiet again. "Eric, the truth is, I was using Cynthia." Jake said breaking the silence. I frowned, not comprehending his statement. "I told you I started looking at other boys after I met you, right. Well, I met someone during the summer holidays with my family the year before last in Hawaii. I had asked you to follow us but you had some summer camp thing going on with your church." I felt dread. I wanted to hear his confession but I wished he wouldn't tell me. "His name was Trey. He was a local. He saw me looking at him at the beach the first day we arrived and introduced himself to me. We got along real well. He was really hot but I didn't think anything was going to happen until he... kissed me." Jake looked at me, looking for any reaction. I looked away. I didn't want him to see the regret in my eyes. It should've been me kissing him. The invisible hand was tightening its grip on my heart. "Trey was really cute and I was curious about sex with boys. I had always imagined doing it with you and saw some stuff on the net but that was all the experience I had. The second night there, he followed me inside my hotel room saying he wanted to use the bathroom. Once inside he started to fiddle around with the TV and we watched some football. He took off his shirt and sat beside me. I was only fifteen years old at that time and he was like sixteen or something. My heart raced like mad and I wanted to feel his body next to me. Before I could control myself, my hand went and touched his chest. The next thing I know he was kissing me. I'm sorry Eric, but I was really attracted to him and so I just kissed him back. That night, I had my dick sucked by a boy for the first time. My only regret was that it wasn't you. I won't lie to you and say that I didn't enjoy the sex I had with Trey. He was more experienced and he taught me stuff I never knew." Jake looked at me but then I looked away again. I lay down on my bed and grabbed a pillow to hug. I looked at Jake again and this time he was the one who looked away. "I really liked him but I wasn't in love with him. I told him about my secret love for you and he was quite understanding. It didn't stop us from having sex like there was no tomorrow though. The last night of the holidays, he made me fuck him. It was so different from having sex with a girl. His ass was so tight. I can't describe the feeling. He came while I was fucking him. I didn't even touch his dick. It was supposed to be his goodbye gift for me. But you spoiled it for him, I guess." "Why?" I asked. "I called out your name when I came in his ass. My heart broke a little when I saw him crying. I told him I was sorry but he said he understood. He said that he rather have me for a while rather than none at all. I cried with him that night because I could only give a little part of me to him and yet he gave me an even bigger piece of himself. I fucked him again that night. We took our time and had another mind-blowing orgasm but this time I said his name. He knew it was just an act but we pretended for each other's sake." I was crying as I listened to Jake. At the same time I was also having a hardon. Go figure. "That's why you were so down after you came back from Hawaii." I said softly. Jake nodded. "I was really angry at myself and you. I thought I hated you for bringing me such misery but when I saw you waiting for us at the door, I realized I hated myself even more, because Trey became just a distant memory when you were with me." "Do you still keep in touch with Trey?" I asked him. "Yeah... we emailed each other once in a while. He's got a boyfriend now. He still hoped I changed my mind about you though. Hehehe... Fat chance." Jake snickered to himself. I smiled. His eyes brightened for a second when he saw me smile. "I called him last night." "Who? Trey?" "Yeah... I asked for his advice. My mind was all messed up after all that happened yesterday. I won't lie to you. You hurt me so much. I didn't know how words, just words could hurt so much. I was in so much pain but I knew, I hoped that you still loved me. I told him everything that had happened. He said that I should wait until you had calmed down before I do anything else. I took his advice and waited all night." Jake replied. "I'm beginning to like Trey." "Yeah... You'll like him. He's cool." Jake said and got up from the chair. He went nearer to my bed. "Can I lie down beside you? I'm a bit tired." I looked at him and I realized how he had quietly managed to crawl into my heart again. I had already forgiven him. I was putty in his hands. "Go ahead." I replied softly. He climbed over me and lay close to me, but not touching me. "Do you want me to continue?" He asked. I nodded. "I guess you know the rest. The phone rang and I hoped it was you. When I heard your voice, I was like so happy and sad and scared shitless at the same time." Both of us relived that moment in our head. "What did you mean when you said you used Cynthia?" I asked him to bring the issue back on track. Jake sighed. "After Trey, I was hooked. I began to look for other boys since you were like the perfect straight boy next door and I wasn't gonna get any 'you know what'. So I discovered some horny, in the closet, boys from school and had some fun but every time I did it I felt dirty. It wasn't like with Trey where he knew I loved you and he still wanted me. With the others it was more mechanical. Just suck, fuck and thanks, let's do it again sometime. I decided to stop having sex with other boys and start doing it with girls. Cynthia was the easiest target. She was already interested for some time. I thought at least it wouldn't be like pretending I was doing stuff with you. The sex was great at first. She was insatiable. But after a while, I started thinking of you again and once I felt so sick that I puked on the way back after a long session of fucking with her. It was so loveless. Just fucking, fucking and fucking. I realized I rather spend a minute alone with you than an eternity of fucking with Cynthia. So I dumped her. Boy, she was pissed. She thought that I loved her but it was all an act. She probably loved my dick more." "I can't believe I didn't know any of this. Am I the only one who doesn't know?" "The thing with Cynthia was a bit more public, I told most of the jocks, but the sex with guys were pretty secretive. Only a few people knew and most of them were the ones I had sex with. I told them about my obsession with you too. Believe me, they said you were like royalty around here. They see you as this perfect straight boy who proclaimed to everyone the merits of being a virgin. Getting into your pants was like a royal scandal. Fantasizing about you was a regular past time for them. Hehehe..." I glanced at him and saw that he was looking at my crotch. I waved my hand over his eyes and made him look at me. He grinned sheepishly. "I only had sex with you from then on. In my fantasies, I mean. With my hands as my witness." He paused for a dramatic effect. "Yes, I used both hands." Jake the flirt and the funny boy returned. I couldn't help but giggle. "And, the dildo." He added and we giggled even more. The giggling subsided and we found ourselves facing each other, our bodies touching. He gently caressed my cheek with his hand. I blinked and he rolled over to lie on his back again. I was left looking at his beautiful profile. "Will you take me back?" I asked him softly. My hand was stroking his hair. "I can't." Jake's equally soft answer knocked my breath away. "What? Why?" I was shocked. "I didn't mean whatever I said yesterday. It was just some stupid reaction. You have to forgive me." Jake just looked at me. "I know you didn't mean any of those shitty things yesterday. I forgave you like the minute after you said it, and yes, I still love you, but I can't take you back." "Why? You still think we're not ready for a serious relationship." My mind was turning all the cogs and gears trying to reason out his mind-boggling decision. "No..." "No what? No, you think we're not ready or no, you think we're ready?" I began to lose control of my intellect (if there was any left). "I can't take you back because..." "I can't believe this is happening. Do you want me to go on my knees and beg you for a second chance? I will." I said in desperation and was already on my knees on the bed looking down at him. "You want me to tell you or what?" Jake asked me calmly as he looked up at me. How could he be so calm while making a decision that made me want to strangle him for his stupidity and hard-headedness. I was so mad at him that I lay back on the bed on my left side, facing away from him, and waited for the inevitable. I was still going to lose him, I thought. At least he still loved me, I thought as I resigned myself to losing Jake. "I can't take you back because..." I physically cringed. "... I had never even let you go in the first place." To be continued... I hope you like this one. It's going to reach the end very soon. You can email me at fyiord@yahoo.com anytime. I had just posted my new story "Living In A Box". Hope you like that one too. Notes: * Red pill as the one taken by Neo in The Matrix. A bit corny but what the hell, I'll use it anyway. The Matrix will permeate this world's consciousness for quite some time, whether we want it or not. Don't kill the messenger. Ha ha ha.