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Tim stared at himself in the mirror. His brow was sightly furrowed and he bit on the inside of his bottom lip. He wasn't going to try and tell himself it was nothing. He knew he was clearly attracted to that kid, but he didn't want to be. He didn't want to be that way. He got sick of looking at himself and climbed into bed. He slept on a twin sized bunk bed that was about a foot too short for him. He shared a room with his 13 year old brother, Sean, who was asleep on the bottom bunk. He thought about his brother - what would he think if he found out. Then he thought about his parents. He really had no idea how they would react. He knew they were liberal, but it's not the same when it's your own blood. He decided to try and forget about it.

"This is stupid.", he said to himself. "It was just a stupid smile. I'm getting worked up over nothing."

The ride with Rick the next morning was uneventful. Tim wasn't thinking about what happened the day before. He had managed to shrug it off. He and Rick were playing paper football when the kid walked in the room.

"Hey, Tim.", the kid said.

"Hi." Tim was pretty relaxed. Inwardly he was glad this kid wasn't having an effect on him. Maybe it really was just a fluke. "Bartholomew, right?", Tim said with friendly sarcasm.

The kid smiled again and let out a laugh.

It wasn't a fluke.

"Sorry, I thought it was funny. I'm in three of your classes and you have no clue what my name is. I couldn't believe you actually thought it was Bartholomew." He waited for tim to respond, but he didn't. "It's Alex."

Tim felt his face flush a little. He thought to himself that if Alex just didn't smile, then there would be no problems. Then he realized he was taking a little long to respond, so he quickly said, "Sorry. I guess I never really payed attention.

Alex gave a confused nod and took a seat. Tim stared off into space for the remainder of homeroom. The rest of the day went pretty much the same way. Tim did not like feeling like this at all. He didn't understand why a guy could make him feel this way. His confusion slowly turned to anger and he decided he would try and burn it off during practice. Against his better judgement, he pushed himself even harder during practice.

By the end of practice his body had a knew understanding of the word sore. In fact, he was in pain. He sat under the shower for what felt like an hour. The hot water was on full and his body had turned a deep shade of red. He finished his shower and changed into some fresh clothes. He made his way to the pay phone and called his mom. She didn't answer the phone, so he tried Rick. Same thing. He walked to the curb and sat down. He contemplated whether he should wait a little while and try again, or just hop on the city bus.

"Hey, Tim." It was Alex. "Waiting again, huh?"

Tim looked up at him. there was no smile. Good. "No, I couldn't get a hold of my mom. I think I'm just gonna hop on the bus."

Alex looked at him for a moment. "Where do you live?"

"Oakland Elms", Tim replied.

"Oh, yeah?", Alex replied. "I live in Ashford. Do you want a ride? I drove here today.

Tim knew where Ashford was - just a mile or so from his house. So naturally, he said, "That's okay. I have to stop of and pick something up on my way anyway, Thank though." He picked up his bag and started to head towards the bus stop. "See ya tomorrow."

"Okay. Bye", Alex yelled back and walked towards the parking lot.

Tim had never thought the bus would take so long to get to his stop. He sat in the back, his mind going over a thousand thoughts in his head. He thought about Alex, about his friends and his family. He thought about what he was going to eat for dinner and about his dead car. He thought about Alex again. He thought about training, which reminded him about how much physical pain he was in. He thought about Alex.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, me and him. I really do like his smile and maybe being gay isn't the worse thing in the world. Then his mood turned sour again. He didn't want to be gay. Had he always been this way? He couldn't remember feeling like this toward a guy before. He has definitely had feelings like this for girls before. Then he thought more about it. He realized they had never been as strong as this. No girl had ever made him feel this way just from a smile. Then he thought about Alex's smile again. This time he smiled.

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Sorry about the short chapters...I'll try to lengthen them as i get further along.

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