Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 22:21:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Over Rated Subject: Loving Kyle - Chapter Two Kyle and I were walking home after school. We hated taking the bus home since most of the kids would either make fun of us or mess with us. So, we walked to either my house or Kyle's house most days and since our houses were in opposite directions of the school, we had to decide whose house we wanted to go to and we usually went to my house. There was no real reason other than the fact that my house was slightly closer and I had a PS3 and Kyle didn't. So we went there more frequently. I had a mission that day, though. I needed to figure out if Kyle was gay or if he had feelings for me or anything of that nature. I had to know. We were walking home like any other day. It was kind of cold since it was the beginning of December and it was getting to be winter. We were quiet. No real reason other than the fact that we were just quiet all the time pretty much. It wasn't more than 15 minutes later that we reached my house. I took my key out of my pocket and put it into the doorknob and opened the door. My parents didn't get home until a few hours after I did, my dad got home later than my mom did, though. We dropped our bags next to the door where we always did. I went into the kitchen and looked what there was to eat. We never ate at school because the food was just not appetizing to us. It wasn't like slop or anything; we were just very specific when it came to food. There was nothing in the fridge, so I closed it and opened up the freezer. I saw a box of pizza Hot Pockets. Kyle and I knew what each other liked to eat, so I never really needed to ask what he wanted and we trusted each other when it came to picking food. So, I grabbed the box of Hot Pockets and put two on a plate while Kyle was pouring us soda. Kyle drank Mountain Dew and I drank Pepsi; always. We never drank any other sodas. I put the food in the microwave for two minutes and sat on the counter to wait while Kyle brought the drinks into my room where we always ate when we went to my house. While Kyle brought the drinks to my room and the microwave counted down, my thoughts were racing. How would I bring this up? How would I ask him? Should I just flat out ask, "Kyle, are you gay"? Do I start by telling him I like him? I just didn't know how to go about it and this wasn't really the type of thing you can ask for advice on how to do. I didn't even know how Kyle felt about gay people because this is another one of those topics, such as girls that we just never talked about. He wasn't a hateful person, so I didn't think he would, but what if I was wrong? Then another thought came to me; "But what if I was right?" The microwave timer went off and made me realize I was biting a fingernail and staring at the floor tiles. I hopped off of the counter and took the Hot Pockets out of the microwave. I unintentionally did this slowly. I wanted time to go as slow as possible. As I was walking towards my room, Kyle walked out and stopped when he saw me. "Oh, I was wondering what was taking you so long." He said and then walked back into my room. I continued to walk down the hall into my room still contemplating how I would go about this conversation. I walked into my room and saw Kyle sitting on my bed flipping through the channels on my TV. I put the plate down onto my computer desk and sat in my spinny computer chair. Kyle put some movie on TV, but I didn't know what movie it was and grabbed one of the Hot Pockets. "Dude, they're hot!" I said worrying about his hand. "Ow!" He yelped while putting it back on the plate. "Shit, that's hot." "That's what I told you." I said. "Yeah, after I picked it up." He replied. "Sor-ry." I said offended that he got pissed when I tried to help him. "Sorry," He said as he put his thumb and index finger in his mouth. "My fingers just burn." Kyle then dipped his fingers in his Mountain Dew and when he took them out, he licked the soda off, which I found to be a little sexy. "I'll go get you some cream." I told him as I got up and walked into the bathroom. I was still really nervous about this whole situation. I couldn't just ignore it anymore. I HAD to know. I took some cream out of the medicine cabinet and walked back to my room where I saw Kyle looking at his fingers. "Here, this cream will make it feel better." I told him. "Okay." Kyle said as he put his hand out with his index and middle finger pointing out. This was strange. Did Kyle want me to put the cream on his fingers? I didn't wait for my mind to answer. I squeezed the tube until the cream got on my fingers and I gently put some on Kyle's fingers. Kyle grabbed his soda while I was rubbing the cream on his fingers. He didn't really seem to mind. He took a sip of his soda and put the glass back down on the desk. "There." I said when I was done smearing the cream on his fingers. "Thanks." He replied and then carefully grabbed the Hot Pocket again. We sat watching the movie on TV while eating our lunch and drinking our sodas. Well, Kyle was; I was really wondering how I would go about this. And it had to happen now. "Kyle." I said. "I need to ask you something." "Okay." He said sounding unalarmed by my phrasing that so many get nervous by when hearing those words. I paused for a moment. "What do you think about gay people?" I asked. "What do you mean?" He replied. "I mean, like, do you think gay people are bad, or are you cool with them or what?" I elaborated. "I don't know." He said. "Why?" I paused again with my heart beating faster than it ever has in my entire life. "Because I'm gay." I told him. "What?" Kyle asked. "I said I'm gay, Kyle." I replied. Another pause. "And I wanted to know if you would hate me if I told you." I continued while staring at the ground. Yet another dreaded pause. "Well," Kyle began sounding confused. "This is a surprise. I mean, I didn't know you were gay and this is kind of random." My eyes, which were about to cry lifted from the ground to his face, which was looking straight at me. "I mean, I don't hate you or anything." Kyle told me. "It's just kind of weird." My heart sunk when he said that. "We're still friends, I mean." He said. "It's just that this is a big surprise. But, why are you telling me this?" I thought for a moment. "Because I've known for a while and I was afraid you wouldn't be my friend if I told you and I realized that the longer it went on without you knowing, the weirder it would seem." I confessed. "Oh." He said sounding sympathetic. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like this is going to affect our friendship." I started to feel better as he continued. "I mean, this doesn't really change anything. We're still friends; it's just that I didn't expect this, especially out of nowhere. Does anyone else know?" "No." I told him. "You're the only person I've told." "Oh." He replied. "Is there any reason you old me first and not your parents or something like that?" "Yeah." I told him. "Because I like you." I couldn't believe I just said that.