The cool breeze passed us. The tree's green and light orange foliage dancing with it, brushing against the blades of grass covering the ground and tugging on the crumpled corners of the photograph I was holding. The sky remained almost cloudless as the sun moved down from its peak. There were no other people around, except for some few kids running wild down beyond the soccer field. Silence made every other sound unimportant. The only sound I paid attention to was my own voice asking lots and lots of questions in my head. Despite my effort in searching for all the answers, I could only do as much as find the one printed on a thin piece of paper in my hands. Still, I wasn't quite sure.

"This is..." I whispered, finding no more words I could say.

"He was an odd kid. He always had that blush on his face. Natural, he said," Andre spoke to no one in particular. He found the trifling leaves interesting as he looked up to them.

"I don't get it. How is this supposed to explain anything?" I turned to him, looking at the side of his face.

"I, uh. I kind of ended up together...with him." His voice almost cracked. I could tell that he was embarrassed telling me this.

"You replaced me with...with someone who looked like me?"

"Well, actually," he paused for a bit, his hesitation was clear enough as he spoke.

"What? Am I missing something?" I was getting a little annoyed at how slow he was going with this.

Andre looked at me. His eyes showed fear. He breathed in deep, hiding the sky that dwelled in his eyes. His head leaned back on the tree as he held his breath for quite a while. I counted the time with my heart beat. As it appeared to me, Andre looked like he wasn't breathing at all. When it seemed like I lost count, he exhaled. But it looked more like he finally let the gag out through his mouth. He looked at me once again, showing me a perfect mirror image of the sky.

"The first time I moved to Sweden, just a short time after my mom's death, I wasn't quite sure how I'd fit in. It was a whole different world to me. I was six years old and was really afraid of setting foot outside our house. My dad said I should try making friends with the kids there. But, see, I don't know how to speak their language. Dad began teaching me some, but I learned more from someone else." Andre looked at me more intently to see if I was paying attention. I was all ears and I knew he could tell that. He leaned his head back on the tree and looked at the leaves once more. Then, he continued.

"I met him at a playground one day. I only went there because my dad insisted. But I still had no friends and was sitting alone on one end of the seesaw. Then this boy who looked about my age asked me something. I still wasn't good with Swedish, but I understood the `play' and `you' part. I nodded, hesitantly anyway. He reached up for the other end so I stood up and let him on it. Soon, both of us were going up and down and up and down. He was saying lots of stuff and I could only laugh as he laughed with me. I actually felt like flying that time. I wasn't all alone anymore. This kid became my first real friend. Then, he became my best friend." Andre stopped and waited for me to say something.

"His name...his name was Kristofer, wasn't it?" I asked, barely able to keep my voice from stuttering.

"We stuck together ever since. He helped me with my Swedish and I taught him how to sing. Well, tried anyway. He just didn't sound so good. We went almost everywhere together. We did all stuff together, had a crush on the same girl and always picked fights with the wrong guys. But we got away every time," Andre chuckled as he was telling me this, but he quickly became serious again as he continued.

"Then, when we were about ten years old, I began having these really confusing feelings inside. I started looking at him differently. I was suddenly checking him out. I felt awkward around him as time passed by, always stiffening at the slightest brush of his legs on mine. He remained as he was while I fought with my...my crush on him. He didn't seem to notice anyway so I just kept it to myself. I had my eyes on him `til the time we moved back here. I was really sad with leaving him. And I could tell he was, too. But what surprised me was when he kissed me goodbye on the cheek. That's when I really noticed how adorable he looked blushing. I didn't kiss him back, though. I was afraid. It may have hurt him, but I don't know. He just looked like he was about to cry." Andre paused again, looking down at his lap while gathering his thoughts. He sighed and went on.

"Then we were in Dallas again. I must've looked really sad `coz my dad had this really worried face. We moved in to our house and I remember just falling on my bed tired. The next day, my dad was in my room with breakfast. After I ate, he moved closer to me and started asking me all sorts of questions. That's when we had the talk. He never did ask anything about me being gay. He mostly asked about Kristofer. I was really relieved when we were done talking. I knew that he understood me so much. I felt regretful not having talked to him about it sooner. Maybe if I did...maybe I'd ended up with Kristofer. But I knew I couldn't have when I first arrived at the studio. Ms. Jane's studio." Andre looked at me with those same piercing eyes when we first met.

"You...that's when you met me," I absentmindedly said.

"No, Peter. That's when we met each other," he said as he carefully inched closer to me. He started leaning into me. I couldn't move. He had me under his spell again. I couldn't do anything, but just to submit myself to him as he held the side of my face, closing the distance between us. He started closing his eyes, but my own were just staring at him, unsure with how I'm supposed to react.

Finally, Andre's taste flooded my mouth. I knew that was impossible since I hadn't opened my mouth for him and his lips were only pressed on mine so gently. It may have been because Andre's sweet, sweet taste never left my mouth ever since. He must have reawakened those sleeping sugary molecules in my mouth as it finally reconnected with its owner. I felt my heart beating faster and faster despite our kiss not getting deeper and deeper. Andre just had that effect on me. And I could also smell his amazing scent which I never thought that I even longed for as much as his kiss. And his hand on my cheek, those same gentle and playful and burning hands, just felt so warm and so damn...right. This whole scene just felt so right. But my jumbled up reason smacked me hard on the head and I pushed him hard.

"What the fuck, Andre! What were you thinking?" I was panting heavily as Andre sat there helplessly, rubbing his shoulder that hit the tree's bark. He looked just as frightened as I was. In my mind, all I thought of was, `What the fuck was I thinking?' I stood up and was about to leave when Andre called out to me.

"Peter, wait! Let me finish first."

"You did that on purpose! You're playing me again, aren't you?" I shouted at him.

"Peter, I didn't mean it. I...I couldn't stop myself. Oh god, Peter. I'm really sorry. Please, just hear me out some more. I swear I won't do that again. Please..." He sounded really pathetic begging for me not to leave. I just stood there, looking at him. I closed my eyes and breathed in and breathed out.

"If you ever do that again, I'll beat the crap out of you. Got it?"

"I promise, I won't. Just let me finish then you can go wherever you want to," he said.

I sat back down again, making sure that the distance between us would never close again. Well, half of my attention was focused on keeping our bodies apart. I wasn't going to let him catch me off-guard again. He looked relieved, but kept his eyes off me.

"I swear, Peter. He just didn't have the same effect you had in me. I knew I wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to tell him everything. But I held back. I knew I could hold back my feelings for him. But you, Peter," he looked at me once again. "You're just so different. I just couldn't hold back and I don't know why."

"Tell me, Andre," I began, refusing to mirror his eyes, while my voice kept calm. "Tell me the truth. I was the replacement in the first place, wasn't I? His replacement."

"Peter, you know you aren't."

"Damn it, Andre! We look alike! And once you never got your way with him, you turned to me. And with your dad telling you it's okay, that was the go signal for you to stop holding back and...and..." I trailed off.

"No, Peter. You're just so different from him. Even if my dad didn't tell me anything, I couldn't have held back on you. You pulled me in, Peter. You're so much more than him." He sounded really sincere. But the fact remained that he...

"Then why did you end up with him and forgot about me?" I looked at him fiercely, questioningly, hurtfully.

"I...I...missed you."

"And you think I didn't miss you? I was always waiting for you to answer my calls! And those messages I sent... I missed you a lot, Andre," I said, feeling my eyes well up. "It was so easy for you to forget me..."

"I didn't forget you, Peter. I never did."

"Yeah?" I chuckled a bit. "You make me laugh, Andre. You expect me to believe you?"

"I didn't forget you, Peter," he said once again. "I was just...scared. `Coz of what we...we did."

"Spit it out. I don't have time for mind games," I hastily told him. He sighed and continued talking.

"We did some stuff together. He...he made a move on me. And I was just so helpless I couldn't stop him. His voice was different, but all I saw was you, Peter. You were there, so close for me to touch. I...I finally gave in."

"That's it?" I knew there was something more and I wanted to know everything.

"I thought it was only for one night. But he kept coming back almost every day. It didn't help that we went to the same school. Then, this one evening, just when I was about to reply to your message, I looked at him sleeping on my bed. I was almost sure it was you... I never got to press `send' ever again."

"You're pathetic. You never did love me. You're just some horny bastard," I told him bitterly. "Damn it, Andre. Why did I ever fall for you?" I stood up to leave. He didn't look like he wanted to stop me this time. Instead, he said just one last thing.

"I loved you, Peter. I still do. What Kristofer and I had wasn't love. It was only physical. Still, I felt guilty and afraid of what you might think. We never got together as a couple `coz he...well, he already had someone else."

"That sucks, huh? Goodbye, Andre. Hope I never see you again," I said as I started walking back toward the school. I noticed that I still had the photograph in my one hand. I looked at it once more. The boy really had an innocent look. It was hard to imagine that he'd be the one to make a move on Andre. I scowled at it, thinking, `You fucking piece of horny shit.' I threw it away and let the wind carry it to hell.

I went home still thinking of what Andre told me. It hurt knowing that he did some stuff with another boy. I never did anything with Luke. I was afraid that I might end up moaning Andre's name instead. Fortunately, Luke was so patient with me. He didn't make any move that would scare the hell out of me. Maybe he thought that I still didn't know how two boys made love. If only he knew. If only I told him. If only I wasn't so hell bent on my feelings for Andre. Well, after having that talk with him, I finally thought that I might forget him for good. He was just a part of my past. Right now, I had Luke and he needed me to be there for him, whatever it was he was going through.

Next day, in first period, I waited for Luke to come in and sit beside me. I was dying to know what was bothering him so much. I wanted to help him, to let him know that I was there for him no matter what. Just a few minutes before the bell, Luke walked through the door wearing an unreadable expression. He looked at me and finally smiled. I just looked at him questioningly. He took the seat next to me, as he always did, and I was almost going to ask him what happened just when our teacher came in. We had math and oh, how I hated numbers.

We haven't got the chance to talk during classes and at lunch time, there was just too many people around. Anyway, Luke seemed troubled for most of the day. When school finally ended, Luke decided to skip baseball practice and led both of us toward their house. This wasn't the first I went over to Luke's. But this was the first time I felt uneasy doing so.

"Luke, what happened?" I asked, both of us seated together on the bus.

"I'll tell you when we get to our house, okay? And don't worry too much," he said, discreetly squeezing my hand in his.

We arrived at their house later and immediately went upstairs to Luke's bedroom. His mom and dad were nowhere around so they must still be at work. Luke was an only child so he had no brother or sister to mess around with. He was lucky, I thought. With an older brother always ready to kick my ass, I felt really unfortunate. But Kyle wasn't all that bad anyway.

Luke sat on his bed, throwing away his backpack on a pile of baseball gear just next to it. I sat on his bed as well, carefully placing my things on the floor. His room was rather cool, with posters of baseball players scattered on each wall. It was starting to get real quiet.

"Luke, what's the problem?" I asked, looking at him.

"It's really hard, Peter," he said, sounding somewhat defeated.

"What is?"

"My mom and dad. They're...they're getting divorced," he sounded like he was about to cry. I moved closer to him and drew him into a hug. "Well, they are now anyway."

"Luke. I'm really sorry," I whispered. I felt him sob a little, but he mostly kept his emotions in control. I admired that about Luke. He was tough, really tough. But even someone as tough as him found this to be really hard to deal with.

"They...they fought for custody over me," he said. I was afraid where this was going. I held him tighter against me.

"My dad...He never fought that hard for me. He was just sitting there like nothing's happening. I hate him."

"Luke, don't say that. Maybe he had some other things troubling him."

"No, Peter. He just didn't fight for me!" Luke withdrew from my hold and there was just so much pain in his eyes as I stared into them. Those soft, green orbs looked almost withered and dead. "But, I'm glad he didn't win. I would've moved to New York with him if he won. I don't want to leave you, Peter."

I felt my heart slowly coming at ease. So Luke wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Still, he had to deal with all of this. I was about to say something when he beat me to it.

"I'm staying, Peter. I'm staying for good," he said. Somehow, it wasn't Luke's voice that I heard. It was Andre's. Luke closed the distance between us and sealed his lips on mine. It took me a while to respond, but as soon as I opened my mouth, he pushed me down on his bed.

Our kiss deepened quickly as I began closing my eyes and pushing Andre off my mind. I hated myself for still thinking of him even when I had Luke straddling me on his warm bed. This taste was different, but something just wasn't right. Something felt missing. Luke finally withdrew as I was slowly catching my breath, staring deep into his eyes that almost mirrored my emerald ones.

"Peter. There's something you're not telling me," he said as he got off me and sat on his bed once again. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at him. He was staring into the far corner of his room.

"Luke..."

"I saw you yesterday...at school." His tone was serious while my heart almost stopped at every word he said.

"Why didn't you tell me about him? You don't trust me, do you, Peter?" I feared how his eyes were hard on me. He was upset, really upset. I sat up and began moving closer to him, but he withdrew from me as soon as my hand tapped on his shoulder.

"Luke, it's not like that. You know well I trust you. I was just...I just didn't want to talk about him anymore," I told him, in all honesty I could muster.

"It didn't look like you ever stopped talking to him. You were kissing him," he accused.

"He kissed me! I pushed him off me. You saw that!" I was on the defensive with this one.

"Hn." He grunted. He didn't believe, I could tell. "It was him that upset you all this time, wasn't it? I knew something was definitely wrong every time I went to your house just before I asked you out. I didn't ask you, `coz it looked like you didn't want to talk about it."

"Luke..." he cut me off before I could continue.

"I'm not that stupid, Peter. I knew about Andre a long time ago. And it hurts me that you kept it from me. You know I could've understood. You know that..."

"You...you knew about him?" I got suddenly confused. How the hell did he know?

"Ask your cousin. He slipped that one time. But it's not his fault." Luke averted his eyes from me again. "Sometimes when I come over to your house, your mom would ask this one thing from me. She said something was bothering you, that maybe it had something to do with a friend of yours. I asked her who it was and she said someone who was really close to you, but had moved far away. Andre, she said. She wanted me to ask you if that was true, but I couldn't force myself to ask you anyway. I wanted you to tell me, without me asking. I wanted you...to trust me."

"Luke. I do trust you, believe me," I said, attempting once again to move closer to him. "What Andre and I had...that was a long time ago. I have you now, Luke. We both have each other. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I just wanted to forget about him. I didn't want to talk about him. But...but he just came back all of a sudden. He just wanted to talk and I really didn't like him kissing me yesterday." I felt a stab at my heart as I said that. I tried ignoring the pain, but ended up cussing in my mind, `Damn it.'

"I want to believe you, Peter. But, from what I saw, I just can't." He didn't sound angry. "I think you should go now. We'll talk again tomorrow. I need to clear my head first."

"But, Luke..."

"No, Peter. You should go. Don't worry, I'm not really mad. And I think...that you should go check on Andre."

I got that really bad feeling in my gut all of a sudden. At Luke's insistence and my hesitation, I left their house more confused than ever. Several things were on my mind. For one, Kieran had some explanation to do. And as for my mom, well, I couldn't really blame her. And Andre. Just what had happened to Andre after I left him?

I rode the bus home and was really annoyed at how slow the fucking thing went. After jumping off at the bus stop, I jogged toward our house. This gut feeling was getting worse every time my foot landed on the pavement. I arrived at our house, and noticed an unfamiliar SUV parked in our driveway. My heart was racing this time. I was panting as well. I tried calming myself before approaching our house. Just outside the door, I heard muffled sounds of some people talking. My mom was there, I could tell. But one other voice reached my ears. That accent, that heavy accent. It was Charlie.

~*~*~*~

~*~*~*~

"Damn it, Andre! Wake up!" I was so angry at him for ignoring me like this. He didn't respond at all. This was a whole a lot different from when he ignored my messages. He was right here in front of me, lying on a hospital bed with tubes going through his mouth and nose and an IV hooked to his right arm. God, how I wanted to see those eyes again. How I wanted to see him smile. But no, his face had several scratches and his head was wrapped in bandages. His beautiful eyes were hidden behind purplish eyelids and his rosy cheeks were nothing but pale. Charlie was holding me by the shoulders as I pounded the bed over and over again.

"Peter, calm down, please. He can't hear you. But I know he's glad that you're here."

I gave up and spun myself around only to be met by Charlie's tight hug. I felt myself begin to sob. He rubbed my back telling me it was going to be okay. I couldn't hold it much longer and just cried against his suit.

On our way to the hospital, in Charlie's SUV, I learned that Andre got hit by a speeding car that came right out of a dangerous curve near our school. The driver left in a hurry, not bothering to take Andre to the hospital. Maybe it was some doped teenagers, but he didn't really know. Charlie was really thankful, though, that someone had called 911. The caller didn't want to be identified, just said that he was a student from Miller High and that there was a boy that needed medical attention fast. In my mind, all I could think of was Luke. He saved Andre. Luke saved Andre.