Chapter 7

This story describes the relationship and love life of two underage fictional boys. Any likeness between the characters of this story and real people are purely coincidental. If it is not legal to view this type of material, or you are not 18 years of age, read at your own risk. All material pertaining to this story is copyrighted to the author. Do not repost without permission.

"It's just what Blake?" I asked, anger seeping into my voice. I let him hold me though, his hands resting gently on my shoulders. "What the hell happened to make you so distant? It was more than me coming out to you guys, and you moving. What was it Blake?"

He looked at me, tears forming in his eyes. Whatever he was about to say, he had been wanting to say it for a long time.

One of my rule of thumb's is that life sucks, so get a helmet. Somehow, I doubted that any helmet would have saved me from the bomb that had gone off in my room that night. Nothing had prepared me for seeing Blake again. Nothing could have. I mean, once you stop talking to someone, you tend to forget about them. Bit by bit, like links in a chain, the memories fade and disappear.

Well, most memories.

The painful ones tend to stick with us the longest.

It was Friday now, 4 days since me and Blake had unsuccessfully tried to rebuild our friendship.

I wondered if that smoking cinder of a bridge could ever be rebuilt.

We were ignoring each other, the same way we had been for the past 4 days. I would come into the classroom, and he'd be sitting there. We'd both stiffen a little bit, but I'd give him the cold shoulder and walk to my seat, and look purposely forward at the blackboard. He would to.

It tore me to pieces every time.

"Today class," Beaky said as soon as the bell rang, "I'm assigning you your semester projects. Now, this is a very important assignment, so I suggest you listen closely..."

And so began a boring half an hour of explanations. To boil it down, we were going to break into pairs of her choice and research something - a person, place, event, thing, idea, whatever we wanted - and write a paper and do a presentation on it, all due at the end of the semester. She, of course, went on to show us some A+ papers and presentations, handed out sheets with recommended topics and project ideas.

Then came the sorting.

She started pointing at people seemingly at random and calling there names. It took her awhile, but she eventually picked me.

"Jase, you'll be working with..." she glanced around the room, while I sat hoping she didn't say...

"Blake..."

"Do I have-"

"Yes."

I don't usually hate people, but she was one of the few I did at that moment in time.

I looked over at Blake. His face was blank and emotionless. Only his eyes gave any hint as to what he was thinking or feeling. The sparkle there may have been one of hope or despair, happiness or sadness.

I just hope we could work through this, for greater reasons than some stupid school project.

"Well, that's it for today," Beaky said, "I suggest you exchange phone numbers and address's with your partners before the end of class."

There was a scuffling of chairs and a murmur as kids found their partners and started exchanging info. I just sat there. If Blake wanted to work with me, he could come to my house. He'd found it once, he can find it again...

"Jase."

I looked up from the paper I was scribbling on to see Bake staring at it. I looked down and was surprised to see tab written there. I'm not much of a musician, but I had taken up the bass guitar a couple months after Blake had moved, and could usually write out the tab to a song I've listened to.

"What?" I asked, rather more stonily that I intended, flipping my notebook shut.

A piece of paper dropped in front of me. On it was an address and phone number.

"Come over this weekend Jase. Please?"

He looked so sad, and at the same time was full of resolve. I was suddenly aware of a great chasm forming between us. Two years of silence and an argument will do that. This was our last chance.

"I'll try," I said quietly, folding the paper and putting it in my pocket.

"Okay, see you later," he said, turning and leaving as the bell rang. I sat there for a few seconds, thinking about what was coming up.

One of my more annoying habits is trying to figure out what will happen in a conversation before I even start it. Here, I could see it going in several. One would be another argument that would bring an utter end to our friendship. Another would be that we can't get along comfortably any more. We'd still be friends, but we would never be close.

Then, there was us getting along, becoming better friends than before...

...maybe even boyfriends.

These thoughts wrestled through my mind all day long. I couldn't concentrate on school, so I put my mind on autopilot, and hoped for the best. Home was the same way, and I went to bed early, hoping I'd get some escape in my dreams. No luck there either.

Saturday morning. I watch, slightly red eyed, as the sun rose. The sky slowly lightening, gentle hues of pink, red, and orange push away the black and blue of night. The light growing more intense, then, the sun itself broke over the horizon.

I groan an look away from the window as sunlight streamed straight into my open eyes. I look at the alarm clock on the desk next to my bed. 6:53am. I groaned again, rolled over, and tried to get more sleep. I listened as my mom got up and left for work. I was alone now, lying in my boxers in bed, watching the minutes tick by.

Finally, at around 8, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. After that, I headed, fully dressed, into the kitchen and poured some cereal for breakfast. A book of crossword puzzles was on the counter, so I opened that up to do one. As I did so, a note fell out.

It was Blake's note. I hadn't noticed before, but he had actually written something to me other than were he lived and how to get a hold of him on it. I unfolded it, uncertain I wanted to know what it said. What if he wanted me to just stay away from him?

I read: