I'm Gay, He's Straight -SERIES- [boyxboy]

*Kiss Me Like You Did* IGHS Sequel {08} Slash

Taylor’s POV

‘We should probably try to stay apart.’

I knew it was the right thing to do, to say. I knew I had to stay away from Jake, to protect my already irreparably damaged heart from being broken all over again.

So why did it feel like somebody had ripped a hole in my chest and was slowly tugging on the edges, making it bigger, all encompassing; as I was collapsing into it?

I was sitting on my bed, my knees pulled up to my chest, in the corner beside the window where my pillows were. I had pulled the curtains and the room was in relative darkness; the sun outside was bright and hot and the curtains weren’t thick enough to keep it out completely, but the dimness was enough so that when the door opened and somebody walked inside, he managed to trip over his own feet.

‘Oof!’ I heard somebody exclaiming as they landed with a thud on the floor. I didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to engage, but I knew if I kept silent, it would be pretty, well, creepy.

‘You okay?’ I managed to choke out, as a dark, shadowy form pulled itself back into an upright position. I could see the vague outline of a suitcase and some bags by the door; my roommate had finally arrived, a day after everyone else.

‘Yeah, but you’re clearly not,’ the voice said, obviously registering the distress in my voice. ‘I’m Landon.’

‘Taylor,’ I replied, not moving from my place on the bed, even though I knew I should probably go help him with his stuff.

‘You wanna talk about it?’ Landon asked, pretty easily for someone who had just met me.

‘Not really,’ I mumbled.

‘Well, it’s cool if you do,’ he said cheerfully. ‘If you change your mind I mean. I’m the Dorm Assistant, so it’s pretty much my job,’ he added lightly, as if it was the thought of burdening him that made me reluctant to talk.

‘The what?’ I asked, curious in spite of myself.

‘Dorm Assistant. It’s a student who assists the Dorm Director? I just help out with administration, student difficulty, and so on.’

‘Do you get paid?’

‘Less than slave children in India,’ he said, his tone getting a little dark for a minute before brightening again. ‘But you gotta pay the bills somehow right?’

‘Um,’ I said, having no concept of what it would be like to have to put myself through college. ‘Right.’

‘What are you studying?’

‘Liberal arts. English. You?’

‘Third year Civil Engineering,’ Landon said, and I was surprised I’d been roomed with an older student. Also, unless Jake had changed as radically as me over the last year, I knew he’d be taking engineering as well.

‘I’ve got a... Friend doing that,’ I said, choking a little on the word “friend”.

‘Ex-girlfriend?’ Landon asked, picking up on my tone. He was more intuitive than I thought. I bet he was pretty good at that Dorm Assistant thing.

‘Boyfriend,’ I corrected him quietly. Living in California, there hadn’t often been a lot of negative reaction when people learned my sexuality, and there’d been none in Ireland, based, probably, on the fact that I came out only about two weeks before I left. But I was still always a little wary when telling people for the first time. I mean, I’d spent the majority of the last year having to find explanations for every little thing about me; being psychoanalysed and judged was the last thing I wanted at college.