Inside Out [BoyxBoy]

Chapter 9 - Summer

Jace had been gone for a while and it felt like forever.

For the past couple of weeks, I had considered an attempt of mea culpa, but I knew it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t make myself apologize to him, or conjure him into giving me another chance. Every time I thought about what happened between us, my chest would hurt when I breathed. To make matters worse, final exams had begun and the issue was still unresolved.

During the first day of the final exams, I had tried my best to apologize to Jace, hoping he’d come around since it had been quite some time since we really communicated. I had walked to his locker, reciting the apology I had memorized, silently to myself. I had promised myself to be cool and more yielding, but the sight of him made me tremble and my tongue frost to ice.

“Hi, man.” That was the best I could come up with.

“Hi,” he responded blankly.

“Er . . .  how are the first papers?” I asked. “Were they hard?”

“They were fine,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I can pass.”

I had seen in his eyes that he wanted to reach out and touch me. I even wished he would so I could at least feel the warmth of his skin. Say you’re sorry, I repeated to myself. Believe me; I tried my best to speak the right words. But I didn’t want to risk heartbreak—I didn’t want to face the fact that he might not want to forgive me.

“How’s yours?” he broke the silence.

“Biology’s hard,” I told him.

“Well, good luck. I’m going to study with Theo and his friends. I’ve promised the guy.”

When he walked away from me, I could smell his woody scent in the air.

I fucked up the first week of final papers. I couldn’t study well; my focus was shot since I was troubled repeatedly by the thought of Jace and our broken relationship. Thank God Adam and Keith were by my side—they had been the most help during the exams. Adam had always been good at math, so he tutored me, teaching me a few things and making sure I knew the material. Keith had made me memorize some lines to act as triggers to help in my writing for English. Seriously, I was pretty sure my inner Shakespeare had been killed—maybe Jace was the murderer.

Whenever Keith or Adam asked me about Jace, I could only lie, telling them that we were pretty okay. I knew they could sense the fishiness in that statement since Jace and I still kept our distance.

My head spun and I massaged my temples. I was thinking too much about what happened in the past week. I lay my head on my study desk, looking out the window, wondering what Jace was doing at the moment.

Is he thinking about me too? No, probably not—maybe he’s studying with Theo while I’m clinging on this silly hope for us to be a couple.

My chemistry textbook lay open on the desk, ionic and chemical equations waiting for me in the pages. I had to move forward if I wanted to survive high school. I had to put aside all my mate issues and focus for the final papers tomorrow, even if it was impossible.

Chemistry, the last paper for the examination, turned out to be okay. Now, I could finally breathe easy. The school year was ending, and I should’ve felt excitement coursing through me, but all I felt was empty.

During lunch, Jace sat with his usual group of admirers, but now Theo, Marcus and the rest were also in the picture. I caught him staring at me once or twice, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t out of the ordinary because we were mates and it was natural for us to be drawn to each other.