The Exchange

Chapter 13

"Fuck," was the first thing Blaine said after he kissed me.

Uh, yeah, "fuck" was right, my dude.

The boys' soccer team, still dressed in their practice clothes from earlier that day, burst into cheers. I looked up and saw the ball in the opposing team's net. We had scored.

"Dammit, we missed a goal because somebody couldn't keep his shit together," I said.

Blaine crossed his arms. "Sorry."

I didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. Dammit, I said my feelings are canceled until further notice," he continued.

I sighed. "Calm down."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you."

"Look, Blaine. I get it. Viktor and Arti are a thing now, I think, and that just leaves the two of us. I'm not mad at you or anything. You can stop apologizing, and we can just go back to the game if you want."

He looked at me. "That's it? Nothing else?"

"If I give you a couple dollars, will you get me something to drink?"

He stood up. "What do you want?"

"Water, please." I tried to give him the money, but he didn't take it.

I watched him go down the bleachers to the concession stand.

Once he was far enough away that he wouldn't be able to hear my thoughts, all my energy was absorbed by my brain. Why would he kiss me? I narrowed down the options.

1. He was upset about Arti.

2. He was upset about Lukas.

3. He enjoyed pissing me off with his random outbursts of emotion.

4. He thought I was a constant fucking delight.

While all of them made sense, especially the first and fourth ones, I didn't want to push him any farther. Or pull him any closer. And I was certain that he didn't want that either.

I pretended to watch the game when he came back, and he handed me the bottle of water.

"Anything good happen while I was gone?" he asked.

I didn't look at him. Why didn't he take longer? "Uh, not really. They passed the ball quite a bit."

He took his seat beside me again.

So he thought that he could waltz right back and act normally? Perfect. I didn't want to have any discussions about feelings. Normal Blaine was the best Blaine.

The last thing we needed was to somehow mess up the friendship we had. Blaine was the only person who tolerated me all the time, and even though he was my loyal idiot, he was really so much more than that.

Besides, he was supposed to like Arti, which worked out great because he never had a shot with her.

I needed a distraction for both him and myself, and the best way to go about it was to ask Blaine to tell me a story.

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked.

"Go ahead," he replied.

"What's your earliest memory?"

He thought for a moment. "I have two, and they're both kind of sad. The first one is when my dad left my mom. The second is one that I choked on an apple peel and threw up on the new carpet. What's yours?"