Sophomore Year (Smopkins #2)

Sleepover

"This is where you wanted to take me?" Gary asked, eyes focused on the lighthouse in the distance. He was still uneasy and frazzled from his episode at the carnival, but getting out of that place helped.

"Yep."

Gary looked down at him. "Why?"

"Well..." Jimmy asked, starting to walk again. Gary figured he was going to the dock. "Depends. Are you tired?"

He followed, watching the gentle waves lap across the sand. Gary wasn't sure if he was tired... in fact, he wasn't sure how he felt at all. After what happened at the carnival, Gary's emotions were twisted in every direction, and he was sick of it. Sick of not knowing what was happening to him, or how he felt. He was unable to answer simple questions. Are you tired? How do you feel?

Maybe it was time to start taking his meds. Not all at once, of course, but he would go on one medication, and if things worked well then he would add another... but he was not taking those damn sleeping pills. Never again.

"I could sleep," Gary lied. He didn't want to make the walk all the way to Bullworth, but it seemed like things were coming to an end. Gary kind of wanted time to himself, anyway. To think things over. As much as he liked the attention from Jimmy, he was overwhelmed.

Jimmy nodded. "Well, I was gonna see if you wanted to go swimming. But it's okay." Jimmy kept walking, despite what Gary said.

Swimming? It was way too cold for that, and he didn't want to walk back to Bullworth in dripping wet clothes. Unless Jimmy wanted to skinny dip, which would be... worse, somehow. "Why would I want to go swimming?"

"You have to live a little, Gary. But if you want to sleep, that's okay." He pulled something silver out of his pocket, and a twinge of panic ran through Gary's chest. A knife. Jimmy was going to kill him?

No. Why would Jimmy want to kill him? And if Jimmy did want to kill him, why would he want to take him to the carnival and go swimming first?

Well, that was obvious. The carnival was a way to get him out of the dorms, and then... swimming... Jimmy could drown him. That was it.

"What is that?" Gary choked out, before his eyes focused in the dim light from the moon and he realized what it was. A keyring. God, he was an idiot. "Uh... I mean, where are we going?"

Jimmy picked one from the batch and held it between his index and ring finger. "You see that beach house?" He could see that Jimmy had a fair amount of keys on him, and he wondered where they all went to. One key went to the library, he knew that for a fact, because Jimmy snuck him in one night to talk to him. He cringed thinking about what he confessed in there. But the other ones? The other keys? Maybe they went to other places in the school, or even buildings in town. Why would anybody trust Jimmy enough to give him a key?

"Yeah, the house that we're standing right in front of, and probably going to get shot or arrested for trespassing?" He considered the possibility that one of the keys went to the beach house. It made sense. "Or breaking and entering?"

"It's mine." He smiled and turned around to face Gary. "But it's cute. When you worry and stuff."

Gary swallowed his spit. He didn't know what to say to that, so he just kept walking, staring at the building as it drew nearer. Jimmy owned a beach house. Of course he did. The question was why? And how? Who gave that to him? He wasn't old enough to have a mortgage or anything.

Was he the only person who knew about it? Gary wondered if Jimmy brought all of his girlfriends here and had sex with them, but then he remembered Mandy in Jimmy's bedroom that night... ugh.