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

*Kiss Me Like You Did* IGHS Sequel {07} Slash

Homophobic parents? Johnny asked.

Cost of communication, I lied uneasily. Anyway, I was... I was too dependent on him.

You were heartbroken, Johnny corrected me.

Yeah. And I got sick. I couldn’t eat or get out of bed and I stopped talking. I had panic attacks. My parents sent me to all these different doctors, but I refused meds and they couldn’t really help me. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to talk about anything, so I just stopped going.

What do you have, exactly? Johnny asked curiously. I laughed a little; typical pre-med.

Severe clinical depression, systematic anorexia, mild panic disorder... I let my hands drop onto my lap uselessly, then added, The usual, trying to lighten the mood.

Johnny bit his lip. Pre-med me wants to tell you to stop being so stupid and go on meds, he started. But normal me knows that won’t work.

There’s no cure for my weirdness, I joked.

Yeah there is, Johnny replied seriously, staring into my eyes, and neither of us had to say his name to know what that cure was.

--------------------------------------------

I knocked on Kelly’s dorm room door lightly later, having talked some more with Johnny and leaving him at the stairs as he went back to his room and I climbed up to the next floor.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ I blinked in the face of pocket-sized emo-looking chick, who was glaring up at me angrily from the doorway.

I’m here to see- I started, then dropped my hands; signing becomes second nature pretty quickly. ‘My sister...’ I said, gesturing to the room weakly. The girl’s face changed; her angry expression dissolved and she grinned broadly at me.

‘Jake!’ she exclaimed, and stood back to let me in. ‘I should have known. You guys look alike.’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered, stepping inside to see Kel lounging on her bed broodily, staring at her phone, which she was holding up in front of her face as though willing it to ring.

‘She’s waiting for Ethan to text her,’ the angry girl whispered conspiratorially. Then, ‘I’m Halley, by the way.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, trying to be polite. ‘Fringo kakk loley,’ I added to Kelly, who looked up.

‘I will not put it down,’ she said desperately. She always gets like this after a date. ‘What if he calls?’

‘Then you’ll hear it going off,’ I said, walking across the room and snatching it from her. I put it in my pocket so she couldn’t grab it back. ‘How’d it go?’

‘Pretty good,’ she sighed, looking a little forlorn, but then perked up and stared at me incredulously. ‘What the hell? Why are we talking about me? How did it go with Taylor?!’

‘Who’s Taylor?’ Halley asked excitedly. ‘Is she hot?’

‘Halley’s a lez,’ Kelly told me, her eyes sparkling. There was only one thing going through my sister’s mind in regard to her roommate, and helping each other with assignments wasn’t it. ‘And Taylor’s a guy,’ she added to Halley, who made a face, disappointed.

‘Juju poro oog,’ I said lightly to Kel. It’s a secret. My head was starting to spin with keeping English, sign language, and this dumb twin language separate in my head. I thought Spanish was gonna be the worst I’d have to navigate coming to America; apparently not.

‘Can you tell me?’ Kelly asked bluntly, not bothering to hide anything from Halley.

I shrugged. ‘He said I could.’

‘I get it, I get it,’ Halley said, sighing with feigned annoyance. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘I’ll lick you out later,’ Kelly offered as compensation, and Halley stuck her tongue out before closing the door behind her.

‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘You had to say that in front of me?’

‘I did it with your girlfriend too,’ Kel said bluntly, and I rolled my eyes.

‘As if I don’t have enough trouble keeping food down,’ I muttered.

‘So? What happened?’

I settled myself against the pillows beside her, and tipped my head back, closing my eyes, as I told her the whole story.

‘He tried to what?!’ Kelly demanded, when I told her about Taylor’s attempted overdose.

‘That was pretty much my reaction too,’ I admitted, biting my lip. It killed me to think about Taylor in so much pain.

‘And Ryan saved his life?’

I bristled. ‘Taylor wouldn’t have tried if he’d been allowed to talk to me,’ I snapped defensively.

Kelly put her hand on my arm, biting her lip. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘But if Ryan didn’t exist, then Taylor would be... He’d be...’

‘Yeah and if I didn’t exist he wouldn’t be so depressed in the first place, right?’ I asked angrily. I wasn’t really annoyed with Kelly; this was all my thoughts and anxieties since he’d told me what had happened emerging from my head. It was my fault.

‘Bullshit,’ Kelly hissed. ‘Taylor owes the happiest part of his life to you. I knew he was in love with you long before you did, and even back then he was ecstatically happy just being around you. There’s only one person to blame here and it’s that stupid pseudo-psychiatrist.’

I looked down, trying to convince myself that she was right.

‘He said we should stay away from each other,’ I said meekly, staring at my hands.

‘Taylor did? Why on earth would he say something like that?’

‘He said he couldn’t trust himself with me. He... He kissed me,’ I almost whispered.

‘He what?!’ Kelly shrieked, sitting forward on the bed and staring at me. ‘Oh my god! What does that mean?’

‘It means he wants us to stay away from each other,’ I mumbled, shrugging. ‘I guess... I guess he’s choosing Ryan, or something. If there was ever a choice to make.’

‘Well of course there was a choice to make!’ Kelly exploded. ‘He’s obviously not over you. Why is he staying with Ryan? Why is Ryan staying with him, when he obviously knows he’s not over you?’

I shrugged. I was starting to feel very tired.

‘What have you eaten today?’ Kelly asked suddenly, glaring at me.

‘I had some cereal,’ I lied easily.

‘Liar. Come on, we’re getting something to eat.’ She started to get up, looking for her purse.

‘Didn’t you just have lunch with Ethan?’

‘Nothing on the company of my baby brother,’ Kelly murmured distractedly, shoving her feet into her Pineapple hightops. There are only a few minutes between Kel and I, but ever since I’d gotten fragile and depressed she’d started referring to me as her baby brother. I didn’t bother to argue.

‘Hey Kel,’ I said, grinning.

‘Yeah?’

‘You got a message,’ I said, handing her her phone, which was still buzzing. She leapt on it, shrieking. It was nice to know that even though my soul is dying, things are going on normally for other people.