Fragile Threads [boyxboy]

Chapter 13

“And you don’t agree with her?” Ari crossed his arms over his chest.

“Fuck if I know, man.” Brent threw his arms up in the air. “Are you coming or not?”

“Maybe,” Ari answered. He pushed Ethan into the locker room and followed him in. “I’ll text you, Brent.”

“What was that?” Ethan asked incredulously.

“Brent’s mom is pretty cool. I bet he told her what happened and now she’s pissed at Brent,” Ari explained.

“But if she’s… okay with it, why isn’t he?” Ethan wondered. He was sure parents always had to do something with how people formed their opinions.

“Brent’s parents divorced five years back. His dad was not cool. He was actually kind of racist, too. Wouldn’t surprise me if he fed Brent a bunch of other things, and I guess Brent ended up holding onto them.” Ari shrugged. “Do you want to go Friday?”

No, he really didn’t. Ethan could only imagine the tension of having to go if Brent didn’t really want them there. He didn’t understand why Ari was even considering it then, but… they had been friends for a while. Ari must be trying to hold on to that. “I will if you want to go,” Ethan decided. “I probably won’t talk much,” he warned. He knew himself at least that well.

Ari smiled. “You don’t really have to come. Just me being there will probably be enough, and…” Ari paused. “I don’t want it to make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”

Ethan’s first instinct was to feel like Ari was taking a jab at him for it—but Ethan made himself swallow it down because he knew Ari wasn’t doing that. Ethan needed to remember that Ari had seen him freak out before because of something like that.

“Thanks,” Ethan mumbled quietly. “It won’t bother you?”

“Nah. I can just come over afterwards and fill you in on all the drama.” Ari laughed stiffly.

“You’re still nervous about it,” Ethan pointed out.

“Well yeah. I’d rather not get into a fight with Brent. I like his mom and all but I’m not sure how much is going to change right away, if at all.” Ari shrugged. “Or maybe I’ll be texting you under the table if it goes that badly.”

They changed out after class, and Ethan had to go separately for his next class. Brent had been avoiding them at lunch—no one had decided to abandon the table with him, just no one really talked about it. Ethan had been expecting a lot of the typical questions—when did he know? Had he and Ari done it? But no one really seemed to care.

And he actually liked it that way.

After school Ethan changed with most of the football team, and went to run his laps around the track while they were at practice. His time had definitely been improving, aside from the fact some of his anxiety had been coming up again while he was running.