[Picture: Mason Oliver Philipps. Video: Impossible Year - Panic! At The Disco]
As I get home, I quickly take a shower so that I could lie down on my bed, face up, and replay the whole scene in my head. I hold my phone to my chest, desperately waiting for a text or a call from him, hell even facetime would be fine. I can't believe I just really went on a blind date, if you'd call it that. I shared dinner with a person I barely knew, which is something I've never done before. My heart's still beating as fast as it was when I was sitting in front of him in the Belvedere, and I'm still as delusional as I was when I was staring out the windows, or into his deep brown eyes.
I begin to calm down when I start to realize that I'm going to have to make the move in this scenario, because I'm the one who's interested. He might just see me as a casual acquaintance, or maybe he sees me as something more than that, and it's going to be my job to find out which one it is.
Once more, I'm going to take the risk.
_ . _
It was time for my most dreaded class of the week: PE, Physical Education, or as what I like to call it - Hell. I would literally get down on my knees to hope that we won't be doing anything for PE class today, whether that meant our teacher not being prepared, not feeling like teaching anything, or not being around. Anything but him not being alive anymore, because I like him, he's a cool teacher despite the fact that he's handling the subject that I hate the most.
I share PE with Mason and Cassidy, my fellow friends who aren't athletic too, so the three of us can usually be found by the bleachers either talking or watching our other classmates play. Today, our teacher had plans to make us play basketball, and I could not be more repelled by such a sport. I'm more okay with soccer, even though I still hate it, and I'm much more comfortable with table tennis or badminton. I just don't like the whole concept of a Braydon inside a basketball court, because there's a lot of testosterone-filled sweaty boys running around trying to steal the ball from each other. There's a lot of bumping and hugging and I just don't like the idea of that. Ughh, I actually shivered thinking about it.
The three of us decide to stay on the bleachers for today, along with some of the Great Bang and some of our classmates who weren't really athletic too.
"Alright, I'm going to need ten boys on the court now." Our teacher yells, blowing his whistle to reinforce his point. The usual jocks get up of the bleachers and jog their way to the court. I get nervous in these times, because I can't really do anything if I get picked. I can whine and tell him that I don't like this sport, but all he's going to say is How are you going to learn if you're not going to try? Well how about I don't learn and don't try?
Fortunately, he picks someone who's not me, nor was it Mason. That means that I can enjoy my comfortable seat between Cassie and Mason, and of course, the boy beside me is glued to his phone playing some game that I don't even know. It baffles me how I have never seen him charge his phone once, yet he's always on it.
The teacher blows the whistle, and the boys on the court start running and doing typical basketball shit. Scoring, defending, passing, running around and yelling at their teammates.
"I think Eric's gay." I hear Cassie say mumble as she looks at the boys running on the court.
"What?" I ask her.
She looks at me, seemingly surprised that I heard her. She shakes her head. "I just think that Eric's gay."
"Why?"
"I don't know." She shrugs. "I just feel it."
I raise a finger. "You are literally the last person it be having a gaydar." I tell her. I try to find Eric in the flock of boys and I do, he's there with his shining brown hair and edgy features. He's so masculine and built that you wouldn't really suspect him to be gay, I mean, put him next to me and people will surely know which one's which. I've never really paid attention to Eric, because we rarely talk. I think I share a couple of my classes with him, but I have never properly addressed him like a friend or even an acquaintance. He just seems like some guy I share PE class with, and that's all I know. He only gives in to one gay stereotype, and that's the flawless, perfectly-maintained hair, which is what he has. Even though he's sweaty, his hair's still considerably presentable compared to the other boys, but I doubt it. I know a gay when I see one.
"I don't think so." I disagree. "He may not be stereotypical but he just really seems to be straight. He dated a girl last year, remember?"
"Yeah, but so did you." She retorts. "I remember you telling me that you had your first girlfriend in your freshman year."
I cringe. "Let's not go back to that, shall we?"
With the Great Bang girls and boys right beside us, there was quite nothing to talk about, since our favourite pastime was gossiping about them. They gleam with their fashionably cased iPhones and designer handbags, ignoring everyone else who was seated in the bleachers because they were utterly loud. Four other students from our class got up and moved to a spot near the end of the bleachers we were on, and they were in a comfortable distance from the Great Bang.
With Mason on his phone, and Cassie busy looking at the boys, because she has a crush on one of them, which I will mention later. I decide to think about the next time Dylan and I will be seeing each other. So yesterday, he got to get off as early as he could, which was at seven, but coming to learn from what he said that he can get off any time he pleases as long as he's done with work for that day. So he really doesn't have a stable time-in time-out, making it hard to predict when the both of us could go out again.
I've been told to have a problem with taking things too fast, as mentioned by the two guys I almost had a relationship with, emphasis on almost. Guy one told me that I was such a sweet guy but we've only known each other for weeks and I've already told him that I like him. He told me that he wasn't sure if he was ready to be committed at the time, but I surely was. So that didn't go well. With guy two, we have known each other for years but only considered taking a chance on the both of us not that long ago. We went out, the night went well and it ended up with me staying over at his place, but nothing went down that night, we just slept comfortably as I held his pillow to my chest as he wrapped himself around my back. The next day, he tells me that it didn't feel right.
God, am I a carrier of bad luck.
But hell, someone told me that with each wrong one, is a step that brings you to the right one. Some need a lot of steps to reach their knight of shining armour, while others only need a few. It's different with everyone, so it won't help if you start comparing yourself to someone else.
I just don't understand why I'm just so ready with anything while the other party needs to take their time. I'd try to understand but if I'm made to wait for so long I become impatient. That's my major flaw. And now, I'm determined to overcome that with Dylan, if ever he was also interested in me.
I'm snapped out of my thought process by a whistle, and I see one of the boys from the court walking over to the bleachers. The teacher calls out a Braydon.
Oh, hell no.
The boys start applauding me, because all of them know that I'm going to suck ass this game. I force myself to get up and start descending the bleachers, as I pass by the boy I was swapping in for, he gives me a You can do it, Bray. And that's the first time I have ever been called "Bray", since my name isn't that hard to pronounce anyway.
"Can I just like, do a cheer-dance over here?" I ask the teacher, pointing to the edge of the basketball court.
"Come on, Braydon. I know you can do it." He shakes his head, pushing me forward. "Just do your best. Eric, he's in your team, alright?" I glare back at him.
A whistle goes off and the boys start running around, dribbling the ball as they move from point A to point B. They all know that I'm not going to do shit in this court, so they all know that this game is a four versus five, because Braydon Keane Raines is just going to chill by our basketball ring and try my best to block out any sweaty jock that tries to shoot their ball through.
I keep my eyes on Eric once he's got the ball, and I remind myself that I'm on his team. He passes it to one of his teammates, Clinton, who runs around two defenders and passes it back to Eric. David runs forward and tries to block him, holding his hands out to his sides. Eric steps to his right, pretending to pass the ball to another teammate but quickly steps back to the left, leaving David to tumble down as he has put all his weight trying to block Eric. The brown-haired boy sidesteps his blocker and take a leap as he dunks the ball into the opponent's ring. Our teammates cheer him on while the others stay silent, still keeping a smile on their faces.
Now it's the opponent team who has the ball. One of the boys pass it over to another boy who starts sprinting towards our ring, and there I recognized that this boy was Steven, the top track runner of our school who brings back gold medals for the school. The boy is now running to me like crazy, and I start readying myself to block him. I inch myself forward and plant my feet on the ground, ready to jump if necessary. All of a sudden, Eric intercepts him and hits the ball away from him, throwing it to my direction. My hands start feeling cold as I get more nervous, I have a phobia of things falling on or towards me, which Mason identified as Ballistophobia.
"Braydon!" Eric yells, still running forward as he tries to regain his balance from the steal. I steady myself as I try to catch the ball. I reach up, and I do.
Once I have the ball in my hands, I see that Steven is already running towards me, with his teammates following behind him, separated from one another as if they were trying to keep up the formation they had. Clinton pushes past the other boys to try to get himself open for me to pass, and as a reflex and a result of panicking under pressure, I throw the ball to him. He catches it and jogs towards the enemy ring as our teammates block the opponent team, Eric follows behind them and the two do the same thing, they keep passing the ball to each other as they try to confuse the opponent team's defenders, and finally Eric shoots and makes it in. The teacher blows the whistle and the boys raise their arms in the air, smiling with me. I know they're smiling because of the good game, but I'm simply smiling because it's finally over.
I start walking towards the part of the bleachers where Cassie and Mason are, and like a miracle, the boy was off his phone, probably to watch me fail. The joke's on him, because I actually did quite well.
"Braydon!" I hear someone call out. I turn around to see who it is and find Eric jogging towards me with his huge body. Okay not literally, but the guy is fairly big and not because he's chubby, but because he's just so well built. His loose shirt jumps up and down, revealing more and more of his chest as he nears me. "Good job, man!" He smiles, extending a hand which I take, and he brings it in for a firm handshake.
"Thanks." I chuckle. "I panicked, that's all."
"You saved us the game." He says, taking his first few steps away from me before he jogs over to his boys. "Looking forward to next week, okay?"
I didn't get to tell him that I'm actually not looking forward to next week, nor do I have plans to play basketball again, but he starts making his way to the other end of the bleachers where his friends are packing up.
Cassie and Mason descend from the bleachers, the latter carrying my bag for me.
"You actually did well." Mason says, somewhat in a condescending tone but I ignore it anyway, it's one of the few nice things that he's said to me.
"They're headed to the locker room." Cassie smirks, wiggling her eyebrows in addition. "Are you going to follow them?"
"Do you want me to get Xin to talk to you?"
She widens her eyes at me before shaking it off. "Never mind."
Xin Lee is Cassie's major crush. Fortunately for all of us, he's not one of the Great Bang sluts. Xin Lee is a simple seventeen year-old who was born in China and raised here in California, he's what we consider a veteran since he's been in this school for so long, and actually Cassie has too. The girl gets really shy and flustered when she talks to him, and it's super obvious, although it may not be on his side. The two are cute together too, but unfortunately Xin's flirting with a different girl, and that's all Cassie's worrying about right now.
After we bid the other three best bitches goodbye, Ella, Mason and I start walking our way home while Mason talks about the new game he's been playing which was called Undertale, and he would talk and talk and talk even though the two of us didn't really get into it, not to offend him. But it's what he's passionate about, and being his best friend means that we should support him for that. We drop him off at his house and we proceed walking as I tell her about the night I had with Dylan. She found it cute, really cute to the point where she already wants to meet him.
"Okay, he's not my boyfriend yet." I tell her to calm down and to stop from jumping up and down.
"He's gay, though!" She giggles, flailing her arms in front of her like an excited T-rex.
"How do you even know?"
She shrugs. "I know the same way I know Eric's for sure gay."
"Okay." I say. "Are you fucking setting me up with him or something?"
She furrows her eyebrows at me.
"Cassie just said the same thing to me during PE class." I elaborate.
"Really?" She asks. I nod, and she chuckles to this. "If two girls think a guy is gay, they're right most of the time."
She stops me by an intersection, pointing to the rod across. "Are you going to visit the cemetery?"
I shake my head. "I don't really want to run into Dylan yet. I don't want to seem desperate."
The intersection is where I'd usually turn and head towards the cemetery, but if I'd go straight ahead then it would lead me home. Maybe he's getting off later than usual today, or maybe he's too busy to see his sister. Either way, I think we need some space because of what happened last night, god the tension was so - there. You know what I mean? Like, you can feel it so much that it even begins to feel like there's this weight pushing you down. And goddamn was there any tension when we stood awkwardly by my front door after we wished each other a good night. What if he was waiting for me to kiss him?
I return once more to an empty house, and also with another note by the fridge from mom saying that she's running late again. Max still isn't home, and so isn't dad. The man's still on the business trip. I do my nightly routine of grabbing something to eat, heading to the bathroom, then plopping onto the bed. I aimlessly scroll down my instagram feed, then watch a couple YouTube videos before I go to sleep. As I get up to turn my lights off, I hear the front door open and close, to which keys were placed down after. I head back to bed, thinking that it was probably Mom or Max, or even both of them. I look up at the ceiling which was a subtle blue, illuminated by the moonlight seeping from my windows. I think about what Cassie and Ella said, about Eric being gay. What if he made a move? Would I be interested in him? Even though I found Dylan more attractive, would I be willing to settle for Eric knowing that there's no certainty with Dylan? I shouldn't use people. I feel like if I were to get with Eric it would just be because I was feeling lonely, and even though that's my primary motive and that I'll learn to love him in the long run, it just feels wrong.
My phone lights up with the familiar ding, and my heart melts when I hear the familiar three vibrations. I eagerly sweep it off my nightstand and hold it in front of my face.
Dylan Callaghan
> I didn't catch you today at the cemetery. Your grandmother was wondering where you were. :P
Wow, that's the first time he's used visual characters with me. Smiling, I write him back.
To: Dylan Callaghan
> She won't miss me that much. I headed straight home because I was tired. PE today.
Dylan Callaghan
> PE? How did you do?
To: Dylan Callaghan
> Actually quite well. Do you believe that? Because I couldn't. And I bet my grandmother wouldn't either.
We ended up texting for an hour more before I dozed off to sleep comfortably, knowing that tomorrow was Friday.