Just as a warning, there's insensitive language in this chapter.
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When I opened my door to walk to school, Blake was on the other side. Standing on my porch. Wearing sunglasses, as usual.
As if trying to kill me.
Disturbing.
"Jake." He stared me dead in the eyes. Through his sunglasses.
"Yes?"
"I googled what a catamite is."
Wait. What. "Oh my God. Why?"
"Because your friend told me that's what you wanted to make me! Dude..." he darted in close and pulled down his sunglasses. He looked left and right. He took a deep breath. "Dude—"
I took a step back and closed the door in his face.
You know when you kind of just look at a situation and say, 'nope'?
Well, yeah.
Nope.
A rapid knock at my door. Of course.
"Dude!" His irritating voice was muffled through my front door, but, unfortunately, I could still hear him speaking. "Dude, why did your friend say you wanna have buttsex with me? That's weird, man! I'm not like... I'm not like a fag, you know?"
There it was.
"I need you to recognize that by slamming the door in your face I was giving you the opportunity to not say that part," I explained. "Ah, well. They were probably wondering why I don't like you. They probably thought I was being a jerk unnecessarily. Well, now they know."
They, meaning my friends. I whipped out my phone to shoot them a text.
Me: Blake the mistake dropped the f word. Now you see?
Their responses came in pretty quickly.
Kay: dude, ouch
Christi: what?? Fuck him man, this is the twenty-first century. People should not fucking be using that terminology anymore.
Ben: he said fuck?
Me: He said fag, Ben. Stop pretending like you're so straight that you don't pick up on LGBTQ+ issues.
Ben: fuck you man, I'm straight. And i get your gay shit ok? ... im just not gay. At all. Like ever you know?
Oh, Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. Sweet, clueless Ben.
... Anyway.
Right. There was still knocking. Oh, and I needed to go to school.
Ben: not that i dont respect you being gay, i just am not. but i love you man, not in a gay way, but i totally can understand your issues and shit
Me: Ben, you're texting like someone who's panic-talking to get through an awkward conversation. But you can revise your texts, so I don't know what's wrong with you. Anyway, goodbye, Blake is knocking at my door.
Kay: You were just talking to him?
Kay: You mean you aren't walking with him rn? Why did u talk to him and now he's knocking on ur door? That's weird??
Kay: jake?,
I decided to put my phone away. "Blake, please leave, you're going to wake up my family. My cat doesn't like loud noises."
"Your cat is your family?"
"What? No? I have parents and a sister. You're my neighbor, don't you know this?"
I wasn't surprised that he didn't. Beckson was just that kind of inconsiderate person.
"Well sorry man, I kinda thought you were living on your own in a Batcave or something. I never see your family. Now can you open the door finally?" He sounded whiny again. Irritating.
"Yes, my family doesn't throw obnoxiously large cookouts once a month. That's true," I said. I admit it, I was a little salty. They were terrible neighbors, okay? Terrible. "Also, no. I want to go to school."
"What? Then come out of your house."
"But you're outside."
"...Okay, this whole 'I hate Blake' thing was really funny before I realized it was legit, but now it's kinda bothering me. And by bothering me, I mean it's lowkey hurting my feelings. Lowkey, though."
I sighed. He made me do that often. It was probably because the straights who wore joggers had such low IQs. "Blake, never say lowkey again please. Also, you know what lowkey hurts my feelings?"
He was quiet for a moment. It probably took a while for his four brain cells to power up.
"Uh, I'm not sure. My existence, or something?"
"No, Blake. The word fag hurts my feelings... Lowkey, though."
"Oh. Hey, open the door. We can talk about it on the walk."
Ugh. What was I thinking?
Blake and I talked on the walk, but I kept a three feet distance away from him. Enough to have a conversation, but also if we stopped talking we could pass as enemies.
"—which kinda fucked me up, ya know? It's not like I think being gay is a bad thing, because that's just stupid, but that's just what I associate it with. Every time one of my parents said gay, it was because I was doing something that wasn't meeting their standards. So I'm sorry, I am, but I also wanted you to know that it's not personal. I have gay friends! And it goes back to early childhood, so—"
He was also coming up with a million reasons why he was Not A Homophobe. Of course. That was so Blake Beckson of him.
I took a step away. There, now it was a whole four foot distance.
The old lady with the cookies was watering her garden. That meant we were close to the school. Good. "Hi, Blakey! Have fun at school you two! Thank God it's Friday!"
Oh, great, now the sweet old lady was brainwashed.
"Thanks, Nancy!" Blake answered with an overzealous wave.
I waved too, but charmingly. Subtly. Blake eyed my wave and I could tell he was judging me. His weird sparkly green eyes narrowed in on me.
He had this odd way of staring that made me feel like I couldn't look away. I hated it.
"You know you don't have to be so stoic all the time, right?" Beckson said. He turned those freaky green eyes on me and they locked on. "You tend to weird people out."
I turned to him and glared. "More insults? Was calling me a fag not enough for you?"
"Okay, I did not do that! When did I do that? That didn't happen. I said that I'm not a gay person. ...If it did happen, ya know, it wasn't serious or anything."
"Do I need to make Ben give you the n-word speech? He doesn't like to give it, but he will if he has to," I threatened.
"...Sorry." Blake shifted uncomfortably. "The n-word speech? Listen, man, I'm really sorry about saying that word and offending you and shit. Uh, the other word, not the n-word. I don't say that word."
He was fiddling with his fingers. I noticed that his nails were picked down to the skin and he had red spots where hangnails had been pulled off. He had a ring on his pinky finger. Huh. Wonder what that was about?
Ew, wait, no.
I looked away, because his hands were distracting. Oh look, we were at school. Thank. God. I didn't have to deal with any more of Blake's moronic insensitivity and blatant disregard of his own privilege.
And there was Kay! Thank God.
I made a beeline towards her and felt Blake's laser eyes on me the whole way over.
"I know what you're going to say and I do not care. I got your text at 6 freaking 40 AM, so I'm up-to-date." Those were the first words out of Kay's mouth. She barely paused from texting to glance up at me.
"I talk about things besides Blake," I said, not at all defensively. I did. I talked about school, and my family, and my cat.
"Okay, buddy," she said. "Sure."
"Anyway. School."
"Right, school. Let's go, we got homeroom," Kay said. "And then English III. You know, with that boy you like."
I blinked. Then I blinked again. Then I coughed, because it bought me some time. "Uh. Yeah."
"Knew it was fake."
"Oh, yeah. That guy! I just thought he was hot. Yeah, he's in that class." Was that sweat on my forehead? Fuck, I hated being a tank of a human. I needed to lose a few. Become one of those skinny boys.
But that would mean quitting my workout routine. Sad face. How about no.
"That's funny," Kay said. "You know who's in English III? Squad—" Me, her, Benny, and C, "—Kevin who plays trombone, Gavin the stoner, greasy Gabe, and Blake."
I frowned. "You got me. I think that playing trombone is so sexy."
"Wow, only Jake freaking Edwards can say a sentence like that without any emotion at all!" Ben's voice. Where was he?
Oh, right. I had to look down.
Ah, there he is!
"Hello, Ben."
"Hey, Jake."
Aw, look at him. He had a red hat that was the same shade of red as his shoes. That was so fancy. Ben always looked nice.
"Would you please stop looking at me like that? Creeps me out." Ben glared at me. "Makes me feel like you're undressing me with your eyes or something."
"Why do you guys only talk about how much you wanna fuck each other?" Kay asked, with an excessive eye roll. Oh wow, she had on a lot of eyeliner. It even ended in a fun little tip at the edges, that was cool. It looked hard to do.
"I don't want to fuck Ben," I explained. "I want to fuck someone else. You know. English III boy. Kevin."
Ugh. Kevin was so not the kind of person that people, like, wanted to fuck. At all. I definitely should have picked a better guy to have a fake crush on.
Why did I have a fake crush again? When did this happen?
Oh well. Now I had to roll with it.
My friends decided to give each other knowing looks and ignore me. We all walked into school together and, for once, I actually glanced around. Usually I was too preoccupied with Blake.
The school was ugly. Not because it was old or anything, but because it had white and orange tiles with red walls. And yellow lockers, with some rust around the edges. And a ton of posters about cyberbullying, which, really? Wasn't that term outdated?
I found my yellow locker and snatched my English book. We were reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which pretty much sounded like my ideal life.
I stepped into the classroom and sought out my squad, as Kay put it. Christi and Ben were in the corner. We usually took the four seats in the back corner, because Ben liked to be the kid who made witty comments and pretended to slack off. He said the back was his zone.
We all just kind of followed Ben's lead.
I plopped down in the back row next to Christi. Kay was late, because even though she was 5 feet tall and wore pretty dresses exclusively, she liked to pretend she was a badass.
I was jerked out of my daydreaming by a bag dropping next to me. Except that wasn't right, because Kay was supposed to sit in front of Christi. I glanced over.
Oh no.
It was Blake.