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Chapter Two
My first few classes had the air conditioners blowing, despite it being October. The classrooms were decorated with Halloween decorations that looked like they came from PartyCity in order to make the rooms spookier.
I liked Halloween, though to be honest I didn't have a favorite holiday to begin with. I was tired of the orange and black construction paper that was strung across the rooms, because I obviously wasn't in elementary school so there was no point in making the rooms spookier.
I still felt phantom heats blare up in my skin but I never saw burns appear, I was certain that if anyone saw the burns suddenly appear they would call in an Exorcist in order for them to cast a demon out of me. I couldn't have a demon following me throughout the years, though, could I?
No, I knew that I wouldn't, that I couldn't. Yes, I could honestly say that sometimes Kendall and Haiden were kind of stupid when it came to things that they shouldn't do but then again...no. I didn't want to think about them using an Ouija board and I didn't want to think that I was being lured by a demon.
"Mr. Olsson, just because you are named after a Greek mythological tale and your father is a renowned professor in the field of Greek Mythology does not mean that you are allowed to dismiss my teachings."
I peered forward at my foreign language teacher, Mr. Moreo, who also held a deep hatred towards me. I might have known the myths that had to do with Greece but that didn't mean that I knew the language.
I thought that it might make sense that I would learn Greek in case Dad decided to take me and Mom to Greece one summer. He kept saying he would, but that was beside the point.
"Why do the field that my dad works in and my namesake have anything to do with learning Greek?" I dismissed my classmates that were next to me, they were always looking at me and Mr. Moreo with anticipation.
I had been sent to the principle's office sometimes but eventually Principle Miller just had me sit in the office for the rest of the period so that he wouldn't have to deal with me coming back five minutes after returning to class.
One of my classmates snickered, but again I dismissed them. Mr. Moreo's features became tighter due to the fact that he realized I had called him out on his stupidity. "I still want you to pay attention to my class, Mr. Olsson."
I didn't say anything, but Mr. Moreo knew that this was the best he would get from me.
The tall, somewhat scrawny man, who was about the age of my dad, turned his attention towards the board before him. He had a tope on, which was quite obvious, and most thought that the reason why he was actually bald was because of the fact that he hated teaching, which in return made him earn more stress.
Being a junior I was going through my second foreign language credit, and while some of my classmates wanted to continue to their third level of Greek just to look good for credit I was ready to say goodbye to Mr. Moreo and thankfully he knew that I wanted to say goodbye.
I knew that there was no point in writing down what my symptoms were from last night because I knew that I had looked far and wide on the internet to see if anyone was experiencing the same thing as me. Some did think it was demonic, while others thought that maybe I was just hallucinating.
As soon as the bell rang for us to transition to our next class I was the first one out of the classroom. I sighed in relief, and headed down the hallway, happy that I didn't own a locker. I couldn't stand the thought of having to rip off those stupid flyers taped on the metallic surface of the locker that were talking about Homecoming. It was supposed to be in two weeks, and I wasn't going, though if Chloe-Rae asked me to go only for us to hang out in the parking lot I would force myself to go.
One of the Greek club members was just closing his locker and was turning to go to his next class only for him to look at me. I groaned internally, hating that I had Noah's attention. He had some unhealthy obsession with me that I didn't think was a crush (so far as I knew), and he really wanted to meet Dad. So far I had managed to keep him from tormenting Dad with questions.
He was wearing some Percy Jackson t-shirt, a pair of worn out jeans, and some navy blue tennis shoes. He could be handsome, I was certain that most of my classmates could agree that he was handsome, but he wasn't my type. Despite his charming voice and his nice smile there was no appeal.
"Icarus, hey, how was class?" Noah probed to me as he hurried over to me, his tennis shoes thundered against the linoleum flooring. Some of the teenagers around us snickered, since Noah was a year younger than me, and acted as though he was my caddy boy more than anything else.
"It was fine, I won this battle," I let him know, earning a nod from him. He had so many different buttons attached to his backpack.
They were from a lot of different book series and just quotes. There was even an Icarus button on there, which honestly made me blush a little bit. It wasn't my face, obviously, but it was a button that had my namesake displayed prominently for everyone to see. It screamed that he really did have some attraction towards me.
"I can't stand that jerk!" Noah grumbled, folding his arms against his chest, as he stepped closer to me in order to maneuver out of the way from some seniors that were walking past us. Every day the seniors looked happier, since they knew that they were getting out of this place.
If I brought my hand out I knew that I would touch his skin, and the last thing that I needed was for people to think that I was either making Noah feel as though he was perverted by me or I returned some hidden affection he had for me.
"You're preaching to the choir," I responded, shrugging my shoulders, as Noah rubbed his hands against the straps of his backpack. He craned his head to the side, and I watched as he tapped his fingers now against the straps of his backpack.
"Um...I kinda wanted to ask you something..." Noah looked off to the side before he cleared his throat and straightened his back higher. He turned to look at me with worry but also a tinge of excitement.
"Can't this wait till later, Noah?" I looked over his head, which actually wasn't that much shorter than mine. He had grown up fast, in fact he could have possibly have looked as though he was my grade, but he still was a sophomore and not a junior no matter if he looked like a junior.
"Actually..."
"Hey, Icarus, hang on!"
I turned my head, finding that Haiden was jogging in our direction. In the corner of my eye I noted that Noah had tensed up. It only assured me what I was suddenly feeling, that Noah had developed a crush on me.
"Ah, hey it's that kid that always follows you around. What's your name again?" Haiden stopped in front of us, with his hands stuffed in his jean pockets. I shot him an annoyed look, knowing that the last thing that we needed was for another teenager to hate Haiden for being an ass.
"Noah," I supplied for him, and it didn't help that Noah blushed and looked down at his shoes. "His name is Noah, and don't call him a kid."
Haiden snorted, "What do you mean not to call him kid? Icarus he's a year younger than us, that means he's a kid."
Sometimes it was in times like this that I wanted to hit Haiden, but I knew that it wouldn't change anything. Sometimes I wondered why I was still friends with him but it didn't last long. He still was there for me when I came out as gay, and despite the fact that he still had this strange feeling of me harboring a strong sense of love towards him, he didn't go anywhere.
"Just shut up, Haiden, what do you want?" I knew that I was being ruder than normal but considering the fact that I didn't get any sleep last night I felt like I was being justified for the way that I was acting.
"Wow, look at you," Haiden joked, earning another eye roll from me. He had pulled his hands out of his pockets and had his arms folded together. "I'm just trying to keep the fan boys away from you."
I arched my eyebrow at him, turning to see that Noah was still looking at his tennis shoes. He had his hair fall in front of his eyes, and if I wasn't mistaken I swore I saw tears begin to build up in his tear ducts. I gave him a small, sad smile before I turned to look at Haiden.
I was about to say something only for Noah to clear his throat, catching my attention again. He looked up at me, trembling with nerves, before he spoke, "um...I'll see you later, Icarus."
Then he hurried down the corridor, the last moment I could see him running into the boys' restroom. I was certain that he was going in there to have a breakdown, something that so many people had due to Haiden opening his mouth.
Clenching my jaw, I snapped my head away from looking at the now closed restroom before turning to look at Haiden. "What the fuck was that all about? He wasn't doing anything wrong."
Haiden snorted, "right, I could see that he was about to confess to you. I know that you don't feel that way about him, so I was trying to save you from rejecting him. I'm just trying to be a good friend."
"You could have gotten me away from him. Yes, I don't like him that way. That doesn't mean that you have to be an asshole about it. Obviously I'm the first guy he'd be confessing you and for all we know this is confusing and he doesn't know how to feel about liking the same sex," I heatedly retaliated, before I shook my head. In the corner of my eye I could see that some of my classmates had stopped so that they could see what I was going to do.
Haiden went to say something but I shook my head, letting him know that I wasn't going to let him get away with saying this. "I'm not in the mood for this, Haiden. I'll talk to you later."
I walked away from him, this was becoming a common occurrence and I was growing tired of this. I knew that we were on a thin wire and he would do something that would have me jump off of the wire that connected our friendship. The sad thing about it though is that I don't think I would regret it.
A part of me really wanted to find Noah so that I could talk to him, and that I could comfort him. I knew what it was like to have one sided crushes, because I could see boys that I were interested in and they were obviously nothing more than straight. I wouldn't confront them though, that was something that I knew was pointless.
Instead I made my way to my second class, which happened to be Trig, and I hated it with a passion. Neither of my parents was blessed with the gift of doing math well. I knew that I had gotten my poor math skills from the both of them. It didn't make my hate them, it made me hate math.
Entering the classroom, I sighed in relief when I found Chloe-Rae standing by the window. She was peering out to the trees in the distance, though she paused and turned her head towards me. She craned her head to the side, while other classmates were at their desks or was hanging out at their friends' desks.
If she were anyone else she would have smiled warmly at me, instead she just peered at me. I took it that she was doing fine. Her eyes were the gateway to her emotions, despite her acting as though she didn't have any emotions at all.
"Hey, Rae," I greeted her as I headed over to her; she reached her hand out and touched my arm. Rumors had circulated that she was an empath; I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Of course, like I had said before, she didn't tell us much.
"He doesn't deserve you as a friend," she quietly told me before she let her eyes wander towards the classroom doorway. I knew that we were both satisfied that Haiden didn't share the class with us. It was just a time that I and Chloe-Rae could be focused on our friendship.
"Do you think it's time that I let him go?" I couldn't help but ask her, she turned her head and tightened her lips while she thought of what I was asking of her. She turned to look at me again, "you trust me too much. If you weren't gay it would be obvious that society would think that we were in love with each other."
"I trust you and Julito, Rae. Kendall and Haiden have been around for so long. I guess I've just been waiting for the breaking point." I looked over her head, seeing that none of our classmates were noticing us. They were often thinking about other things, their attention was not focused around me and Chloe-Rae.
"I think that you should just think about it, spend some time away from the two of them. See if you feel better without them around or if you still miss them. Then you will figure out how you really feel about them," Chloe- Rae supplied to me. I nodded my head, agreeing with her.
"Thanks, Rae. Like I said, I can always trust you."
We didn't have anything else to talk about considering the fact that our teacher came into the classroom, Mrs. Hurn. She was already backed by the school since she was a ten year, so she could stay here until she wanted to leave. They couldn't just fire her without cause.
The medium height woman with stylish reading glasses and deep burgundy hair (hair that brushed against her thin shoulder blades), tanned skin, and dark brown eyes was wearing a simple dressy blouse, dress pants and high heels. Her silver cross necklace went a few inches higher than the neckline of her blouse.
"Icarus and Chloe-Rae please go sit down. Class is ready to begin," she spoke, making me and Chloe-Rae move away from each other to go to our seats.
As soon as we sat down she nodded her head in satisfaction before she headed over to her oak desk. She opened her daily planner and began to look through it, to see what she should go over with us. Her reading glasses gleamed from the sunlight that hit her lenses, making one of the teenagers flinch from the direct hit of bright sunlight.
I didn't pay all my attention on the class, Trig was the last thing on my mind. I was certain that others could agree with me. Chloe-Rae obviously felt the same way as me; her interests were not surrounded by any type of math.
The only good thing about this class happened to be the fact that Mrs. Hurn was doing a review day. She had already known that I actually understood this section of the textbook, but she had yet to call on me to answer some stupid equation that needed to be figured out. I hoped that she wouldn't call on me, and that she would call on someone else when they least expected it.
Class ended with me not being called on, since I made sure to let her know that I was paying attention despite the fact that I really wasn't. I was writing down what she was writing on the board, so maybe she thought that I was actually focused for once. If only I could do that all the time, but I didn't have the patience to do so.
Chloe-Rae and I barely left the classroom and entered the corridor before we saw Kendall storming down the corridor towards us. She looked livid, pissed, and I knew that she was protective over Haiden. I was certain that there was a thing that was going on with the two of them, kind of like a friends-with-benefits thing. It was starting to become more pronounced.
"I'd run if I were you," Chloe-Rae spoke, startling me out of staring at the determined girl that was still storming towards me with her high heels clicking against the linoleum tiled flooring. I took her advice, as always, and began to rush down the opposite direction of the corridor despite the fact that my next class happened to be in the direction where Kendall was.
"Hello, Kendall."
"Not now!" Kendall hissed, dismissing Chloe-Rae as though she was just a fan girl that wanted to talk about some gossip with Kendall. I would have been completely livid at the attitude that Kendall was displaying to Chloe-Rae if it weren't for the fact that I knew rudeness wouldn't deter Chloe-Rae.
I had just turned the corner, almost ready for freedom, when I ran into someone and fell backwards. I flinched as I hit the ground in a loud and nasty fall. I looked up, seeing that it was one of the seniors. I didn't know who he was, and I didn't care to know who he was.
"Hey, it's the poster boy for gays," the boy commented, earning a roll of the eyes from me. This wasn't the first time that someone called me a poster boy for the gay community; ever since freshmen year they had done so.
I was happy though that me coming out as gay helped some of the gays and other sexualities to come out, they didn't have to act as though they were straight anymore. They could be themselves.
I was also glad that this teenager hadn't stopped me and complained to me that I had soiled his sexuality because I had touched him. It had happened before. It hadn't hurt me, left me really confused and wondering about how the kid was even in the grade that he was in, but it didn't make me run home crying and asking to be in the arms of Mom. She had taught me to be stronger than that.
"Gotta go, Kendall's angry."
I hurried past the guy, and had barely made it past him when Kendall appeared around the corner. Thankfully the guy helped me as he slid in front of Kendall and propped his elbow against the locker next to him in a flirty way, so that he could distract her. I didn't care to see if it worked.
By the time I had gotten to my last class before lunch I was breathing heavily, and my teacher arched his eyebrow at me in confusion. "Mr. Olsson, I have never seen you so eager for my class."
I almost wanted to give him a look that let him know that this had nothing to do with his stupid class but I knew that the last thing I needed was to be sent to the principle's office again. Mom would come up to the school to embarrass me, telling me that I should have followed her pacifist and hippie lifestyle.
I gave him a small smile, before I entered the classroom and went over to my assigned seat. I loosened my shoulders when I sat down, my eyes drifting towards the classroom window where it overlooked the back of the school campus. The school track that went around the football field was in front of me, and students were already stretching on the track.
Gym happened to be my class after lunch, where I had actually shared it with all of my friends. I knew that Julito would have my back, and if needed be he would probably cuss out Haiden in Italian.
He didn't need to do so, but he did when he was pissed off at someone. He was lucky enough that we didn't have a teacher that taught Italian. He would have had his mom come up and smacked him upside the head more times than any other mom would.
Mr. Arcane came into the classroom a minute later, he was in his thirties and there was nothing special about him. He had reading glasses, like the majority of the teachers in this high school, but he had quirky ties that he wore. Today it happened to be glass beakers, since he was a Chemistry teacher.
I was actually pretty good at science, so it was an added bonus that at least one of my teachers didn't think that I was a dud. He even respected Dad enough that he would go up to the university (he'd go up there so that he could learn some more things about Chemistry, Mr. Arcane was all about continued education after college) and he'd have lunch with Dad during the summer.
I didn't find it weird. I knew that at least one of my teachers would look up to Dad, though I never thought that it was Mr. Arcane. Dad made sure that Mr. Arcane never came by; he knew that the last thing I wanted was to my Chemistry teacher wandering around my house after eating some vegan dinner.
"Mr. Olsson is everything all right?" Mr. Arcane was leaning against his desk that was in the middle of the classroom. We didn't have dissection tables in our classroom; we had to go to a lab that we shared with the Biology department.
"I'm fine, Mr. Arcane. Don't worry about me," I assured him, while I internally flinched at the thought of me being in the presence of Haiden and Kendall during lunch and Gym.
At least I would have my two best friends there for me in the end; I knew that Julito and Chloe-Rae wouldn't leave me. It was the only thing that allowed me to know that it just might be the time to let go of my toxic friendships with Haiden and Kendall.
I tore my attention from the window and focused in on the class, knowing that for now I needed to focus on Chemistry and not on the drama that was my life.