You Belong With Me...?

by O. Fletcher, TIM

  “I can’t Brad, it’s just not a good idea…”

  “Why won’t you trust me?”

  God, the way he was looking at me it seemed as though he was either going to kiss me or punch me. Question was, which one scared me more?

  Fuck it!

  I could see the fog of his breath coming out in little puffs. It was a cold night and he scooted a tiny bit closer to me as I held my arms around myself. His lips were suddenly so within reach. He wanted to know? Maybe I should show him instead.

  I took a deep breath, but didn’t dare close my eyes as I leaned forward just that little bit to bring my lips into contact with his. God! They were so soft, and cold. It was so much better than I’d ever imagined.

  Holy shit! He’s kissing me back!

  I felt his tongue run along my bottom lip, I nearly lost it right then. I kissed him deeper, harder and I moved my hand to his waist. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere he shoved me off him, hard.

  “What the fuck was that Tyler?”

  I was confused, he kissed me back damn it!

  “You told me to tell you…”

  He jumped up and started pacing a few feet away from me.

  “I said tell me, not molest me.”

  “You kissed me back Brad, I felt your tongue…”

  “SHUT UP! I’m not some faggot like you!”

  Son of a bitch! I jumped up and crossed my arms across my chest.

  “Ah, and the truth comes out, I knew you weren’t fine with it.”

  He stopped pacing suddenly, “I am, I’m just not fine with this,” he waved his arms indicating him and me.

  “You asked! I told you it was a bad idea!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have asked if I thought it was me, would I?”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know what’s going on in your crazy head? Goddamn arrogant asshole!”

  “I’m crazy? I’m not the one who decided to kiss you after talking about your girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, the one who you don’t even like! Brad… you kissed me back!”

  He snorted a little, “In your dreams.”

  That fucking bastard. At this point I was barely containing my tears. I usually considered myself a pretty emotionally strong person but utter, brutal rejection was something I certainly wasn’t accustomed with.

  Especially after having my very first kiss.

  “Whatever, can we just go home?” I asked solemnly.

  “What?”

  “I still need you to give me a ride, that’s if you can bring yourself to be in the same car as a fag for twenty minutes.”

  “Tyler…”

  “Save it Brad, for someone who gives a shit.” I spat out as I started walking towards his car.

  We got to the car and I sat in the passenger seat sitting as close to the door as possible. On the way back Brad turned the music up loud as a distraction and an excuse not to talk to me. God, how could everything go downhill so quickly? It was like a disaster movie, one second you’re happily eating a delicious sandwich and the next the house is shaking and you’re being decapitated by a rogue ice skate that escaped the hallway closet.

  He pulled up outside my house and I jumped out, mumbling a quick “Thanks for the ride,” before he screeched around the corner to his own home.

  I opened the door, completely depressed.

  “Tyler, dinner is almost ready!”

  “Thanks mom, I’ll be there in a minute,” I yelled out before slowly ascending the stairs to my room. After dumping my bag on my bed I quickly pulled the curtains closed before I even had a chance to look at Brad’s window. I shucked my band uniform and pulled on my oldest, most comfortable pajamas and made my way back downstairs for a dinner I knew I’d barely taste.

  After dinner I cleaned up, as mom got ready to go to work again. After she left I stole another block of chocolate and made my way upstairs to cocoa-away my sorrows. I watched a few episodes of the TV shows I love, Supernatural in particular. Dean’s a total hottie.

  Around ten o’clock I got ready for bed and just before getting in I couldn’t help but sneak a peak out my curtain. As per usual Brad’s blinds were closed but I could see his notebook sitting against the window. I grabbed my binoculars and read the message.

  ‘TYLER I’M REALLY SORRY.’

  Really? Well fuck you Brad Stevenson because if you think that is an apology after ripping my heart out then you have got a lot to learn about asking someone to forgive you.

  I certainly wasn’t going to reply; for once I was in the position of power. Brad felt bad about what he said to me and this gave me the upper hand. It was kind of an euphoric feeling I’d never experienced before.

  So I went to bed filled with both a sense of power and of sadness. For, no matter how much he apologized it would never help me forget the sinking feeling I felt when he pushed me away from him and said all those things.

  ***

  Saturday arrived and I managed to avoid getting out of bed until about midday. I groaned as I realized that the dance was on that night. I had bought the ticket in anticipation of being able to hang out with Jen, Damian and Brad. Now the prospect of going was about appealing as drinking spoiled milk. I considered ringing Jen and pretending I was sick so I could get out of it, but she had made good on her word and bought me a costume. I’d feel even worse if I backed out now. Plus, my mom was super excited to do both our makeup again, it was the one time a year I allowed her to use me as a guinea pig.

  I stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen for ‘breakfast’ around 1:00pm, Mom was sitting at the table drinking coffee and doing up the face charts for the makeup she was going to put on Jen and me in a few hours' time. By the looks of her, she hadn’t been up very long either.

  “Hey Mom, how was work?”

  She stopped smudging eyeshadow onto the paper in front of her as she looked up at me, “Fine sweetheart. How was the game last night?”

  I shrugged, “We won, so good I guess.”

  She swiveled on the bar stool, turning towards me, “Tyler, look at me for a second.”

  I obliged her request and took my head out of the fridge to look at her.

  “Are you okay? You’ve been…distracted lately”

  “I’m fine, just got a lot going on at school,” I lied.

  “Okay, but you know that if there is something wrong that you can talk to me about it? I’m a pretty cool mom aren’t I?” she said as she got up off the stool and did a silly little dance before giving me a hug.

  I laughed, words cannot express how much I love this woman.

  “Yeah Mom, you’re super cool,” I said sarcastically, and she laughed right along with me.

  “Right, well what time is Jen getting here?”

  “About four, I think she wants us to be ‘fashionably’ late…” I answered with an eye-roll.

  “She realizes that doesn’t work when you have to drive yourself to a high school dance, right?”

  “Probably not, rich kids are warped.”

  Mom giggled, “Time warped?” she said, throwing a little tie-in to our costumes for the night.

  “Gah, that was bad!”

  “But you smiled, so my work here is done!” she said with a big grin.

  “Not quite, you still gotta make me look like a dead rock star.”

  “With those bags under your eyes and your pale skin, darlin' you’ve done half the work for me!” She said jokingly, but added “Seriously, when was the last time you saw the sun?”

  “When was the last time it was actually out?” I retorted.

  “Wise ass,” she cracked. “Anyway, I’ll get started on you about 3 o’clock okay?”

  “Sure, sounds good” I agreed as I went to take the milk out of the fridge to pour into a bowl of cereal – it was all I could be bothered to make.

  “After you eat, you can do your chores - you got until 2:45pm then you hit the shower. So you better get your butt into gear!”

  I groaned.

  Af
ter grumpily depositing my empty cereal bowl in the sink, I stomped upstairs to start my rather extensive list of things to clean. By 2:40pm I had scrubbed Mom’s as well as my own bathroom; vacuumed all the carpeted areas in the house and washed all the tiled areas. By the time I’d finished everything I was sweating profusely, having managed to condense a usually two and a half hour long job into an hour and a half.

  On the bright side, it had taken my mind off of Brad for a decent period of time.

  By three o’clock, mom was waiting for me downstairs in the living room with her makeup supplies set up.

  I sat down on a high stool and she got to work immediately. By the time Jen arrived just before four o’clock, I had a huge fake gash across my forehead with a trickle of fake blood down my cheek. Jen was bringing my costume with her, she told me (so therefore, exaggerated) that she had painstakingly put it together herself. I was yet to see it, and was a little worried about how much ‘creative license’ she had allowed herself.

  “Hey Jen,” Mom said as my best friend walked through the front door without knocking.

  “Hey, Mrs. Evans,” she answered then added as an afterthought, “…Ty”

  She came over to us immediately and put both our costumes down on the couch.

  “I think you’ve outdone yourself this year,” Jen said complimenting my mother.

  “Thanks,” she said, never taking her attention away from the detailing she was doing with a piece of fake sideburn on my face. “I’ll only be another five or so minutes, if you wanna grab a soda and sit down.”

  “Sure,” Jen answered as she made her way into the kitchen to get a can of Pepsi out of the fridge.

  Once she sat down on the love seat closest to me she said “You’re going to freak when you see Tyler’s costume, it’s amazing.”

  “If you don’t say so yourself,” I said sarcastically.

  Mom glared at me, warning me not to move or else. “Are you really going to wear your saxophone all night?”

  “Yep,” Jen said, answering for me.

  “Thank god I don’t play a tenor sax,” I added.

  Jen and Mom both laughed. It wasn’t a joke, those things are friggin’ heavy.

  “I still don’t know why you didn’t go as Riff Raff to match Jen, but oh well. I get to play so I’m happy,” Mom said casually.

  “Because I don’t want to shave my head for a Halloween costume. Also, I am NEVER having latex put on my face again.”

  The first year I had dressed up properly for Halloween as a Zombie my delightful mother had decided to go the whole nine yards with my horror makeup and used liquid latex to get the best effect. However, that was also the first year that I hit puberty and by October I had started to grow wispy little excuses for facial hair. Not enough to count as a beard or a mustache but most definitely enough to hurt like a bitch when removing the latex after trick-or-treating.

  Mom chortled evilly as she remembered the screams that came from my bedroom as I pulled off the first big strip of latex from my face.

  Once my makeup was finished, Jen handed me a dry cleaning bag with my costume in it and sent me upstairs to get changed whilst my mom started on her Magenta makeup.

  In the bag was a beaten up old biker-style leather jacket that had recently had some leopard print fabric sewn onto the lapels. There was a faded pair of black skinny jeans with rips and holes throughout the legs, a black muscle t-shirt (that seemed to be the only new item in the bag) and a matching leopard print sweatband.

  I dressed quickly, adding my own biker style boots to finish off the costume. My saxophone was downstairs so I swaggered downstairs to show off the look before adding the final prop.

  I walked past my Mother and Jen to the couch that my instrument was resting on. I bent over to open the case when I heard the unmistakable sound of communal snickering.

  “What?” I questioned as I turned around to face the two women occupying the living room.

  “I guess you didn’t look at your butt in the mirror,” said Jen.

  “What did you do?” I asked incredulously as I patted my hands around my ass trying to find the source of amusement. “You bitch!” I yelled as I found a giant gaping slash in the jeans just under my right butt cheek.

  “Nice SpongeBob boxers, Ty,” Jen added.

  “I’m getting changed,” I announced as I went to go back upstairs.

  “No!” Jen screamed in protest, “You can’t, they’ve already got the fake blood on them! Unless you want to ruin a pair of your nice jeans…”

  I grumbled, she knew I would never waste a decent pair of jeans on a stupid costume.

  “Just put on a pair of black underwear and you’ll be fine” my mom suggested, trying to be helpful.

  For most guys, that would be the obvious answer. However, I don’t own any black boxer-briefs because whenever I go shopping for underwear I figure that the chances of me getting laid are so miniscule that I have no need for ‘sexy’ boxers. So I buy superhero and cartoon underwear.

  God, I’m a nerd.

  “I don’t own any boxers without cartoon characters on them,” I admitted.

  “Go commando then,” Jen said with a devilish glint in her eye.

  I grimaced and stomped back upstairs to take the pants and underwear off. I hate going commando; it causes things to… chafe.

  Jen’s makeup took half the time that mine did so by 5:00pm we were both dressed and (begrudgingly) ready to go.

  The dance was to start at 5:30pm but we had to pick Damian up on the way to school. Jen had tried many a time to get him to participate in getting his makeup done for the event but he stoutly refused to have anything put on his face, so he always got left out of the sadistic fun of Jen and my mom. Lucky bastard.

  We left my house as soon as we were ready, my weighty brass saxophone hanging around my neck and cold wintery breeze blowing around my ass.

  After we picked up Damian and arrived at the school it was already after six. Jen parked the car and we all walked into the gym together. It wasn’t until we were standing in line to enter that Damian noticed the gaping hole near my butt.

  “Uh, Ty…” he started.

  “Shut up.” I growled, cutting him off.

  “Okay.”

  I relaxed a bit once we were inside, realizing that the relative darkness of the room would prevent anyone seeing the pasty white skin of my ass, unless they were actively looking for it. I also realized that this meant I could’ve worn underwear with no problems.

  I need to stop listening to Jen.

  “Right, let’s get some drinks,” I declared as I made my way towards the refreshments table with my two friends in tow.

  This would go a whole lot better if I was drunk I thought as I poured myself a cup of punch.

  As if she had read my mind, Jen looked around suspiciously then pulled out a flask of something from within her rather cavernous handbag.

  “How did you sneak that in? They did bag checks…” asked Damian, both of us wondering the same thing.

  “Haven’t you guys noticed that I bring the same handbag to every school event?”

  We both shook our heads.

  “Well, I can’t find a goddamn thing in this bag, so that sure as hell means no one else will.”

  “Hiding it in plain sight. Smart move.” I said nodding approvingly.

  She unscrewed the cap to the flask and poured a generous amount of clear alcohol into each of our drinks.

  “Vodka?” I asked,

  “Gin.”

  I quirked my eyebrow, “I didn’t realize it was the 1920’s again.”

  “It’s all I could get, deal with it,” she said, poking her tongue out at me. I returned the gesture in a similarly mature fashion.

  By 8:30pm we were all verging on tipsy, but as we poured our next drinks the flask ran dry. Damian and I both looked aghast as we realized we’d have to face the rest of the night sober…ish. Jen just smirked at us as she reached a hand into her enormous bag and after what seem
ed like an hour of rooting around she pulled out another flask.

  “I know that I’m gay, but I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you right now,” I screamed over the pounding of the music.

  “You’re not really my type, Ty… I like my guys, you know, interested.” She joked.

  I suddenly noticed that there was a guy standing far too close for comfort to our little group at the refreshment table. He was staring at me, like he’d just over-heard something he wasn’t expecting.

  Fuck.

  I recognized him. He was in my AP English class, I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, just that he was quiet and usually wore glasses. I barged through Jen and Damian just as the guy was about to make a break for it.

  I grabbed him by the arm before he could escape, “Hey. Whatever you think you heard…” that’s all I had… no convincing excuse was coming to mind. So much for being a genius.

  “Nothing, I didn’t hear anything,” he answered timidly.

  “Goddamn right you didn’t,” came from a chillingly familiar voice behind me.

  I whirled around to see Brad, dressed as a Roman soldier, standing his ground. The guy who I was still holding captive by his arm managed to get loose and disappeared into the crowd.

  “Great, just fucking great!”

  “Relax, he won’t say anything,” reassured Brad.

  “How do you know that?” I asked, annoyed.

  “I know him, he’s in a few of my classes. He hasn’t got any friends to tell, besides no one would believe him anyway.” He said shrugging.

  I sighed. It didn’t really matter anyway, most people already assumed I was inclined that way.

  “So, you having a good time?” Brad asked

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m sorry, Tyler. I reacted badly.” He managed to say, looking at his feet.

  “No shit, I’ll see you around Brad,” I said as I made my way back to a confused looking Jen and Damian.

  “What was that?” they both asked in unison once I’d arrived back at our post at the refreshments table.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

  Damian went to question me further but Jen just shook her head warning him not to push it. I was thankful for that, the last thing I felt like doing was explaining what the fuck was going on between me and Brad. Hell, I’d like it if someone could explain to me what the fuck was going on between me and Brad.