Title: Running Scared Category: Gay Male/High School
Disclaimer: Hello, hello, all you out there in CyberCity. It's nice to meet you. I'm Brennan. Okay, introductions aside, now we gotta get to the legal mumbo-jumbo. If you're under 18, you know you probably shouldn't be here. But hey, I was under 18 once too, and I came here, so if you wanna hang with us, I advise you to be very careful and try not to get caught. If the idea of two guys in love grosses you out, hit the back button on your browser 'cause I'm thinkin' you don't wanna be here. Everyone else, kick back and enjoy!
Running Scared Chapter One By Brennan Jobse
Way back when I was a little kid, I used to walk by this TV shop on my way to school. I remember I'd wake up early and go stand there for an hour or so before I had to go to school, just watching those TVs. I'd see sitcoms and news programs and every once in a while I'd catch a Discovery Channel show. But the thing that kept me going back every morning were the commercials. All the people in them were always so happy, always smiling, always laughing. I think that's when it dawned on me that my life wasn't quite normal.
So there I was, with my blue backpack proudly strapped to my shoulders, as I went on my merry way to school with this revelation. I remember I was so happy the days my dad let me go. School was the reason I tried to be good. If I was bad, Dad would yell and give me a few good slaps before I went to bed. If I was lucky, there wouldn't be a mark and I'd be allowed to go to school the next day. This being the case, I quickly learned the value of ice on a swollen cheek and other tidbits, mostly from my mother's old medical textbooks.
My mother, Gabriel Lacroix, was a doctor for the UN when she met my father, Jonathon Ghallager. He was an American soldier and apparently a good one. His medals hung on one wall of his office in our house. They got married and moved here, to Vancouver, where they had me. My mom worked at the hospital and my dad became a commanding officer or some such thing where he sat behind a desk and did a lot of paperwork.
When I was 7, my mom was killed by a drunk driver on her way home from work. I loved my mom. I was always closer to her than I was to my dad. He was so distant around me. Mom used to tell me it was because of his work in the military. She said war did strange things to people. I used to love to sit in her study with her and read. Me with my Robert Munsch and her with her Jeffery Deaver. When she died, my dad packed up all her books, shelves upon shelves of books on anything you could ever dream of, and put them in the attic.
And so, it happened, that at 7 years old, my mother was taken from me, and my life was changed forever.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ
I groaned and flicked my alarm clock off with a heavy hand. Morning already? I felt like I had just put my head down on the pillow. But there it was in glowing red numbers. 7:45. Which meant I had school in a little over an hour. My mood lifted with this thought and it was enough to get and moving. As weird as it may sound, I loved school and I did everything possible to stay there as long as I could. When I was younger, I poured myself into my academics. I still did, but now I had branched off into sports as well. I played volleyball and soccer mostly.
I had a shower and got dressed in time to eat something before I left. My dad was downstairs at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.
"Good morning, sir," I said politely, my eyes on the floor. He grunted and kept reading his paper. The morning routine was a success. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. At 15, he didn't keep me from going to school anymore, but I would have a hell of a time explaining a fresh black eye to my friends if he got mad. I wolfed down a bowl of cereal and was out the door in 10 minutes.
When I got to school, I saw my best friend Aaron Riveste standing in front of the school having a smoke.
"See any cute guys today?" I asked with a smile. Oh, yeah. Did I forget to mention I was gay?
"Nope. Nada. You're stuck with me," he replied, blowing smoke in my face. I coughed and waved my hand in front of me.
"That's gonna kill you, you know," I told him for what must have been the billionth time that year.
"Yeah, but at least I'll leave a beautiful corpse." He dropped the cigarette and ground it out on the pavement with his shoe. "But there are more pressing issues at hand, young Benjamin," he smiled, turning toward the school. Aaron was 16 seconds older than I was. Him on the evening of March 22, me on the morning of the 23. He thought it was hysterical. I thought it was stupid.
"Like what?"
"Like finding you a boyfriend," he replied matter of factly. I told Aaron I was gay last year at Halloween. He'd been my best friend since before my mom died, so I was pretty sure he'd take it well. And he did. He said it was cool then laughed for 5 blocks because now he needed to find a different kind of porn for our sleepover that night. Loser.
"What makes you think I need a boyfriend?" I asked once we were inside.
"Well, you can't have me anymore. I mean, I love ya and all, man, but I'm... how do I say this... straight."
I put my hand over my heart and wore a look of pain on my face. "Say it ain't so."
"Alas, 'tis true. So come on, studly, you're wasting time." He pulled me down the hall toward the gym. I got a bad feeling.
"You're not taking me to the gym to scope out guys are you?"
"I am indeed."
I stopped. Okay, this had gone far enough. It was one thing to joke about it, it was another to actively check out guys at my school gym, no matter how discreet I was. If word got out, my dad would kill me. I had no doubt in my mind about that. "I don't need a boyfriend, Aaron."
Aaron looked at me and frowned. "Come on, Ben. It's no big deal. We're just looking."
"No."
"Ben--"
"No!"
Just then the bell rand and people began to flood the empty hallways. We dropped the subject immediately. I was listening to Aaron talk about the latest unfair attack on his beloved Napster when I was slammed backwards onto the floor. My backpack broke my fall and kept me from cracking my skull open. I was more surprised than anything else.
"Shit! I'm really, really sorry, man. You okay?" I saw a hand held out to help me up and I grabbed it. When I was on my feet again, I saw my assailant. He was gorgeous. A little bit shorter than me, about an inch or two. Short black hair that set off unbelievable blue eyes. Bright, clear, crystalline blue, the kind you see in the Pacific on a sunny day.
I still had a hold of his hand and dropped it. I realized he was waiting for an answer. "Uh... yeah," I managed to get out. "Are you okay?"
He laughed. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm really sorry about that. My idiot friend here," he punched the guy standing next to him, whom I knew as Derrick, "though he could beat me to the other end of the hall."
"Don't worry about it."
"Alright. Well, I gotta get to class. See ya around." He waved and took off with his friend.
I stared after him for a few seconds before I remembered where I was, but not before I practically walked into a wall. I turned back to Aaron, who had this big shit-eating grin on his face.
"What?" I asked.
"If you put your eyes back in your head, you can see better," he laughed.
"Ha ha, you're SO funny," I said sarcastically.
"Aww, come on. Don't pout. His name's Austin Albrecht. Came here two weeks ago from Regina. He's got two cats named Skrae and Punk. Mom's a secretary at some lawyer's office downtown, Dad's in retail. Got a 22-year old brother named Michael who goes to school in Kelowna."
I stared at him. "You know him? And you didn't tell me about him?"
Aaron nodded. "He's in my human sciences class."
"You're unspeakably cruel, you know that?"
He nodded and grinned. I shook my head in defeat and smiled back. I don't think I'll ever completely understand him. Maybe that's why we've been friends so long. Aaron ducked into his math class and I heard a chorus of "Hi, Aaron"s come from his fan club. I chuckled to myself. I guess Aaron was pretty good-looking. Sun streaked brown hair, brown eyes, and a hard body. If he wasn't practically my brother, I'd do him. I told him this one day when he was depressed because some chick dumped him. He laughed his ass off. Smiling at the memory, I went to my own class.
I sat down and, noticing I was a few minutes early, took out a book I'd gotten from the library earlier that week. I was so involved in it, I didn't even notice someone had sat beside me until they tapped me on the forehead. I jumped a little when I saw who it was.
"Austin!" I exclaimed.
"Guy I Ran Into!" he replied with a grin.
I laughed. "I'm Ben. Ben Ghallager."
"Whatcha readin', Ben Ghallager?" he asked. I had to force myself to look away from those eyes so I could remember.
"Animal Farm."
"Cool. Hey, you wanna come over after school?"
I did a sharp double take. This was a little up front. I had only met him 10 minutes ago and he wanted me to come over. Why the hell did he want to hang out with me? "Uh, I can't today. I have soccer practice after school and I have to be home right at six."
"So skip practice." He sounded so matter of fact, like the decision had already been made, but he didn't sound cocky. How did people do that? Aaron could do that and it had gotten me into trouble with my dad more than once. Now it looked like Austin could do it too. Great.
"Okay," I said slowly. I was thinking about how I would keep this from my dad. He didn't mind me playing sports. In fact, he demanded that I play something. He said it contributed to my character and taught me discipline. But I was to be at home or at school during the day. Occasionally he would let me go over to Aaron's for the day, but not often.
"Hey, if you want to stay at practice, it's okay," he said, noticing my reluctance to accept his offer. "Some other time."
I suddenly really wanted to go to his house. Fuck what my dad thought. Here this guy was trying to be nice to me and I was blowing him off. "No," I heard myself say. "We're not doing anything important at practice today. Just drills and stuff. What do you wanna do?"
Time went on and Austin and I became friends. Aaron, of course, took every available opportunity to tease me. At first it wasn't so bad. I knew Austin was just a fantasy. Eye candy. Nothing more.
But as the weeks turned to into months and Austin and I got closer, I found myself thinking about him more and more. I'd catch myself wondering if Austin would like what I was wearing as I dressed in the mornings. I'd instantly become more animated whenever he came and sat with Aaron and me at lunch. Aaron noticed this and, with a big smile and a nudge in the ribs, he'd asked me what was going on. I tried to brush it off, telling myself that Aaron was just being Aaron and he was reading more into it than there actually was. But after I'd changed my sheets for the third time that week, I accepted it, much as I didn't want to. I had a crush on Austin.
Brennan's Ramblings: So there it is. My first try. Tell me what you think. bjobse414@hotmail.com