Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 09:31:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Zare Scott <raspucin70@yahoo.com>
Subject: RIP TIDE, chapter two

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction.  It depicts a romance
between
two consenting adult males and may contain some descriptions of sexual
act
between two consenting adult males.  If you are not of legal age to read
this kind of story, please leave now.  If you reside in area where
reading
stories that include sexual situations between two consenting adult males
are illegal, please leave now.  This story is for entertainment purposes
only.  Any similarity to any person(s) living or dead is simply a
coincidence.  The author retains all rights to this story.  It cannot be
reproduced in any form without expressed written permission from the
author
(me).  Please contact the author for any requests at
raspucin70@yahoo.com.  Copyright 2006.
RIP TIDE
Chapter Two: Meet Hayden
(From Hayden's point of view)

 Annoying buzzing sound was drilling trough my sleep. I took me a while
to realize what is going on. A new semester means a new schedule. Now I
have to get up at 6 am so that I can manage to go to the gym before
school. I was never a morning person, which makes switching to morning
exercise even worse. Groaningly, I got up and got dressed.

One good thing about getting into gym at this hour is that there are only
few gym rats in there. I started my routine, still trying to wake up my
sleepy muscles. At least I am here, I thought. Another victory against
laziness - and sly smile broke over my face. Sometimes you have to make
yourself feeling better all by yourself, and this little pep talk was
definitively working. Just recently I started to notice fruits of my hard
work. I was always trying to keep myself in shape - not that I was
particularly involved in sports or anything, but I really let myself go
in last year.

Still running on treadmill, I started to recollect how stressful was last
year for me. After two years of marriage, Melissa and I finally broke up.
The whole marriage was a farce, based on delusions on both ends. Melissa
was a mental child in grown women body, and she could never understand
how complex person I am and the darkness that was always present in my
head. Finally we ended it up, and it was a bitter one. We never clicked
together and I was glad that it was over. I got accepted in grad school,
moved out and closed that chapter of my life. It took me better part of
last year to get myself back in semi-normal stage of mind, where hate is
not something that you wake up with. Four months ago I rented a small
house on the edge of our college town and finally settled in. I made
myself go back to the gym, start eating more carefully, and above all,
live less stressed-out life style. And I started to feel good about
myself, once again.

But my dark side was still there.

Ever since I was a teenager, I had internal battle inside of me. It took
me years to finally realize that I am bisexual by nature. When I was in
high school I dated girls, but could never fully plunge myself into
meaningful relationship. Nor I could really say that I was actually
having feelings towards girls that I dated (and slept with). It was more
part of obligation, trying to keep a straight image. A baddass Hayden.
Take-no-crap-from-nobody Hayden. Sport-bike riding, drinking,
donuts-in-the-parking-lot Hayden. Yeah, that was me. On the other side, I
never had courage to actually go out and find a...boy...a boyfriend.

See, that is where I haven't quite cleared stuff in my own head. Finding
an actual boyfriend would mean total and final surrender into life style
that I really, really did not wanted to belong. You know. Pillow-bitter.
Ass-licker. Faggot. No. Even I was almost sure that I was actually
inclined towards same sex, but my rational side was in total denial. And
of course, there is always infamous "what will world say".

My family tried to reason with me, but I was not listening. Counseling
was a joke - I was playing mind games with shrink all the way. I had a
bad temper - I would often get into fights. It seemed that even if I
wouldn't look for trouble the trouble would find me with no influence
from my side whatsoever. Binge drinking was not helping the situation
either.  Last year of college my drinking got out of hand a little too
much. One night, I wrapped my car around an oak tree coming back home.
Thankfully, I was alone in the car, but that finally send a message.
Months of rehab later, my family moved. I managed to finish college
somehow, but something happened to me. I withdrew into my self, staying
mostly in my room. I guess it did help from the stand point of view that
my brain switched-off "Self-destruction as meaning for life" mechanism. I
think that sub-consciously my brain figured that something needed to
change.  One year later, I met Melissa and we got married with all the
mentioned consequences.

All sweaty, I finished with treadmill and moved onto free weights. God,
this is much harder this early in the morning. I made myself push my body
harder. I knew that in a week or so, I would get used to morning
workouts.

It was almost nine when I came back home. I have to hurry if I want to
make to my Physics II class. One shower and breakfast later, I headed
out. Physics with Mr. Raysbroock was not fun - man was real stickler for
in-class discipline, so I made sure that my cell was on vibrate before I
stuffed it in my pocked and entered the classroom.
Halfway try class I got really nasty surprise - my cell phone started to
ring its metal lungs out. To make situation worse, its ringing tone is
portion of a song from a local heavy-metal band. Really recognizable in
public. And really, really annoying when you don't want to hear cell
phone ringing. Like in a movie theatre. Or in a restaurant. Or in a
Physic class.

After almost half of minute of ringing, I managed to dig the damn thing
out of my backpack and shut it off. Mr. Raysbroock stopped his lecture,
and in sudden dead silence of the classroom his tapping of the blackboard
pointer on the floor seemed louder than my cell phone second ago.

 "Mr. Faulkner, what is the class policy on the cell phones?"
 "...Um, to be turned off during the lecture..." this was really
embarrassing, and he was not making it easy on me. Obviously he was going
to make an example out of this particular incident.
 "Would you be so kind to see me after class in my office, please?" Oww,
shit. Him being falsely pleasant was even worse. I saw half of the class
turning their head to see who is in trouble. People are such vultures -
even in grad school they will childishly look to see who got in trouble.
And I was. Again.

 WAIT A DARN MINUTE!

 If that was my cell phone that was ringing a second ago - then who's
cell phone I got in my pocket ?!?
 Burning with curiosity, I started to quietly move in my seat. I had to
be inconspicuous. I do not need more trouble. Thirty seconds of
squirming, I got other phone out of my pocket.

One black Razor in left hand. One black Razor in right hand. One with a
scratch across front cover.

 Suddenly the scene from yesterday was playing again in my head. That
freshman knocking me over. My stuff on the floor. His stuff on the floor.
Me picking up cell phone and taking it home. That means that...

Oh crap, crap, crap.

I have to straighten this mess up as soon as possible. How come trouble
always manages to find the way to mess with me? I couldn't wait for class
to end. I was brainstorming how to get this phone back; I am really
concern about other people's property...especially when I...err, stole
it. Luckily, there is "Missed Calls" feature; at least I can call him
back. Or go try his phone book to find last placed calls. Or maybe just
simply drop it by campus security? That actually sounds like good idea -
the guy is probably going to seek it there too. In the midst of that
planning, class ended. Shit, I completely forgot that now I have to see
Mr. Raysbroock. Luckily, he was less of a pain that I thought he would
be. He actually laughed when I explained to him about two cell phones.
Still, he gave me "don't let this happen again" lecture. Oh well. I
hurried out of his office.

Outside, I scrolled try phone menu to find "missed call". Three missed
calls? Wow, this guy is popular. Last one was from this morning - while I
was at the gym. To my disappointment, calling back the same number all I
got was our campus directory. That means that he used phone from one of
college's offices - probably security office itself. I guess I better
head there than...now where is it security office here?
In the middle of that, phone in my hand started to vibrate. Area code was
different from ours - now I was curious.

"Hello?" I started cautiously.
"Matt? Where are you? Is everything Ok? Why didn't you answered last
night? I was worried sick! Your dad and I did not hear from you all day
yesterday..."

Oh shit. This was his mother. Now she will have some total stranger
answer her son's cell phone. How messed up is that - and can my life get
more complicated than this? Should I just tell her that she got wrong
number? No, that won't work since she will call immediately back - and
than what? I sighed and tried to sound as calm as possible.

"Ma'm, this is one of the students at Matt's school...Matt had apparently
lost his phone yesterday and I am on my way to security office to see if
he was looking for it" I tried to be as discreet as possible without
raising too much concern.
"Is he Ok? We been trying to get in touch with him since last night...we
are very worried - and he doesn't not know the number of the hotel where
we are right now".

 Jesus, what a mess. It turned out that his parents are on vacation
themselves, and they traveled halfway with him, and now they somewhere in
Tennessee, in some motel going insane trying to reach him. Awww...All of
the sudden, I started to feel extremely sorry for this kid. According to
his mom, he did not even have place to stay - he just arrived yesterday
morning, just before classes started. I could only assumed that he might
be in one of town hotels, but judging by what his mom said, he did not
had much money on him. Uhhh...I left her my cell number, and I got number
of their hotel. Now I was feeling obligated to track down this kid.

Matt. So that is his name. Cool.

I was still indecisive about what exactly to do. I guess I should still
get to the campus security and hand them the phone with a note regarding
his parents' hotel info. Somehow, that did not feel totally satisfactory.
In that case, I would never know did he actually went to campus security
and got it. It was bothering me, and I was not sure how to address this
problem. Still brainstorming about that, I reached campus cafeteria.
Maybe after cup of coffee I could think something better.

Cafeteria was the usual jungle of students truing to hang out, grab
something to eat, go try their papers and talk - all at the same time.
With coffee in my hand, I was treading try the crowd looking for a place
to sit down. I spotted Scott at one of the tables, talking to some blonde
girl. I didn't wanted to intrude, but he saw me and flagged me in.

"What's up man? I heard that you got flamed in Physic today!"
"I see the news travel fast around here...how did you find out so
quickly? I just happened, like ten minutes ago?!?"
"Courtney here was just telling me...man, I can only picture the scene...
I bet it was awesome!"

That was typical Scott. I knew him from day one - we shared room for
about two months until I got sick of dorms and moved out. He was happy to
get rid of me - his girlfriend moved in the same night. He was really ok
guy, just a little loud for my taste. We still hang out together from
time to time.
"Courtney, I guess you know Hayden by now" Scott continued
"Yeah, she and everybody else in Raysbroock's class...I'm gonna be know
as Mr. LoudCellPhone from now one" I frowned.
" Like you can do something about that," he retorted, almost choking on
his fries.
"Would you like to sit her with us, Hayden?" Courtney smiled. She really
looked ok, on the second look. It was just that I was not in the mood for
a dating game yet. And besides that I was not quite sure which dating
game I SHOULD be in the mood for. Yeah, I simply loved my messed up,
split-in-two brain that couldn't decide for me which chair I should sit
on.
We talk for a bit, and actually Courtney proved to be quite ok. At least
it is always beneficial to meet more people from the same class. I was in
the middle of telling them about my "pleasant" conversation with
Raysbroock, when I saw him.

 I stopped in the middle of my sentence. At that moment it became
imperative to observe his movement try the crowd, his body twisting left
and right as he was making his way in between tables and crowd, holding
what looked like wrapped sandwich and bottle of juice. In just that brief
moment, I managed to soak all the details on him. Faded jeans, t-shirt
with some logo on the sleeve, backpack on the left shoulder. Black short
hair and just portions of his face as he was treading trough the crowd
towards the exit.

"Hayden?"
"Huh? Um, yeah, sorry." I concealed my story break with sip from my
coffee cup. I finished my episode at Raysbroock office, and excused my
self from the table with some made-up story about that I forgot to do
something and I had to leave. I hate lying, but sometimes it is just
easier. Besides, it was not quite a lie - I had to catch this guy before
he disappears.

It took me nearly two minutes to get out of cafeteria. Outside, I did
quick scan in three directions that he might went. There were only three
paths that lead to cafeteria from rest of the campus. And he was nowhere
in site. How did he managed to run away so quickly? Even if he was truly
running, I could still see him; pathways are alt least eight of a mile
long - nobody can be that fast. Confused I just stood there, with people
moving in and out of the doorway. I took a second look around and then I
noticed him. He was just little sideways, sitting underneath the big
tree, unwrapping his sandwich. I took a big breath and I moved along
towards him.

End of chapter two

Another hanger, don't you just hate that? Stay tuned; third installment
will be her in day or so. Again, any comment is appreciated. Write to
raspucin70@yahoo.com