Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 16:23:29 +0100
From: Lange <lange.ruegen@t-online.de>
Subject: betrayed love - chapter 2

chapter two: working up the courage

Jason stopped after walking a few meters, turned around and looked back at
Tommy, who kept on going.  Jason got a kick out of the little wiggling
motions Tommy's hips made as he walked. A sad feeling began to creep into
Jason's mind, but he tried to push it aside. He was sure now that he should
tell Tommy his secret today. Well, he would try anyway.  Somehow he knew he
would have to find the strength to do it. Maybe it would be easier for him
if they didn't have any classes together afterwards, as he still didn't
even have the slightest idea how Tommy would react. He was his friend,
sure, and they'd been friends for an incredibly long time, but still Tommy
would sometimes react in ways that Jason didn't understand, whatsoever.

He did not really worry about Tommy rejecting his love, because he'd been
absolutely conscious about Tommy not loving him the same way from the
beginning and that surely had not changed. Now he began to worry more about
Tommy rejecting him as a friend.  They had never talked about homosexuality
and, thus, he didn't know Tom's opinion on it.  He would have told him
earlier that he was gay, but he'd never had the guts to do so. If it just
wasn't so difficult ...

He was thinking and daydreaming as he stood in the hallway, when he
suddenly felt a hand on his back pushing him forward slightly. He spun
around on his heels and looked at two boys, named Eric and Steven, whom he
barely knew. He'd met them briefly a few times, as Tommy had played
basketball with them last year, and he had hung around with on a couple of
different occasions.  He didn't think they were the kind of guys that he
would enjoy being with, but he did not know them well enough that he could
be positive of that.

"Hey, dreamer. Do you know Tommy's homeroom number?" Steven asked, with a
twinge of bemusement in his voice.

"Umm, R106."

Satisfied with that reply the two went into the direction that Tommy had
vanished.

Steven was absolutely not the type of boy that Jason usually liked. He had
a shaved head and Jason always felt that there was a cruel streak lurking
behind his tranquil gray eyes.  Being 6'5'', he was rather impressive
looking and somewhat imposing, so no one dared to say anything against him.

Eric, on the other hand, was someone Jason could haven fallen for, that is
if Tommy wasn't there. He had black hair, which shown with a tint of blue
if the light came from the right angle, and he had green eyes, which from
time to time did not really seem to go with the light clothing he always
wore. The combination did make him look kind of sexy and quite gorgeous in
Jason's eyes. He'd even fantasized about him at night and it often made him
feel all excited if he were to bump into Eric in the hallways at school.
Still, Eric was not Tommy. Both of them were quite different
character-wise, but cute nevertheless. He'd have liked to get to know Eric
better, maybe because he suspected that he was gay also, just judging by
his looks, but Eric was a basketball freak and he surely wouldn't want
anything to do with some brainy freak.

Everyone around him must have thought that he was some kind of dumb
asshole, staring at another guy wide-eyed and open-mouthed in the middle of
the hallway. Did he really think that no one would suspect he was gay when
he did things like that?

Jason looked at his watch and a shocked expression came over his face. He
had only one minute left to get to his room or he would get a detention on
the first day of the new school year. His mother would ground him forever,
if he did that.

Where was R302 anyway? Yeah, that would be enough for a detention except if
his teacher was really nice but, to stay realistic, no teacher in his
school was really ever very nice.

Beginning to run, he flew down the hallway despite of the 'no running' rule
in the student- handbook. He first ran to the north-wing of the building
and paused there in front of a map of the school building. A group of sixth
and seventh graders stood in front of it too, as they tried to figure out
where their rooms were. How embarrassing for him, a sophomore, to stand
among them and have a hard time finding his room.

Until now he'd never had to do that. Tommy had always known where all the
rooms were.  Jason now understood that he'd obviously been led everywhere
by Tommy. So, now he had a problem to solve. Finally getting a clear look
at the map, he realized that he was not all that far from where he had to
go. He simply had to walk back the way he came, taking a few stairs up to
the next floor, and then take the hallway straight ahead. His room would be
somewhere around there.

He struggled a little to get through the screaming mass of kids who pushed
and pressed against him, to get to the stairwell, and he managed to get
through after a couple of minutes.  A quick glance at his watch made him
aware that he was already several minutes late and he started sprinting up
the stairs and into the other hallway. There it was, R302. He'd finally
found it. He knocked lightly on the door and, when a voice from inside of
the room asked him to enter, he opened the door with shaky hands.

"Umm, hello?"

"You are Mr. Matthews, I assume."

"Yes." Jason replied with a trembling voice.

"Why are you late, Mr. Matthews?"

"I ... uhh ... I couldn't find my room ... somehow."

"You're a sophomore in this high school, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And you can't find your homeroom? That's hilarious ... Sit down, I'll give
out the schedules in a few minutes."

Jason looked uneasy at the other students, some of whom were smirking,
while a few others were just looking at Jason with pity in their eyes.

"They are a bunch of assholes." He mumbled under his breath, while
strolling to the only seat still unoccupied.

"Now, that we are all here, I shall give you your schedules."

He went around the class while calling out names and passing out the
appropriate schedules. When giving Jason his schedule, he stood in front of
him a little longer.

"Here's your schedule, Mr. Matthews. You better learn quickly where all the
rooms are, so you won't have any problems finding your way around later."

The class erupted in laughter and Jason's head glowed red from
embarrassment.

"Do you understand me?" There was no reaction from Jason.

"Mr. Matthews?"

A whispered 'yes' shook everybody out of control again.

"So, everyone, that's it for now. You may go, unless you expect to have
problems following your schedule or have problems with your schedule in
general. If you'll have any of these problems, you know where to find me or
you can go to the guidance office. Mr. Matthews, would you please wait a
moment?"

"Sure."

With his bowed in shame, Jason went to his teacher's desk while the others
were going outside and giggling about him.

"You know that this means a detention?"

A slight nod was Jason's reply.

"R202, after school. Be sure you're there or it will become even worse for
you."

"Yes, sir."

That was it: a detention on the first day. It couldn't get any worse, could
it? He needed to find Tommy now, so that they could compare their
schedules. He went onto the campus looking for Tommy at the usual spotsthey
hung out together, but he did not find him at any of those places.

He then decided to go to his usual hiding place on the window sill. When
Tommy was not around it was no use for him to hang around by himself,
somewhere out there among all these assholes. He practically began running
over the campus, but when he noticed that he got quite some weird looks
from other students, he slowed down as not to make a complete fool of
himself. It had already been bad enough half an hour ago. There's no need
to experience the same thing twice.

When he'd nearly arrived at the stairwell to his special place, he saw
Tommy arguing with some teacher. Closing the distance a little, he could
make out a few words. Tommy seemed helpless.

"I don't care. He was the one who began teasing. Should I've just stood
there without helping the kid?"

"You could have called a teacher."

"Yeah sure, as if they'd ever do something to these bullies."

"We would have done something, but that's not the point. You've obviously
started the fight. That means a detention for you, R202, this afternoon. Be
there, I tell you."

"Sure, sure."

Tommy left the teacher standing there and walked in Jason's direction.  He
almost ran into Jason, but noticed him at the last moment.  Jason would
have given anything to kiss Tommy there and then. He was sooo cute. How is
it possible that he becomes cuter when he's weak and vulnerable?

Being deep in thought, Jason instinctively reached out to hold Tommy in his
arms and against his chest, but he quickly realized that it would have been
the wrong place and the wrong time. Instead he began talking to Tommy.

"You go a detention, too?"

"What means 'too'? Jason, you have not ... What have you done? Your mom
will kill you."

"I simply was barely ten minutes late, but Dupree gave me a detention after
embarrassing me in front of the class. Yeah, my mom will kill me."

"You've never had a detention."

"There's a first time for everything, but why have you gotten one?"

"There were some bullies picking on a 6th grader. You know, calling him
names and pushing him around. I just had to help him." With that he looked
up and his glazing blue eyes met Jason's brown ones. A smile crept across
both of their faces. Jason broke the look after a few seconds because he
felt himself blushing a little. He could not let Tommy see that, but Tommy
did not seem to notice.

"Hey Jay, do you have your schedule with you?"

Jason nodded 'yes'.

"Show me."

"Here, I haven't even taken a look."

"Okay, give me. Let's see ... you got English first period ... second
period ... math ... third ...  hm. Looks as if we have no classes together
anymore ... Oh shit. They can't do that to us. I mean, we've always been in
the same classes."

"We really have no more classes together?"

Jason was staring unbelieving at Tommy. That couldn't be. They'll only have
their afternoons left and, come on, stay realistic, there was always an
awful lot of homework to do. But maybe, it would be better that way. God
knows, he could not keep his eyes of Tommy during classes. And there was
still the chance that Tommy did not accept Jason's homosexuality and
love. If that were the case, the different schedules would be quite useful.
Other things had to happen first, however, and Jason did not want to think
about how badly their soon-to-be-held-talk could turn out.

"We'll still see each other in the detention."

"Very funny, Tom. My mom will surely ground me for years."

"Yeah, her perfect son did something wrong thing in his life."

"Asshole."

"Idiot .. oh, that was the bell. You better go looking for your room, we
don't want you being late another time, do we?"

"Shut up."

"Okay, I'll see ya in R202 in a few hours, or for lunch, but lunch is a bit
bad 'cause I still have to talk to some of my teachers, so it's most
probably in R202. I'm looking forward to that."

"I am, too."

If Tommy just stopped grinning all the time, it would make everything a lot
easier to handle for Jason, but maybe that was what made Tommy so
attractive to him. Tommy left Jason standing there and went on his way to
find his next room, R109 - history. Well, it was one of his 'favorite'
subjects, especially having it with the teacher he had history with last
year.  It was always a class to relax, or to even sleep a little. He would
be having enough time to think about the talk with Tommy anyway. He wanted
to have that talk with him today, despite what would happen in the next
hours. He couldn't live anymore with lying to Tom all the time.

But well, first there was the task of finding his room and then he could go
on thinking.  R109, well, that's weird, he would have guessed it was in the
Northern wing, but there was already R302 ...tough question ...

Standing in the hallway and thinking about how to find his room, he spotted
Eric and Steven again, strolling down the hallway. Working up some courage
he asked them.

"Eric? Steven?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me where R109 is?"

"Sure. Western wing, first floor."

"Oh, thanks a lot."

"Sure, no prob."

It was Eric doing all the talking while Steven kept on standing beside him
and glancing at Jason.

"Eric? Come on, let's go."

"Uhh, sure. See you, Jason."

"Bye."

Well, that was fairly allright ... western wing was not where he was, but
it was not too far away either. Nothing he couldn't manage on time, that
was for sure.

While going down the different hallways, turning around corners and trying
not to bump into too many people, he thought about Steven's reaction. Did
Steven sense that he was gay or had it just been a usual kind of antipathy
Steven had against Jason. If it was, you could surely say that Jason felt
the same.

Arriving at his room, he opened door and saw that only about half of the
students were there yet. That obviously meant that he was not too
late. Lucky for him as being late another time on the same day always meant
a little more than a detention. That's what Tommy had told him anyway and
he had to know. Jason couldn't quite understand how Tommy always got into
all that trouble, but it was mostly caused by some useless fights.  He'd
never fought against Jason and thus the reasons for these fights stayed in
the dark for Jay, but as long as he was not hurt by Tommy, he did not
really care about that.

The class was as boring as the following ones and nothing interesting
happened during lunch. Tommy did not show up to eat and that made Jason a
little curious, but it was not that unusual to cause him to really be
worried. Eric and Steven kept to themselves, too, although Jason felt
Steven eyes on his back, something which made him feel rather
uncomfortable. After lunch, the following two periods passed faster than
Jason had expected them to do and, before he could really make up a plan
how to eventually tell Tommy, he already had to leave for R202 to pass his
detention there.

As he entered the room, he noticed Tommy already sitting there alone. He
approached him from behind and tried to shock him a little, but Tommy
turned around in his seat before he could reach his goal.

"Don't even try it, buddy. You wouldn't manage it anyway."

"Man, you always spoil my fun."

Still laughing hard, Jason let himself fall into the seat next to his
friend and they both awaited the arrival of their detention teacher in
total silence. They wondered a little about why they seemed to be the only
ones there today, but the others students were obviously not as dumb as to
catch detention on the first day of the new year. Their assumption proved
to be right when Mrs. Lewis, obviously this day's detention teacher,
entered the room exactly 7 minutes later.

"Mr. Matthews and Mr. Appel, I assume? You're lucky because you're the only
ones here today. I really wonder, Mr. Matthews, what you are doing here. I
didn't expect you here anytime. Anyway, I won't have the mercy to let you
out now although you're theonly ones, but there has to be some
punishment. That means, I'm going down to my room to correct papers and you
will stay in here until the time's over. I could forbid you to talk now,
but it does not make sense, so ... Have fun, boys."

Huhh, that was it now. They had 60 minutes ahead of them and Jason simply
knew that he had to tell Tommy today or he would never again have the guts
to do so. But what way do you best in- troduce such a topic? Sure, he could
get up and begin like 'Tommy, I'm gay and in love with you'. Yeah, Tommy
would be incredibly impressed then and surely so overjoyed to hear it. Or
he could just talk for 59 minutes and not get to the point. What a
mess. Maybe Tommy also already knew about that ... it was not like Jason
could really hide it all that well and somebody searching for the signs
would have surely found them in his attitude but, lucky for Jason, nobody
really did pay attention to him. He was always just a face in the crowd and
nothing more. But he *had* to talk now, he had to say something or he would
miss his chance again.

"Hey Tom, how was your day?"

Wow, that was really incredible! What a lame beginning. Jason cursed
himself mentally for being such a geek and not knowing what to say.

"Dunno, it was a usual first day, I'd say. Nothing really spectacular
happening. But what's with you, Jay? You seem so tense today. Anything
wrong? Are you worried what your mother will do if she gets to know about
this?"

As if that would be the main problem ... Could he do it now? Could he just
say what he had wanted to say for so long?

"Yeah, partly it maybe is because of my mother, but Tom, I have to tell you
something."

"That sounds like something serious."

"It is. Okay, listen, this is not easy for me either. I have never told
anyone before about this ..."

"You think your cock's too small." Laughing Tommy looked at Jason
expectantly.

"Very funny. Could you please just stop joking around for a minute. I
really want to tell you something serious and I'm fucking scared what you
reaction will be like, so please stop being silly."

"Sorry, I did not want to ... you know."

Jason got up from his seat and prepared himself to tell Tommy
everything. He did glance at Tommy shortly, but found that he could not
look him in the eye while telling him. He went a few steps away and
stopped, with his back toward Tommy.

"Listen, I will just tell you this once and if you don't want to be friends
with me afterwards, I'll understand. Please don't interrupt me, it's
already hard enough this way. Tommy, I want you to know that I really
appreciate everything you do for me. I appreciate you being my friend and
being there for me when I really need you. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't
be where I am now. I can't change what I'm going to tell you now and,
honestly, I don't want to change it. Tommy, I love you. No wait, before you
say something. I do love you as a friend and everything, but to make it
really clear, I am also *in love* with you. I love you more than a friend
and I can't live knowing that you know nothing about that. If this makes me
gay, I'll accept it that way. I had more than enough time to think about
everything and I guess I can accept myself for what I am and for who I am
no matter which sexual orientation.  You're the first person to ever know
about this besides me, but I guess, you would have had a right to know
about everything long before today. I'm sorry that I did not have the guts
to tell you earlier, but it also took *me* some time to work it out and to
realize what's going on. I don't know which way I expect you to react, as I
absolutely don't know your position on such things. I only hope, that
you'll turn out to be the friend that I think I have and that you will
support me. I do not expect you to come over and make love to me or
anything, although I sure wouldn't mind ... So, that's it.  What do you
have to say?"

Still facing the wall, Jason cold not see Tommy's reaction at all and, for
a few moments after Jason had ended his speech, you could have heard a
needle drop in the room. Tommy waited before he realized that he was
expected to say something and then got up from the chair he had been
sitting in.