Chapter Six: Jace

"Since when the fuck are you gay?" John demanded.

I expected this from John. He didn't like change—and this was a huge change. My other friends, however, seemed to be mostly okay with it. They still talked to me for the rest of the day, though they seemed a little bit uncomfortable. But how could they not be? I had just kissed one of the geekiest—and most adorable—guys in the world in front of the entire school. I'm sure my friends had soiled their pants when they saw my little lip lock with Maxxie. But that kiss had felt so amazing and uplifting, I didn't even care what they thought.

Now John and I were walking home from school. John was like a dragon, with steam flaring out of his nostrils and his eyes flickering with anger. I kept glancing at him sideways, making sure that he wasn't going to rip his brown hair right from the scalp.

"So?" he snarled. "Are you going to answer my question?"

I shoved my hands in my pockets and shrugged. I guess my whole life I had known somewhere, deep down, I knew I was different. I didn't know how I was different until that one day when I was twelve.

"I've been gay my whole life, John," I sighed. "But I've known I was gay since I was twelve."

His brown eyes bugged out of his head. "W-what?! Are you kidding me? I've known you since we were twelve!"

I shrugged again and kept on walking. I could hear John trying to steady his breathing beside me. John was the kind of the person who didn't get angry very often, but when he did you had to run. He was like a volcano ready to erupt and spread its wrath over everything.

"Wait, so all this time when I thought that you got horny for girls... you've actually gotten horny for guys?" he demanded.

I frowned. "Why do you need to make it sound so gross?"

"Because it is!" he shouted.

I stopped walking. I stared at him carefully, a frown set on my face. I could still see that he was breathing angrily, his chest moving up and down quickly. If he kept this up, he was going to have a seizure right there on the sidewalk. I could feel a growing anger towards him, so it was dead set that I wouldn't help him if he did have a seizure.

"It's not gross," I insisted. "It's just like liking girls, except I'm a guy and I like guys. In my opinion guys can kiss better than girls."

"So you've kissed more than one guy?" he asked.

I blushed and looked at my feet. "No."

A sluggish smile spread across his face. "Well, then, you're not gay. You've only kissed one guy."

I shut my eyes. Why was he acting like this? More importantly, why didn't I even expect him to act like this? It was just like him to try and get things back to the way he liked them.

He dropped his arm around my shoulder and smiled lazily. He nodded and chuckled a couple of times.

"You're not gay," he said. "This is all a phase."

I rolled my eyes. Being accepted by my friends would be much harder than I thought.

>>><<< 

I was leaning against the lockers, my friends trying to cram information that I couldn't care less about down my throat. They were thrusting words and phrases at me like, "Jace! You're too good to be gay!" or, "Jace, you're so funny! Why would you ever go out with Maxxie?"

I was ready to kick them all in the face.

"Hello."

My friends and I all turned our heads to the direction of the voice. A tiny girl with her blonde hair in pigtails was standing beside my locker. She was holding a small rectangular book in her delicate looking hands. She had a smile on her innocent looking face. I had seen this girl around school sometimes; she was a freshman and often mingled with the sophomores. She usually hung out with three other freshman girls but they were nowhere in sight now.

"Uh, hi," I said hesitantly. "Can I help you?"

I watched as she simply thrust the book towards me. It had a picture of Batman and Robin on it. Robin was stroking Batman's arm. I knit my eyebrows together and looked up at her.

"What is this?" John hissed as he peered over my shoulder.

The girl beamed. "I made it all by myself." She pointed to the right hand corner of the page. "See? Melanie Rose."

I nodded slowly. I was still very confused about why she had given it to me. I barely knew this girl and—not to be rude—I was far too popular for her to be talking to me first.

"It's a fan-fiction," she explained. "You know, boy on boy?"

I flipped through the pages. I came across a very detailed picture of Robin on top of Batman. In my mind, Maxxie was Batman and I was Robin. I smirked—I always knew that Robin was the dominant one in his secret relationship with Batman. John, I'm guessing, saw the picture and his eyes bugged out of his skull. He reached for the book and handed it back to Melanie.

"He doesn't need this," John hissed. "He's not gay."

Melanie frowned, confused. "But yesterday—"

I grabbed the book back from Melanie and smiled. "I love it, Melanie. Thank you. I'll be sure to show my boyfriend this."

Melanie grinned and walked away. I smiled looked back at the book. Suddenly, it was ripped out of my hands. John held the book in the air, making a face as if he were holding a bottle of acid.

"You," he said slowly and firmly, "do not need this."

I leaned against the lockers and raised an eyebrow. I knew that there was no point in grabbing the book back from him; John was a brown belt in karate. He had ninja reflexes.

"Why is that?" I asked softly.

John fluttered through the pages, showing them to me. My eyes kept narrowing as he kept flicking through the pages. My eyes kept darting from picture to picture.

"You don't seem to understand what I'm telling you," John insisted. "You. Are. Not. Gay!"

I clenched my jaw. It was the second day that I had been out of the closet to the school. No, I did not expect people to be warmed up about the idea yet. But John was taking things too far. Yeah, he was my best friend, but he should have been there for me. He should have understood that I was feeling somewhat lost with myself and I didn't need his pestering.

"You don't seem to understand what I'm telling you," I hissed. "I'm gay."

I grabbed the book from his hands and tucked it under my arm. I turned on my heels and began to walk down the hall, feeling furious with John. I was suddenly yanked backwards and pushed onto the ground. The book fell from my arms and skittered across the ground. I blinked a couple of times, confused with what had just happened. John picked the book up from off of the ground and threw it into the trash can. He put his hands on his hips and looked at me sternly. I took a deep breath to keep myself calm.

My friend Andy put his hand on John's shoulder and said, "Dude, stop. Just accept it, okay?"

John shoved Andy and stormed off down the hall. I frowned at his back. Andy reached down to help me up. I brushed myself off and looked into the garbage can. I could see the little book resting on a pile of pencil shavings. I quickly reached in and grabbed the gift.

"Uh, Jace, that was in the garbage...," one of my friends said.

I shook my head and stormed down the hall myself.