For You, I'll Swallow The Ocean.

Chapter 1: Waking Up.

Jade’s POV
BEEP BEEP BEEP. My alarm clock rang 6:00. Ugh. I hate Mondays. What makes today even worse than any other Monday is that today is my first day at a new school, Ukiah High. Right now, I hate my life. High school is hell, especially if you’re the “gay anorexic freak with the weird hair.” At least that’s what everyone called me at my old school. Who knows what horrible nickname someone will come up with here.

I sat up in bed and stretched before looking around the room to find that this was not the room I was used to. No thick black carpet, no blood red walls covered on posters. The only thing in this room that seemed familiar was my silk pink and black comforter and sheets. This room feels so……not lived in. I hate the sight of unpacked boxes stacked to the ceiling, but I’m too lazy to unpack them. I hate this house. I hate everything here. But I don’t want to go back. I want to stay away from the taunting and the beatings and the jeers and laughter. I want to be able to walk around the mall and not hear the words “candy-ass queer” or “fucking flamer” yelled at me. I want to spend a Saturday watching TV instead of scrubbing the spray-painted word “faggot” off the side of my house. I don’t want to go back to all of that. But I don’t want to stay here.

“Jade, get up or you’ll be late for school.” my mom called up the stairs towards my closed bedroom door. Since when does she care if I’m late for school? She never gave a shit before. She probably just wants me out of her sight so she can unpack in peace. I understand why she’s mad at me, after all, it is my fault she had to move to the other side of the state. Well, what would you do if your son started getting anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night saying things like someone was going to kill him for being a “fucking little pussy fag”?

I rolled back over and covered up. I could wait a few minutes before getting ready. “JADE!” mom yelled, beating on the door. “Get your ass up NOW!”
“I’m up, I’m up.” I mumbled as I swung my feet over the edge of the bed. I shivered when they touched the cold hardwood floor, still expecting to feel the warm shag carpet I was used to. I stumbled in to the bathroom to shower.

After showering, brushing my teeth, putting on my eyeliner and finally getting my floppy blonde fringe perfectly straightened, I had to search through every box in my room to find my clothes. Dumb-ass me forgot to label the boxes. When I found my clothes I had to pick what to wear. Oh boy. Hmm, something casual but doesn’t scream “gay“…………I found my new extremely tight pair of black pants, and I couldn’t decide which shirt to wear so I closed my eyes and randomly grabbed one from the box. It was my black The Cure shirt, the one that said “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” in hot pink letters. I put on the shirt and tried for ten minutes to squeeze in to the pants before figuring out that they weren’t going to fit unless I went commando. Oh well. More comfortable this way. I found my black Adidas at the foot of the bed where I had unceremoniously kicked them off last night before crashing on the bed and slipped them on. Picking up my backpack, I walked downstairs and grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen then headed out the door not bothering to say goodbye to my mom.

Since I didn’t know anyone here yet, and the school was only 2 miles away, I decided to walk instead of taking the bus. A few houses up the street, I saw a boy about my age leaving his house. He had long, shiny black hair, dark eyes surrounded by thick black eyeliner, and from what I could see, a lip ring in his bottom lip. He was wearing tight grey jeans and a black Joy Division shirt. Wow, he’s gorgeous, I thought. No, bad Jade! I scolded myself. That’s how all the shit started at your old school, you had a crush on a guy, then you told who you thought was your best friend who you could tell anything, and then he goes and tells everyone at school. I did NOT want to go through that shit again.

I should just forget about him, and ignore him. If I see him at school, don’t talk to him, just leave him alone. That’s the best way to keep my secret a secret, I thought. I had gotten so caught up in arguing with myself that I didn’t realize that school was only a few feet away now. I had subconsciously followed that boy to where I needed to be. I entered the building after him, watching as he walked towards a set of lockers at the end of a long hallway. I found the office and told the secretary my name and she handed me my books and schedule.

Chapter 2: Jade's First Day

Jade’s POV
I found my homeroom class easy enough, but I was still late. I knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for permission. The teacher looked up at me and said “Oh, you must be the new kid. Class, this is Jade Puget. He just moved here from northern California. Why don’t you go sit in the back next to Davey?” She pointed to an empty seat next to a boy about my age. I quickly recognized him as the gorgeous-shut up Jade, don’t think like that!-boy that I had eye raped-I mean stalked-damn it! You get the picture, it’s the boy I saw earlier.

I walked towards the back of the room, ignoring the whispers from other people as I passed them. I sat down without glancing to my left, because I knew that If I saw that beautiful creature-FUCK! Stop thinking that!-I mean, that normal boy that I feel no attraction towards whatsoever, I wouldn’t be able to stop gawking at his beautiful form. Damn. This is going to be harder than I thought. Two minutes in the room with him and I can’t think straight. (HA HA HA!!!!!! THAT WAS GREAT!!!! Did you get it? Huh? Did ya???? You win an imaginary cookie if you did!)

The teacher started writing notes on the board and I tried to focus on them. Slow down, you old bat! I thought, trying to jot down everything that sounded important. I was snapped out of my concentration when a very intricately folded piece of paper bounced off my nose and landed on my desk. I studied it for a moment, wondering where it came from and how in the hell I was going to get the damn thing unfolded. It looked like some kind of extremely complicated origami thingy. I played with it for a minute and when I finally got it open I was disappointed to see all it had on it was an arrow pointing to my left. WTF? Oh, I get it. Whoever threw it at me wants me to look to my left. I followed the arrows point and I saw the boy I had been trying to ignore smiling broadly and waving furiously at me. I returned his smile and wave, but not as enthusiastically as he did. Then he tossed an even more intricately folded piece of paper at me, this time hitting me just above my eye. “Oww!” I mouthed at him, rubbing the spot on my head where I was hit. He giggled and mouthed “Sorry!” I stared at the paper and struggled with it for five minutes before he took it from me and unfolded it in three seconds. I stuck my tongue out at him and he giggled again, but I could have sworn I saw a little blush on his pale face.

I looked at the paper and it said in very neat handwriting “My name’s Davey. What’s yours? Wait, I think the teacher said it… Jade, was it? That’s a very pretty name, especially for a guy.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say so I wrote back “thanks”. Not even attempting to fold it back the way he had folded it, I threw the note back onto his desk. Just then I looked up and saw the teacher staring at me. I quickly pretended to be writing down the notes. Davey must have noticed because his next note said “Don’t worry, she’s retiring this year. She doesn’t give a shit if we pay attention or not.” I laughed, earning another glare from the teacher.

Davey and I kept passing notes through the whole class. It was mostly him asking me questions about how old I was, what kind of music I liked, if I liked skateboarding, and stuff like that. He asked me where I lived, and he went crazy when I told him my street address. “HOLY SHIT! You live three houses away from me!” I could tell that made him very happy, and I wondered why it was such a big deal to him. I asked him that and he explained that he didn’t have many friends, except two guys named Adam and Hunter, who lived on the other side of town, so they didn’t get to hang out much.

He reminded me of myself at my old school. I only had one friend, who turned out to be the world’s biggest backstabbing son of a bitch. I told Davey that I understood how he felt and that he could come over to my house anytime he wanted. Wrong thing to say. That made him so happy he almost fell out of his seat, he was bouncing so much. He asked me if I wanted to come over to his house today and I said I would love to. He replied, saying that he would be at my house at five so we could walk together. What happened to not talking to him if I saw him at school?

He wrote to me one more time before the bell rang. “Why did you move?” Great, just great. He just HAD to ask me that. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I wasn’t ready to tell him that I was gay, in case he turned out to be like Trevor, my ex-best friend. I wrote back saying that I would tell him later. We gathered our books and left the classroom. In the hallway he asked me which class I had next. Juggling my books in one hand I dug my schedule out of my pocket. “uuhhhh….Mrs.….Kennedy, I think.” He snatched the paper from me and stared at it in disbelief. “No freaking way! I have her next too!” he practically yelled. I watched him as his eyed studied the page. “Holy fuck! You’re in all of my classes!” Now he was jumping around like a monkey with ADHD on crack. “You get excited easily, don’t you?” I said, blushing as soon as I said it. He tried to hold back, but ended up busting out laughing. After he calmed down a little, he managed to choke out “I know you didn’t mean it that way, and yes, I do get excited VERY easily.”

We walked to Mrs. Kennedy’s class, with Davey still giggling madly. When we sat down in the back I poked him in the ribs to tell him to shut up. Apparently, his ribs are very ticklish, because that only made him giggle more. He finally stopped whenever Mrs. Kennedy threatened to give him detention.

Passing notes in Mrs. Kennedy’s class was hard, since she had eyes like a hawk. We didn’t talk much then, but when the bell rang signaling it was time for lunch Davey immediately started talking about something he wanted to do this afternoon. I only understood about half of it since he was talking so fast. “Oh, guess what? You get to meet Adam and Hunter at lunch!” was all I could really understand.

Chapter 3: Lunchtime

Jade’s POV
When we got to the cafeteria I told Davey I wasn’t hungry so we just went outside and sat under a tree to wait for his friends. He had stopped talking and we shared an awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say so I just looked around at the other trees near the school. Suddenly he broke the silence.

“I can tell you’re different.”

I gave him a puzzled look. “What? Different like how?”

He gave me a look that screamed duh. “Look around, Jade. How many other guys do you see with long hair that wear tight pants and make-up?”

“Besides you, none.” I replied

He continued “It’s not just the way you dress, I can just tell that you’re different. You’re not arrogant or stuck up like most of the guys here.” Then he added, just loud enough for me to hear, “Plus you’re way cuter than any guy here.”

HOLY SHIT! Did he just call me cute?!?!?!? I felt myself blushing.

Suddenly two people fell on top of me and Davey. Both were boys about my age and one had shaggy brown hair, the other bleach blond spikes.

“OWW! Hunter, get off me!” Davey exclaimed, pushing the blonde boy off his lap. The brown haired one got up by himself, now that he was untangled from Hunter.

“What the hell were you two doing?” Davey asked them furiously.

“We were hiding behind the tree.” The brown haired one said simply. I guessed this was Adam since Davey had called the blond one Hunter.

“Why were you hiding behind the tree?” Davey asked him.

“Because we wanted to scare you, but we ended up falling down.” Adam said.

Davey rolled his eyes and sighed. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but why did you fall down?”

Hunter giggled. “We heard what you said!”

“And now we’d like to know who in the hell you were talking to. Is it him? ” Adam asked, finally acknowledging my presence.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t” Davey retorted slyly. “Hunter, Adam, This is Jade. He just moved here.”

They both said hi and Hunter kicked Davey lightly in the side to make him scoot over. Davey moved, scooting so close to me that our sides were pressed together. Suddenly I felt uncomfortable. Hunter and Adam sat down on Davey’s right, squishing us all as we tried to lean against the rather small tree trunk.

“So, Jade, why exactly did you decide to move to a shithole like Ukiah?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied quietly. “When my mom finally realized that we had to move, I don’t really know why she picked here.”

“Why did you have to move?” Adam questioned, picking at a small hole in his jeans.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” I said, trying to avoid the question for as long as possible.

“Oh, come on, you can tell us.” Adam pressed. He was starting to piss me off.

Davey came to my defense, “He doesn’t want to talk about it, so just forget it.”

Adam started, “Yeah, but I don’t understand-”

“Drop it.” Davey said sternly.

“Ok, ok. You don’t have to get bitchy.”

“Oh, that’s not Bitchy Davey. Remember that one time you took his nail polish and he tried to stab you with his eyeliner? That was Bitchy Davey” Hunter laughed.

”Ha ha, yea, I remember. That would have been funny if he hadn’t ruined my favorite shirt with his goddamn eyeliner.” Adam mumbled.

“Hey!” Davey protested. “Because of that, you made me ruin perfectly good eyeliner, and I had to go to school with chipped nail polish!”

I laughed.

We spent the rest of the lunch period talking about random stuff . I learned that Adam played drums and Hunter played bass, and they were thinking of starting a band, but they needed a guitarist. I told them I was pretty good at guitar and they decided that we would meet at Davey’s house someday to see if I was good enough. After five minutes of Hunter and Adam begging, Davey reluctantly agreed to show off his singing abilities. Just then the bell rang. We all stood up and Hunter and Adam said goodbye and left for their next class.

Chapter 4: Insert Random Chapter Title Here.

Jade’s POV
After lunch, things were so boring that I don’t think there’s much to say. I would have fallen asleep in class, except I couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful angel beside me. For the first few minutes I tried to pay attention, but the teacher went through everything so fast I couldn’t keep up. So instead I leaned my head on my hand, pretending to be asleep, letting my hair fall over my eyes, and stared at Davey through the one-way curtain.

Watching him do his math was interesting, to say the least. Not just because it was him, the most gorgeous person I’ve ever seen, but because I thought his facial expressions were just so adorable and funny. When he came across a complicated problem, he frowned in concentration, then did a little butt-wiggling happy dance when he found the answer. I laughed, giving away my cover. He leaned towards me and pushed the hair away from my eyes. I sat perfectly motionless, still trying to pretend to be asleep. He poked my nose with his finger and I couldn’t keep from giggling like the Little Doughboy.

“Davey, get back to work. You can flirt with boys after school.” Mrs. Jones called from the front of the room. Davey turned bright red and looked down, his hair half-hiding his face. I heard a few sniggers and someone muttered the words “fucking faggot”.

“And you,” Mrs. Jones said, pointing at me, “wake up and pay attention.”

I mumbled an “okay” before staring down at my desk, then glancing over at Davey. He was still beet red but he had stopped hiding behind his hair, and was staring in my direction. Just then, what Mrs. Jones had said hit me, and my face contorted into what I thought had to be the best “WTF?!?!?!” face ever. Davey read my expression and mouthed ”I’ll explain later.” I nodded and went back to pretend-sleeping, in deep thought about what Mrs. Jones had meant about Davey “flirting” with me.

The final bell rang and Davey and I quickly gathered our books and pushed our way through the crowd near the door. I followed Davey down the hallway I had watched him go down this morning. He stopped at his locker and put his books in. I just stood there like a complete idiot when it hit me. The fucking old bat at the front desk forgot to give me a locker.

I shifted my heavy books in my arms and wondered what I was going to with them, just as Davey noticed the puzzled look on my face.

He put his hands on his hips and asked “Did Mrs. Allison forget to give you a locker?”

“Who?” I asked blankly.
“The old dinosaur at the front desk who looks like she should be in an ancient history museum.” he said matter-of-factly.

I chuckled. “Yeah, she did.”

Davey rambled as he took the heavy books from my arms and tried to shove them onto the top shelf in his locker “You know, in my freshman year, half of us went 3 months without lockers, all because of that old bitch. She’s blind as a bat and mean as hell, and she can‘t remember shit. Ha ha, it was so funny when the principal found out that 200 of us didn’t have lockers, you should have seen his face! It puffed up and got all red, like he was fat and sunburned or something.”

I merely smiled and wondered how in the hell this kid could be so damn hyper. As if he could read my mind, Davey said “I’m not usually this hyper, but for some reason I just feel really happy-bouncy today.”

Chapter 5: "Gaydar, honey. It never fails!"

Jade’s POV
Davey and I walked home together, not really saying much since we had talked so much at school. Once or twice his hand brushed against mine, making me blush and shove my hands into my pockets.

“Are you always this shy?” Davey randomly asked.

I thought hard for a moment, not knowing how to answer. I had always been very shy, rarely making eye contact with anyone and blushing whenever I tried to talk to someone I didn’t know really well. But for some reason I felt even more shy today. Right now I wished my hair was as long as Davey’s, it would be so easy to hide behind those dark curtains. I mentally smacked myself back into reality.

“I guess so,” I shrugged.

Davey frowned at my answer, but then got distracted by a stray cat.

“Oooh, look, a kitty!”

He chased after it, calling “here kitty kitty” until it cautiously walked over to him. He scratched behind its ears making it purr loudly, then picked it up and started cuddling it.

I looked at him in bewilderment. “Do you always cuddle stray cats?” I asked.

He stopped petting the cat for a second and looked at me with one of the most serious faces I’ve ever seen.

“Yes.” he replied simply.

I cocked an eyebrow at him and decided it was better if I didn’t ask, so I kept walking, Davey beside me, cuddling and purring at the cat.

When we reached his driveway, Davey sat the cat down and watched as it ran away. “Bye kitty” he called as it disappeared behind a neighboring house.

“So, Jade, is it okay if I come get you at about six?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I replied. “So, I guess I’ll see you at six, then?”

“Yep. See ya then.”

“See ya.” I started to walk towards my house, but then stopped when I heard Davey scoff.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” he asked me, putting his hands on his hips.

“Uhh, home?”

“Not without giving me a hug!”

He sort of jumped on me, wrapping his arms tightly around my neck and putting his head on my shoulder. I was stunned for a few seconds but then I wrapped my arms loosely around his waist. He loosened his grip and pulled back to look at me, cocking both eyebrows up at me.

“You call that a hug? Jade, honey, when I say I want a hug I mean I want full on cuddling and groping, okay? Let’s try this again.”

He put his arms around my neck and nuzzled his face into my chest. Okay, so he wants groping? I’ll show him groping! My arms were still around his waist so I let my hands caress down his lower back and down further to the curves of his ass. I grabbed a handful of his butt and squeezed. I heard him gasp a little. He let me go after a few seconds and I reluctantly took my hands off his ass.

“Now that was much better, but you have so much more to learn.”

I merely blushed and watched as he walked up the driveway to his porch. When he got to the front door he turned around and blew me a kiss. I pretended to catch it and smear it all over my lips. With a final wave, Davey disappeared into his house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few minutes later I arrived at my house. I stood on the porch reaching for the door handle when the front door opened and my mom exclaimed “Oh, Jade, you’re home! Hurry up and come inside, there’s some neighbors I want you to meet.”

She ushered me through the living room and into the dining room. Sitting at the dining room table was a woman in her mid to late thirties with light brown hair. Across the table from her sat a boy about my age, who was wearing clothes about 10 sizes too big for his extremely skinny body. His long light brown hair was twisted into dreadlocks and pulled up into a ponytail that hung out the back of a baseball cap. I noticed a lip ring in the (what would be my right and his left) corner of his bottom lip.

Then I noticed another boy the same age as me sitting on the floor playing patty cake with my little brother, Smith. This boy’s face was identical to the other’s (they had to be twins) except he wore black eyeliner so thick that a raccoon would be jealous, and instead of a lip ring, his eyebrow was pierced. He was wearing a tight black Green Day t-shirt and pants that would have been tight if his legs weren’t skinny as toothpicks. His long black hair hung straight and flat past his shoulders, but it wasn’t so flat it looked lifeless, it had a kind of pointy-poofy thing going on that not many people could pull off.

“Jade, this is Simone, Tom, and Bill Kaulitz. They live next door.” my mom said, pointing to the woman, Dreadlock Boy, then Eyeliner Boy. Simone smiled politely, Tom just looked at the ground and grunted something that sounded like “hi”. Bill said hi and waved at me between claps.

Other than their clothing and hair and makeup, I could find very few differences between the twins. They were both very attractive, but Bill had something about him, something that reminded me of Davey. Oh yeah, it was that kind of attractiveness that made people think everything you did was adorable and you always looked good, no matter what you actually looked like. He and Davey seemed to have that in common, but Bill was in no way as perfect as Davey seemed to be.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, but I have to go unpack.” I said, desperate to get out of this awkward situation. I hate meeting new people.

Bill jumped up from the floor, making my brother pout. “Can Tom and I help?” Bill asked. I noticed he spoke with a heavy German accent.

“Uhhh…sure.” I replied. They followed me though the living room and up the stairs. I turned around to see Bill whispering something to Tom in German. Tom merely sighed and shook his head at Bill in an “I knew you would say that!” kind of way.

“What are you guys whispering about?” I asked them, not caring if I was being rude.
Bill shot Tom a spine-chilling death glare strong enough to kill an army, but Tom ignored it.

“He said you’re cute and he wants to bend you over the couch and fuck your brains out,” Tom blurted out with an accent so thick I had to think for a second to understand what he said.

Bill’s eyes got bigger than dinner plates and his face turned redder than ketchup. Tom doubled over with laughter just as Bill tried to take a swing at his head.

“I did not say that!” Bill screeched rather girlishly.

I just stood there blushing almost as deeply as Bill, watching while Tom laughed his ass off as Bill cursed at him in a mixture of English and German, and tried to beat him about the head and shoulders with his tightly clenched fists.

This went on for a good five minutes before I remembered why I had come upstairs in the first place. I walked into my room, leaving the twins to sort things out in the hallway.

Bill walked in with Tom tagging behind, clutching his sides and chuckling to himself.

“Okay Tom, it wasn’t that funny.” Bill sighed exasperatedly.

“Are you kidding me? It was fucking hilarious! You just didn’t think it was funny ‘cuz you like him.” Tom said to Bill.

“I do not like him! I just met him ten minutes ago!”

“Ten schmen, you still like him.”

“Do not!”

“Do too! I can tell!”

“DO NOT! And how could you tell if I did? You can’t even tell your ass from a hole in the ground!”

Tom and I burst out laughing from the sheer weirdness and confusational-ness of Bill’s last statement.

Bill sighed in defeat, realizing that he was fighting a losing battle, and opened the nearest box. He held up a wad of t-shirts and asked “Where do these go?”

“Uhhh……second drawer.” I said pointing to the dresser near the window.

Bill and I folded and put away all my clothes while Tom sat on my bed, either watching us uninterestedly or nosing through other boxes. When he found my box crammed full of hundreds of posters he looked at all of them then complained, “Not one half-naked girl! Not even a girl in the bunch!”

“Well, duh!” Bill said as if it were as obvious as a hairless monkey doing the robot in the middle of the room.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Tom asked cluelessly.

Bill shot me an apologetic glance that said ‘I’m sorry my brother’s such an idiot‘.

“If you can’t figure it out for yourself then I guess you just won’t know.” Bill said with a smart-ass smile playing across his face.

Tom just sighed and shook his head as Bill and I decided to take on the monstrous task of putting up all 198 of my posters. Yup, that’s right. I counted.

We talked more as we taped, thumbtack-ed, and sticky-tacked the hell out of my walls. I learned that Bill sang and that Tom could play guitar, and that if the twins ever moved back to Germany they would start a band with a couple of friends who were learning to play bass and drums. I told Tom I had a Les Paul and after a few minutes of begging, I reluctantly got it out of its case in the closet and let him play it for a while.

After an hour we finally had all 198 posters secured on the walls. All 100 and 90 fucking 8 of them! Damn. If I ever move again, I’m taking the walls with me. It’d save me a hell of a lotta time and effort.

“Bill, Tom, we need to get home if you want dinner before I go to work!” Simone called up the stairs.

“We’ll be there in a minute, just go without us……….And I don’t want frozen pizza again!” Tom called back.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Jade. I hope we can hang out sometime.” Bill said politely before enveloping me in a unexpected hug. His hugs were no where near as touchy feely as Davey’s, but he smelled good.

“Yeah, see ya later man.” Tom said as they started down the stairs.

I closed the door after them, then sunk down onto my bed. I let out a tired sigh, sinking back into the soft covers.

Suddenly, Tom burst through the door. “I figured out what Bill meant!” he said excitedly.

“Figured it out, my ass! I just told you!” Bill said, appearing behind Tom.

“Well, the point is I know now.”

I sat there, waiting for him to continue.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell him what you know?” Bill asked.

“I was getting to that!” he snapped at Bill. Then he turned to me. “I know that you’re gay.”

“Well it took you long enough!” Bill exclaimed with a dramatic throw of his hands.

I blushed and smiled sheepishly. “Is it that obvious?”

“No, actually, it’s not. But I could tell the second I saw you that you were.” Bill said.

I was confused now. “If it’s not that obvious then how did you-”

“Gaydar, honey. It never fails.” Bill smiled, then disappeared down the steps after Tom, calling out a last goodbye.

I laughed to myself, thinking how weird those two were. Then I looked over at the digital clock on my nightstand. 5:30. Thirty minutes until Davey would be here.

Chapter 6: "This is Halloween, This is Halloween....."

Jade’s POV
Still laying on my bed, I heard a rather girlish squeal that sounded like it came from my front yard. I walked over to my window and peered out to see Davey, Bill, Tom, and Simone standing on the sidewalk in front of my house. Bill threw his arms around Davey’s neck and planted several sloppy wet kisses on his cheeks. Davey looked amused and didn’t try to shake Bill off, but just stood there and waited until his kissing attack was over. Simone just shook her head and continued walking to her house.

I watched as the three boys talked for a few minutes. With a final wave (and another Bill/Davey hug) they parted ways, Tom and Bill going into their house, Davey walking up my driveway. I quickly ran into my bathroom to put on more eyeliner and straighten out my hair a little. Just then my mom knocked on the door and said, “Jade, you have a visitor.” Goddamn, she makes it sound like I’m a patient in a loony bin. I sprinted down the stairs, ignoring my mom as she shouted at me not to run. Davey was standing in the living room waiting for me.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” he said as I stumbled down the last few steps. I just smiled as he put his arm around my waist and led me out the door. We walked down the sidewalk with his hand resting on my hip.

Ohmygawdohmygawdohmygawd! I felt that weird butterfly feeling in my stomach. It was weird because I loved him touching me, but I was so nervous I couldn’t stand it.

As if he could read my mind, Davey asked “Are you okay with this?”

“O-okay with what?” I stuttered out.

He locked eyes with me. “Are you okay with me hugging you like this?”

“Y-yeah,” I stammered again.

“You know, if you’re uncomfortable with this, just say something and I’ll stop, because I have a tendency to get kind of touchy feely. I don’t know why, I guess it's just a habit or something. Some people get uncomfortable with me hugging them a lot. You know, I’ve hugged Adam and Hunter so many times that they call me a cuddle whore.”

He’s so cute when he rambles!

I giggled and smiled at him. “It’s ok, really. I like cuddling.”

“Good, ‘cause if you hang out with me, there’s going to be a lot of cuddling,” he said before leaning his head over on my shoulder.

I rested my head on top of his and we walked like that the rest of the way to his house. He let go of me to open the door, but then he grabbed my hand and led me upstairs to his room. He led me to his bed and I sat on the end of it as he shut the door.

His room was BEAUTIFUL. It had deep red walls and black carpet, just like my old room, and he had matching black and red silk sheets and blanket. His walls were covered in posters, but not nearly as many as mine, and he had a TV on a stand in front of his bed.

Wow, his room is so romantic looking!

I snapped put of my little reverie as he spoke.

“I’d let you meet my parents, but they took my brother to visit my grandparents. I would have went with them, but me and my grandpa don’t exactly get along,” he said as he crossed the room to sit next to me on the bed.

I thought I would be a little nosy. “Why don’t you and your grandpa get along?”

“Well, he hates the fact that I’m gay. He always calls me the ‘disgrace of the family’ and says that I’m going to burn in hell or something like that.” Davey said with a sigh.

*fan girl squeal, followed by happy dance*

My jaw dropped. “You’re gay?” I asked in a completely shocked tone that made me mentally snack myself.

Davey looked hurt and offended. He frowned, put his hands on his hips, and said, “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“No! No. Of course not. Why would I have a problem with it?” I said hurriedly. I didn’t want him to be mad at me.

Davey laughed. “Calm down, Jade, it was just a joke. I know you don’t have a problem with it. That would be so weird if a gay guy didn’t like that his friend was gay.”

HE KNOWS! Damn, am I really that gay?

“What? I-I-how did you-” I stuttered for what had to be the hundredth time today.

Davey giggled. “You’re so cute when you’re confused! And don’t worry, I wont tell a soul.”

“But seriously, though, how did you know?” I asked him, wondering if my best kept secret wasn’t so well-kept after all.

Davey stood up, put his hands on his hips and flipped his hair back over his shoulders the way I had seen Bill do, and said in an uncanny imitation of Bill’s accent “Gaydar, honey, it never fails!”

I couldn’t help it. I giggled. Like a little girl. Ugh, can’t I laugh instead of giggle just once?

He sat down again, a little closer than when he was before. Normally I wouldn’t have noticed or cared about something small like that, but it seemed like I could just feel the beauty and heat radiating off of him, and it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t just hug him as tightly as I can.

“So,” he started, “Whatcha wanna do now?”

I wanna grab you and hold you and cover your face with kisses.

I shrugged my shoulders. “What were you planning to do when you asked me over here?”

This time he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I figured maybe we could watch a movie or something and you could tell me more about yourself.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

“Okey dokey!” he said as he jumped up and headed towards the TV stand. He bent over to rifle through what looked like at least 100 DVDs, giving me a perfect view of his ass.

Oh hell, I thought as all the blood in my body began rushing to a certain spot that I really wished it wouldn’t go to right now. I quickly looked away, pretending to inspect my fingernails.

“How about…..Nightmare Before Christmas?” Davey called as he stood up.

“Oh I love that movie!” I smiled. I couldn’t help it, that was one of my favorite movies of all time.

We sang along to the opening song, “This Is Halloween“, and eventually ended up not watching the rest of the movie because we were taking this time to get to know each other a little better. I ended up telling him why I moved here and he grabbed me and hugged me and said “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry you had to go through that! That must have been so scary! People here were pretty mean to me when I first came out, but I never got death threats.” Then he assured me that he wouldn’t let anyone do things like that to me here, because Adam and Hunter always stuck up for him, so they would stick up for me. “I can’t fight worth shit,” he admitted to me. “So of course when people found out I was gay I got beat up a few times, but I’ve lost count of how many times Adam and Hunter were there to save my ass.”

We talked for a few hours after the movie ended, so it was 10:25 before he realized how late it was.

“Oh shit!” he said as he saw the bright red numbers on his alarm clock. “My parents said they would be home at 10:30, and I wasn’t supposed to have anyone over!”

We went downstairs and he peeked his head out the front door to make sure that his parents weren’t back already. He hugged me again, much like the first time he had hugged me and asked for my phone number so he could call me if I couldn’t come over.

I walked home in the dark, shivering in the cold autumn air. And surely, as soon as I stepped foot on my front steps, a car pulled into Davey’s driveway.

Chapter 7: Sleepover Plans

Jade’s POV
When I got home my mom was passed out on the couch, an almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels dangling from her hand and threatening to spill all over the carpet. Smith was asleep on the floor, his glow-in-the-dark Spiderman pajamas shining in the dim light of the TV.

I picked him up and he slumped over on my shoulder, then mumbled sleepily “’M not sleepy. Don’t wanna go to bed.” and then fell back asleep.

After I put him in his bed, I went to my room, and just sat on the bed with the light off. I put my head in my hands and just sat there, thinking.

What the hell am I thinking?! Did I actually think that just because he’s gay he would like me? Why would anyone like someone as ugly as me, especially someone as beautiful as Davey?”

Whoah, I’ve barely known him for a day, and I’m already calling him beautiful? What the hell is wrong with me?

I know what’s wrong with me. I’m too fat and too ugly. And I can’t do anything about it.

I got up and walked into the adjoining bathroom. I started to undress for a shower. When I took off my shirt, my sleeve caught on the band-aid on my left wrist that had been previously hidden by a wristband. The sticky material pulled on the tender open flesh, making me wince as I pulled it off. I looked at the now familiar numerous scars and cuts that adorned my forearm. One of the deeper unhealed cuts had stared to bleed. As I searched for another band-aid I remembered the promise I had made to my ex-best friend, and myself.

“You promised me you would stop!” Trevor gasped, tears in his eyes. “I don’t care if you’re careful, you could still make a mistake!”

“I know, and I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it! It’s not that easy to just stop!” I looked up at him, tears now flowing freely down my cheeks.

Trevor sat down at the edge of the pool next to me and hugged me. “I know it’s not easy, but you have me here to help you. When ever you feel like cutting, just call me and tell me what’s wrong.” he said. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right? Anything at all.”

“I know,” I smiled through tears as he pulled me into another hug. “Thank you ,” I whispered into his ear.

“You’re welcome, Jade. And just remember, I’ll always be here for you.” We broke apart from the hug and he looked at me with a devilish grin. “Race you to the other side of the pool.”

“You’re on!” I smiled. And with that, we both plunged into the chlorine-reeking water.

I scoffed at the memory of his words, remembering that a few weeks later I had told him I was gay and he basically turned against me, saying that he wasn’t going to be friends with a fag.

I finished getting undressed and stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as I could stand. When I got out, I went straight to bed, not even bothering to dry off or put on pajamas. I pulled the blankets over my head, trying to clear my mind of thoughts of backstabbing ex-best friends, Davey, and the sharp piece of metal that was currently hidden in a little wooden box behind a book on my bookshelf.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning was basically the same as the first, I left the house without saying goodbye to my mom, but this time I had someone to walk to school with.

When I met Davey at his driveway, I looked around for the twins.

“Do Bill and Tom ride the bus or something?” I asked Davey.

He giggled. “No, they don’t even go to our school. They’re home schooled.”

“Huh,” was all I could say. “Why are they home schooled?”

“Uhh, I’ll let them tell you, ‘cause I‘m not sure how much they want you to know.” Davey said. “I invited them over to my house this weekend for a little sleep-over. Oh, Bill told me you have a little brother, how old is he?”

“Eight.“ I replied.

“Oh, good! My brother is almost nine, maybe they could play together. My parents are going out Friday night and I have to baby sit Mikey and he’ll be bothering the hell out of us if he doesn’t have something to do. Do you think your mom would mind if you brought him over?”

I couldn’t help but stare at him as he rambled, again. I was vaguely aware of what he was saying, so it took me a minute to realize what he had asked me.

“Uh, no, I don’t think she’ll mind”

She’ll probably be drunk or out somewhere getting drunk.

“Yay! No, wait, awww! I forgot! Hunter and Adam can’t come! Dammit!“ He launched back into rambling mode. “Oh well, we can still have fun, although if Bill says he wants to give you a makeover, don’t let him. I did once and he fucked up my hair, and he put so much makeup on me it took an hour to get it all off.”

I laughed at that, picturing Davey with clown makeup or a ridiculous amount of eyeliner, like Bill wears.

Wow. I’ve barely been here two days and I’m already invited to a sleepover. At a gorgeous boy’s house. And two pretty hot identical twins will be there, too.

*contented sigh* I think I just might like this place after all.

Chapter 8: The Sleepover

Jade’s POV

When I told Smith about the sleepover he was like “Okay, sure, whatever. I won't have anything to do there.”

Then I told him that Davey had a brother about his age named Mikey and his face just lit up.

“Oh, I know him! He’s in my class! He was nice to me. I didn’t have anyone to play with at recess so he came and talked to me. He likes Transformers, too!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his eagerness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday night

Jade’s POV
I knocked on Davey’s door and waited patiently for someone to open it. Smith stood beside me, shifting his feet in anticipation. On his back was a backpack bulging with what had to be every toy he owned in it. I don’t think he even remembered to bring pajamas.

Davey answered the door. “Hi Jade. Oh and you must be Smith. I’m Davey.”

Smith looked up at him and muttered a quiet “Hi.”

Davey smiled and said, “My parents said they wanted to meet you.”

I walked inside, Smith tagging along behind me. In the living room stood a man and a woman, both about in their late thirties, that looked like Davey split into two people. Davey’s mom had the soft brown eyes and those cute little wrinkles he got around them when he smiled. His dad had the angular jaw and chin that Davey had, but they both had hair that was a significantly lighter shade than Davey’s jet black mane.

His mom smiled at me and said, “Hi, Jade. I’m Penny. It’s so nice to meet the boy that Davey keeps rambling about.”

I smiled and uttered a quiet “Nice to meet you too.”

That’s one thing me and my brother have in common. We both get nervous and shy when we meet new people, but after Smith learns someone’s name, he’s usually comfortable around them in an instant. Me, on the other hand, it takes me a while to get used to someone. I think before I met Davey, I never felt comfortable around anyone unless I had known them for a long time.

Davey’s dad shook my hand and simply introduced himself as Paul.

Davey motioned for me to go upstairs without him, his parents were giving him the “Don’t answer the phone, keep the doors locked and don’t open it for anybody” speech that every one gets when their parents leave them at home alone.

I trudged up the stairs with Smith, and came to a door on the right that was open. The floor was scattered with toys, so it had to be Mikey’s room. I nudged Smith into the room and he dropped his bag on the floor, then made a shooing motion for me to go away.

Since when are all eight year olds smart-asses?

I walked up the rest of the stairs and down the hallway to Davey’s room. Bill and Tom were already there, Tom sprawled out on Davey’s bed, flipping through TV channels, and Bill was pulling clothes out of Davey’s closet for some unspecified reason.

I flopped down on the bed beside Tom and he grunted a hello. “Hi, Jade.” Bill said, his head buried somewhere in the back of Davey’s closet, his ass sticking out.

Davey came back upstairs, his arms full of junk food. He dropped it all unceremoniously on the bed, knocking Tom off in the process.

“Asshole,” Tom muttered and stuck his tongue out at Davey as he crawled back up on the bed.

“Jade, can you come help me with this?” Davey asked, motioning downstairs.

“There’s more?” I asked. Davey just nodded as I followed him downstairs and into the kitchen. On the table was THE biggest pile of junk food I had ever seen. There were all kinds of chips, dips, chocolates, sweets, and anything else unhealthy and fattening you could think of, and all of it was vegan.

“Holy shit,” I blurted out.

“Yeah,” Davey said. “I think we might need more.”

“More!?”

“Yeah, you’ve never seen those twins eat, have you?” Davey laughed.

It took us about 3 trips each to get all the food upstairs. By the time we got the last armful to Davey’s room, Bill and Tom were sitting cross-legged on the floor and the bed, surrounded by a circle of food wrappers.

“Ooh, chips!” Bill exclaimed as he shoved the rest of a chocolate bar into his mouth and grabbed the bag of tortilla chips from my hands before I could even sit down.

“Seriously, how does your mom keep feeding you two?” Davey asked, his hands on his hips. Tom shrugged and Bill just smiled brightly at a handful of Gummi Bears before popping them into his mouth.

“Here, Jade. You should eat something before these bottomless pits inhale it all,” Davey offered me some crackers. I took them and nibbled on them, pretending to take a bite whenever someone looked at me. After all, I was fat enough. I didn’t want to be as big as a house.

How the hell can they eat so much and still be that skinny? Those lucky bastards, they can eat whatever they want and not gain a pound. I haven’t eaten in three weeks and I’m sure I haven’t lost any weight.

After most of the food was gone, Davey suggested we play truth or dare. I actually hate playing truth or dare, but who could ever say no to Davey, or anything he wants?

We started out with the usual T or D questions like “Who do you like” and “What’s your biggest secret?”. Luckily, I didn’t have to say anything I wouldn’t have willingly told them. The dares were childish and stupid, but funny as hell. Tom was dared to prank call a grumpy old lady that lived down the street and ask her if she wanted “a good fuck tonight”. It ended with fits of laughter from our end, and threats to call the police from hers.

The game kinda fell apart, and turned into an “Ask Jade Whatever Question About Him You Can Think Of” session. Of course, someone had to bring up the subject of why I moved, but since I knew Davey was gay (and Bill was as flaming as glitter is sparkly), I had no problem telling them, especially since they already knew I was gay.

After that I remembered my curiosity about why they were home schooled. I asked them why and the twins looked at each other, seemed to come to a silent mutual agreement, then began a long story that sounded like something they didn’t share with the general public.

Bill sighed and explained, “Well, it all started in our freshman year. We had just moved here from Germany and we didn’t really get to know anyone else here - except Davey - and so we kind of clung to each other, a little more than what some people would call ‘normal‘.”

Tom continued for Bill, “Bill was always holding on to me at school ‘cause he was afraid that he would get lost in the crowds and not be able to find his way to class. But long story short, people took Bill being gay, and our closeness the wrong way and started rumors that we were gay for each other.”

Bill nodded, “It got so bad that these big mean bullies would slam me into lockers and call me an ‘incest little faggot’ and once during gym, half the football team pushed me into the showers in the locker room and got my hair all wet…” He pouted and muttered “Stupid steroid-taking assholes.” Then he added, “and whenever Tom tried to stand up for me, they would beat him up.”

“What?! You’re on drugs, Bill, I kicked their asses back to last summer!” Tom exclaimed.

“Buuulllshhiiiit…” Bill said in a sing-songy voice.

I laughed, loving how they could make almost everything sound funny.

“But anyways, um…..yeah, that’s about it.” Bill finished.

Davey cleared his throat and cocked an eyebrow at the twins. “So it was all because of rumors? That were completely not true?”

Bill frowned. “Well, they weren’t true at the time!”

“And now…?” Davey questioned with a smirk.

Both twins just looked down and smiled guiltily.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So now what?” Tom asked sleepily, as the credits for Saw IV rolled by on the TV.

“I think it’s…makeover time!” Bill squealed.

“No!” Davey and Tom shouted simultaneously. Then Davey stretched and said, “I think it’s time for bed, actually. It’s already 2:30.”

Bill and Tom agreed reluctantly and started getting ready for bed, while Davey and I went to check on our brothers.

Mikey and Smith were asleep on the floor, amidst what had to be at least 500 toys. They were laying close together, one of Smith’s hands casually laid on top of Mikey’s.

“Aww, they look so cute!” Davey whispered.

We picked each of them up and laid them on the bed. They didn’t wake up, but Smith whimpered when I sat him down, and scooted up against Mikey in his sleep.

When we went back into Davey’s room, the twins were laying on a makeshift mattress of blankets on the floor. Bill’s back was pressed against Tom’s front, and Tom was absentmindedly running his fingers through a strand of Bill’s hair. Soft snores could be heard coming from Bill.

I stood there, stupidly, while Davey climbed under the covers on his bed. Did he want me to sleep there too? He answered my unasked question by patting the empty space next to him. I laid down next to him, staying close to the edge of the bed. He turned to me and scooted close to me, our sides touching, his head barely resting on my shoulder. Then he looked up at me as he lightly placed a hand on my chest, as though asking for permission. I didn’t object.

“’Night,” he said softly.

“Goodnight.” I replied. I gently placed my right hand on his waist, and he sighed contentedly into my shoulder.

Oh my fucking God, he smells so fucking good! I wish we could stay like this forever.