2. You Ruined my Entire Relationship. I just Didn't Realize it Yet.

Luc and Heather are face to face with spreading thighs and roaming hands making me feel as if I am watching them have sex right out here in public. I need to go out there, cut right in between them, and make it clear…

I find myself retreating, slogging right for the door instead.

But then I think of Heather, left alone in this nightclub of intoxicated adults… Sure, she could just call a taxi, just like I plan on doing, since neither of us drive, but…

I force myself back into that swarm of bodies. She and Luc are still 'dancing', but this is nothing like mom’s ballroom class. Those rolling hips and parting lips… I can feel the heat coming off of them. It’s a tangible ache, and I awkwardly blurt out, “I’m… I gotta… get going.”

Heather doesn’t even seem to hear. Luc’s the only one to turn his head, then she follows the motion, breaking away from him in an instant. “Julian! Have you…?” I can’t hear most of the words above the pounding beat. I see her mouthing the message, but all I do is shake my head repeatedly, edging back toward the door.

“I gotta… go. Sorry.” If you want to, you can stay. I try to deliver that message with my look alone, but Heather is already rolling her eyes, seizing my wrist and heading right for the exit.

“God, are you really the jealous type?” she demands, the second we’re out in the alley.

“I… I just--” She kisses me, long and deep. God, it feels amazing. She slides her tongue between my lips like it’s the most natural thing in the world, sliding her hands right down my body. Unsteadiness turns to need as the minutes blur by, and I wind my fingers in her hair and picture inky black curls--

I break away with a muffled gasp before she can detect my rising hard-on. “I.. uh. I should get you home.”

“Fine. But we are staying way later next time. Then maybe you can come home with me.”

Fuck. Anyone would thrill for that chance. I hate it when the guys talk about Heather as if she’s a whore, ‘easy’ and all that, but…

Yeah, I think about it. I think about doing way more than kissing. I’ve never done it before, but… I have a pretty detailed imagination.

I can’t sleep at all that night. I spend hours in the bathroom, hammering out that hard on that just…

I really do hate that guy, Luc. I already feel as if he’s ruined our entire relationship, making me look like a total drag, an absolute, awkward dork. We could have had a whole night at that club, grabbed drinks, and gone home together, if he hadn’t…

I clamp a hand to my mouth to restrain the awkward gasps coming out of me as I finally cum. I really am kind of a pervert sometimes.

I take a stab at drawing Heather the next morning, drawing her ‘like a French girl’ and all that. But I find Leo’s eyes stick out way more in my memory for some reason, that captivating stare… Were they blue or were they green, like Luc’s?

“Julian.”

Fuck. I quickly flip shut my sketch book. “Hey. Mom. What?”

“What do you mean what? Breakfast. On the table, cold. Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Uh no… Shi-- Shoot.” I cast my eyes to the clock and realize it’s already nine twenty. It’s Saturday, so no school today, but I’ve been taking these art classes down at the community center. Getting dad to pay for that was a serious no-go, so I had to get a part time job bagging groceries. No point in those tedious, wasted afternoons five days a week if I keep running late to my art lessons. We’re prepping for the city’s annual showcase and everything. “I gotta run. You think you could give me a ride?”

Mom glances at the clock and simply arches an eyebrow. “You are the only teenager I know who wakes up early, on his own, every day, just to wind up running late to absolutely everything.” She kisses my cheek. “You need to learn better time management, honey. Anyway, your father has the car today. That building contract has a rush order, seven days a week until it’s done. Told you all about it over dinner.”

“Right. Shi—shoot.”

“That language of yours…” mom sighs, seeing right through my attempted covers. “Is it that new girl you’re dating?”

“Mom!”

“What? I just don’t see why else you wouldn’t have invited her over for dinner already.”

Because that would be absolutely mortifying. ‘Hey Heather, want to come meet my parents, see my mom kissing my cheek and calling me pumpkin while my dad freezes you out and speaks in nothing but grunts?’

“Sure. Dinner. Sometime,” I deflect, throwing my sketchbook into my backpack and racing for the door. “But I gotta… catch a bus.”

I really need to get my license. I could pick up some more shifts, save up for a car… That would help out mom too, so we wouldn’t have to take the bus to all her night classes. It’s pretty sketchy taking any transit at that hour, all drunks and muttering homeless people.

L.A. is… a lot. I miss the east coast sometimes. I miss dad’s sailboat. We spent a lot more time together, out there on the waves. He still didn’t talk much, but at least we had something in common, something the both of us enjoyed.

It was either be unemployed in New Hampshire or take a job offer at an office out west though, so I completely understand their decision, even though it was kind of awkward moving right across the country half-way through the school year, just one term before I would have graduated.

But the weirdest part is… my friends here mean just as much to me as the kids I knew my entire childhood. I don’t have a lot in common with them, and I still spend most of my time on my own absorbed in my sketches. I never even got a girlfriend out east. I guess I was too shy to ask anyone out. The girls here are way less… traditional. They go after what they want, rumors be damned. You gotta admire that confidence.

Anyway, mom won’t let me leave the house today without eating, slapping a banana into my hand with the insistence that I can eat it on the go.

I shove it into my bag and forget about it, until the smell and mysterious leaking stain leads me to find it days later, a brown, oozing mess…

I really wish Heather had not been the one to point it out. She is definitely going to dump me. She’s probably gossiping with her friends about what a dork I am already.

I need to get my head out of the clouds, get my shit together, and start making a good impression.

Too bad the next day I took a dodge-ball to the face and wound up humiliated in front of the entire school.