xxx Keith’s POV xxx

That was screwed up. He kissed me. He kissed me.

Coy fucking kissed me.

I mean, its not quite a bad thing. Well I guess it is. But if someone had to kiss me, I’m glad it was him and not yiffie Dill. But honestly, it kind of freaked me out. What if he thinks it’s okay to do that now? What if he liked it!? No no no, getting ahead of myself. That’s insane. He said himself, it was only for science. He didn't get anything out of it. I didn’t really get anything from the kiss, he was just warm. That's what that was. Warmth. It's winter right now, and I fucking hate winter.

Oh, fuck. I spot two guys walking down the street towards me, Dylan and Tharen, from school: two of the most popular, yet idiotic guys in our grade. They’re talking about something and looking at me menacingly; I’m going to have to pass them to get home, which is something I really don’t want to do. I can handle them when Coy’s around, but … I turn around just in time to see Coy, far down the street, walking into his house.

Fuck. These guys are at least a foot and a half taller than me, and must weigh at least two dozen pounds more (I myself am a wonderful 5’4, aren't I intimidating?) Oh god, they’re getting closer. I’m starting to walk faster, not looking at them, not thinking about them, don’t provoke, don’t, don’t, don’t -

Phew … they passed me.

“Hey, faggot!”

Or not. Dylan grabs the back of my coat and holds me still. I’m trying to break free, but not very hard because struggling pisses them off. Besides, his grip is too strong anyway. I consider throwing off the coat and running home, but mom would kill me. I give in and attempt to turn around.

“What?” I ask, hoping to get out of this nicely. I don't mean the type of nice you see in the movies, where I'm doing it to save them from getting a beating, I’m saying this to avoid my own beating. I couldn't kick ANYONE'S ass, I can at least try to cover my own.

“We heard about your little adventure today," Tharen sneers, standing in front of me with his arms crossed oh-so-toughly. I groan. I didn’t even fucking do anything, so I’m assuming a rumor’s been escalated, again. Fucking imagination of girls and losers.

“What did I do?” I ask lamely, realizing my unavoidable fate. Dylan tugs my hood, driving one of my necklaces into my throat. I cough and raise my hands to my neck to get it off, with no luck. Tharen grabs my hands with his own scratchy gloved ones, so far from romantic.

“Don’t play dumb, you queer, everyone knows that fat girl saw you and your ‘boyfriend’ going at it in the janitor’s closet," he snarls.

Just the thought of that makes me sick, me and Coy fucking, but maybe it’s still my throat. I cough again and fight to deny it because you do one tiny little thing and you get idiots like these after you. They’ve brought comments up like this before, but they stopped after Coy heard and beat the shit out of them. He can really pack a punch if he wants to. I’m sure they’re scared of him, or maybe it’s just hate. I know they’re not scared of me. I’ve gotten away with a few scratches before, a fat lip and other minor stuff. I wonder how far they’d go, but I really don’t want to test them.

“Let - me - GO!” I try, realizing I haven’t asked before.

They laugh at me, and I'm reminded of why I haven't tried asking.

“I don’t fucking think so, you fag." Dylan laughs and lifts me higher until my feet are inches off the ground. I cough and squirm, feeling like a helpless little girl around these giants. I hate being so small, I think I'm a couple months older than these guys, how are they so tall?

“God, you queers are so fucking weak, aren’t you?” Tharen releases my hands for a moment to punch me in the stomach, which only makes me cough even more. Then again, he was never trying to help. I double over.

“I’m …” Another cough. “… not queer-”

They snort. “Of courrrrse you’re not. You're just sensitive, right?"

They both have a good laugh over that. Dylan puts me down, and I instantly suck air into my lungs with a series of hacks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last for long: one of them picks me up by my hair. My eyes water and I nearly scream, but it comes out of my throat as a whimper. I kick my legs and try to break away. Even with Dylan having a death grip on me, I get out of his grasp, leaving him with strands of my once-pretty hair in his fat fist.

As you probably expected, I don’t get far. I run several feet before I’m tackled. In an instant, my entire body crunches against the concrete with the force of an overweight jock elbowing my shoulder blades. Why isn’t anyone doing anything? We’re in a residential area lined with goddamn houses and no one can help? God, in those stupid anti-rape shows you see on TV, it says you’d be alright in places like this. Shows how fucking much they know. It's pathetic that our country has gotten to the point where people are getting jumped less than a block from their own house. No one's fucking safe, high school kids are vicious.

“You filthy faggot, we’re not done yet," The one on top of me snarls again and I realize it’s Tharen, though there really isn’t much of a difference between the two of them, every one of their fucking friends looks the same to me. I think of screaming, but a disgusting hand moves to cover my mouth. I try to bite him, but that doesn’t work either. I wish I still had braces, at least I could cut him or something. Suddenly I’m standing, and they’re tugging me down the street in the direction I came from, away from my house, away from safety. I wrench and kick again, trying to get free, locking my knees and refusing to move, but Dylan just comes up behind me and gives me a paralyzing kick to the back of the knees, which unlocks them.

Worst scenarios are flicking through my mind … Death, of course is first. Rape, with the added pain of irony. A beating. General abuse. None of which seem overly appealing. I get pushed over again, into the dirt at the edge of the path to the school. I scramble to stand, but only flail as Tharen holds my legs down. Having the build of a twelve year old girl, I have absolutely no other choice than not moving; attempts would be idiotic. I watch Dylan kneel next to me and grab a knife from his belt like a holster. “You scream, and I’ll fucking kill you."

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god he’s going to kill me, isn’t he? He growls angrily and runs his finger along the edge of the blade, just inches from my face. Blood pools behind his fingernail and drips down past his knuckle. He reaches forward with it and draws an X on my cheek, digging his nail in. I flinch as I feel my own blood mix with his and run down my jaw. What kid carries a pocket knife with him, MacGuyver?

“You’re disgusting," he states, but at the moment, I kind of fucking see him as the disgusting one. I continue straining against Tharen’s grip on my legs, but there’s nothing I can do, my arms are pinned underneath me. He moves closer, takes his blade, and runs it down my cheek, tracing the bloody X. I’ve never really been cut with a knife before … it’s like a paper cut, but worse. “Filthy faggot …”

How can he possibly see ME as the filthy one here? He’s the one cutting a defenceless boy that’s half his size for something based on a rumour. I’m not fucking GAY anyways! God, I’m going to fucking kill Melissa Hewitt. And possibly Coy. Blood is still pouring from the cross and it hurts like a fucking bitch, I can't remember the last time I was in this much pain. I feel tears pour from my eyes. He smiles when he sees I’m in pain.

“Your parents must hate you, don’t they, fag? I’d fucking kill myself if my kid turned out like you." He grabs my hair and viciously turns my head, filling the previous wound with dirt and exposing my other cheek. I feel gravel and dirt fill the cuts and I bite my lip, trying not to scream. He told me not to. Flipping the knife in his hand, he laughs once more, and it annoys me how much fun he’s having. No guilt at all. His breath smells like nasty hash. So do his hands. He digs his index nail into the bridge of my nose, and I hiss in pain. I don’t really know what’s coming next, but if I had known, the nose thing wouldn’t have been so bad.

He digs the knife back into my previously unmarked side of my face. It’s closer to my eye, right on my bone. I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed in my life, or at least it seems like it. I don't care what he'll do to me, I can't help but yell. My legs twitch and buck, I struggle harder than before, but he doesn’t stop. I don’t know what he’s doing, but there’s more than one line on my cheek now. He's carving me like a thanksgiving turkey. My blood’s pumping in my ears, my vision goes blurred, probably from tears, maybe from pain, maybe both. I keep screaming over and over again, louder each time until a hand claps over my mouth. I keep screaming because I can‘t fucking believe how much this hurts, they’re muffled screams, but it helps. I don’t think any of the cuts have stopped bleeding, but it’s hard to think right now. I keep gasping for air but there isn't enough, there's never enough, where did the fucking air go?!!

Then it happens: the weight is lifted from my legs and arms, the hand moves off my mouth. I can hear footsteps pounding the ground, both going away and coming closer. A hand lifts the back of my head off the dirt before trying to help me stand … Is someone helping? God? Jesus? I think I'm dead. I hear a soggy, unclear voice that seems miles away.

“Good lord, I’d better get you to the hospital!”

I may not be able to comprehend much at the moment, but I can understand that. No one's ever disagreed with jesus before.

“N-no … take … home …” the words come out of my mouth just as damp and groggy. I don't want to die! It feels like my ears and mouth are filled with cotton. What's he talking about? You don't need hospitals in heaven.

“Where. Do. You. Live?” the voice speaks in a punctuated tone that helps me understand him and I have to think about it.

I don’t give him my address, I give him Coy’s; that’s where I want to go right now, my mom won’t help, Brandon isn't home, and I just want to see Coy. I need to see him.

“Okay, just around the corner then, try to walk …”

We leave the path, the person who may or may not be god is dragging me along more than walking with me. I can only tell when we get to Coy’s front steps because I know every single inch of his house by memory. I hear the man talk, followed by a voice that resembles Ms. Russel’s. When I feebly try to look up, I can just make out her pudgy outline before the strangest fuzzy feeling takes over and everything goes blank.

xx Coy’s POV xx

“Coy! Come down here this instant!” I can hear my mother yell angrily from the bottom of the stairs and I realize I’m probably in trouble. Maybe she found that cheese I hid behind the speakers last week. I snap the lid of my laptop closed and slouch out of my room and down the hallway, peering over the banister to the front door.

“What did - Jesus fucking christ!” I break off in mid sentence and swear, leaping off the landing and nearly breaking my ankle on the step I land on. My mother chides me for swearing and not using the stairs (once again) but I completely ignore her and basically shove her out of the way. There’s a middle aged scruffy man that I’ve never seen before standing in my doorway holding Keith by the shoulder, letting him slump against his side. His face is almost entirely red, covered in blood. It's running down his neck, it's in his eyes, in his hair, all over his clothes. I didn't know people had this much blood, and I start to feel really sick. I yank Keith out of the man's arms and look at him carefully, holding his unsteady, swaying form at arm's length. On one side there’s an 'X' sliced into him, and on the other the word ‘FAG’ carved into his face. And when I say carved, I mean carved. I fight the urge to throw up as I see white cheekbone glinting at me from the middle of the A. There’s a bloody gash on his nose, and wet, dirty tears are streaked through the blood.

“What the fuck happened?!” I scream at him, and my mother gets mad at me again. I don’t listen. He looks a little scared of me, but he cowers and answers.

“There were two boys attacking him in the forest down the street …”

“Boys?! What did they look like?” I persist, hugging Keith against my chest, just a little.

He thinks about it. “They were really tall … One was wearing one of those beanie ski caps,” he gestures to his head "And the other was gigantic, really big, and kind of dim looking -”

My mind clicks. “Tharen and Dylan?”

“I didn't get their names, son."

My mother has left and she’d better be bringing him medical stuff. I thank the man and tell him we'll take it from here. I heave Keith as gently as I can into my arms. He’s unconscious. He’s not dead, but the cuts are caked in dirt and rocks and bleeding profusely, soaking his shirt in blood. His eyelids twitch and open for a moment before he closes them again, snuggling his face ever so slightly into the crook of my arm; it might seem affectionate, but I can feel blood smear on me and I feel sick again. "Nnngghh -" He makes this devastating whimper noise. "It hurts, Coy ..."

"You'll be okay," I whisper, unsure of how coherent he is. My mother runs in from the kitchen, carrying medical supplies in her up-turned apron, worry etched across her weathered face. I don’t recognize any of the stuff she has in her makeshift basket. She’s a doctor at the hospital downtown, so when she tells me to lay him on the couch in the living room, I'm very inclined to listen. I do what she says and she starts carefully cleaning the cuts with swabs, including one on his collarbone that I didn’t see before. After a few minutes of me hovering over the two of them, she ushers me out of the room in an impatient manner, tactlessly telling me to get out of her way.

So now I’m pacing the length of the hallway going out of my mind. Dylan and Tharen attacked him? On his way home … So I must have just left! Fuck, I should have told him to come over like I was going to. He comes over every fucking day, why not today?

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Now he’s going to have ‘FAG’ permanently etched into his cheek, all because I was too fucking freaked out about kissing him that I forgot. That's why not today. After a few moments, my mom emerges from the end of the hallway, and I’m alarmed to see the amount of blood and dirt she’s wiped on her apron. I run up.

“Is he okay? Why is there so much blood on you?!” I ask frantically. She soothes me in that motherly way, refined over the years with numerous scraped knees and dead fish.

“He’ll be fine. There were rocks lodged into the cuts, I had to use tweezers to get them out, and they took a while to stop bleeding. His shirt’s covered in blood, so he’ll have to borrow one of yours," she tells me, and I nod. “I’ll call his parents to -”

“Don’t!” I cry. “Mom, even you know what his mom’s like!” I try to convince her. “He can stay here! Just for a while, you can tell her that you need to watch him, pleeeease! She probably isn't even home!”

She glares up at me for a moment before smiling, raising her delicate aged hand to tuck strands of silver-brown hair behind her ear. “Fine, Coy. Take him up to your room for now and be careful for once, don’t wake him up."

I thank her a million times before walking into the living room to see Keith lying on the couch, just as we’d left him. The blood’s been cleaned off his face except for part of his shirt which is deep red, soaked with it. I slowly pick him up, worried for some reason that he’ll shatter if I’m not careful. He looks so sick. He nuzzles into my arm once more, slightly more comforting without the blood. This time, he says nothing. I get to my room at the end of the hall upstairs with extreme caution. As I set him down on my bed, the pained look has subsided from his face, though I’m sure when he wakes up, he’ll hurt like hell. I walk to my closet and pull out an old bright colored t-shirt that I haven’t worn in a while and pause in front of him. I find myself thinking back to the walk home … Was that the ‘something‘?

It was probably just because it’s winter now and near freezing outside. He was warm. It wasn’t the ‘something‘, right? It was just being a teenager, and how anything with a mouth feels good. Jesus, I'm about as virgin as they come, I bet I was just surprised.

I realize only now that I’m staring at him. His hair’s tangled and messed in places, dark strands falling across his face, caught on his nose. They look like leeches. Now that I can get a good look without him moving around, I can see that he's wearing a little bit of eyeliner. So that's what was in his tears. He’s not so bad, really. What if I did feel the 'something'? What if I’m just exaggerating all this, and there IS no 'something'?

I check the door: I closed it. Mom and Sasha are nowhere in sight.

I check the window: if anyone walked by on the street, they couldn’t see inside here.

Again, let me emphasize that I’m only doing this so I don’t go out of my mind with worry and confusion. I lean over the bed, put my forearms on either side of his head, and kiss him again.

That’s when I feel it and start to get scared. The warmth, the buzz. This time it spreads out my lips, engulfing my neck and limbs in due time. It's warm and cottony and it feels like something inside me clawing at my body, wanting out.

For some reason or other, I don’t think I’m in control of my brain or body anymore. Well, that's what I tell myself. My eyes close, my body relaxes as I nudge myself between his knees. I’m telling myself to stop, I’m chanting it over in my head, and I’m telling myself it’s wrong, but I don’t think I’m even listening to myself right now. I don’t blame me, but this is too … nice, even though his lips aren’t moving.

Nice. Wonderful adjective, isn’t it? I can't think of anything more descritive, I can’t even think at all anymore. My body heats up and my head feels like it’s filled with helium. His chest’s damp with blood and soft against mine as I‘m bent over him, fragile even, and I feel like I’m going to break him if I move too much, so I don’t. I need to breathe, but my body refuses to cooperate, so I suck a sharp breath in through my nose. His lips feel nice. They're very small, and very pink. I open my mouth and touch just the tip of my tongue to his bottom lip. He tastes like blood, too. My chest does this weird twisty thing because I've never touched someone with my tongue, ever. It feels really good. I do it again, licking at his top lip, salty with human and blood.

His lips are a little chapped, but that’s not stopping me. I can feel the jagged outline of a cut on the bridge his nose on my own nose, but that’s not stopping me either.

“WELL, WELL, WELL!” I hear a jubilant voice from behind me, not Keith's or mine.

THAT stops me.

I jump off Keith faster than I've done anything, launching myself backwards and catching my knees painfully on my desk. I feel my face burn hot with a blush as I stare at the human being that is Lauren Fath leaning against my doorway. We met her halfway through grade eight when she moved here from Chicago. She’s not like a lot of other girls, which is why she’s our friend. She does have a tendancy to show up unannounced though, as she had just proven for the thousandth time. All the other times she’s barged in, I haven’t been kissing an invalid who happens to be my best friend and also a boy.

I begin to stutter and ramble, trying to explain myself but not finding the right words. She just smiles and walks in, inspecting Keith with her annoyingly intelligible eyes.

“Don’t explain, no need," she laughs. My eyes dart down to Keith, who’s still knocked out, but his lips are damp and have fallen open a little. There’s really no way out of this.

“What … do you think you … saw?” I ask tentatively, wringing my hands. She smirks and sits on my bed next to Keith.

“There’s not much to misunderstand, don't try to get out of this. You want him!” she giggles, giddy with the prospect of this. If I were a cat, my ears would have flattened against my head.

The fog clears, so to speak, and I clap my hands over my mouth.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST DO?” I scream at her and slump to the ground, hardwood floor practically bruising my ass.

“Well,” she begins, stretching happily. “I might be wrong, but I think you just stuck your tongue down another guy’s throat." She grins at me.

I give a pitiful groan and put my head in my hands. “I did NOT.”

“Oh, so you just tripped into his mouth?”

“No! I just … I wasn’t thinking … he’s just …” I trail off, not a thought in my head for how I’m going to finish that sentence. Lauren coos and scootches off the bed, crouches down and puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Ah, young love," she smiles.

“It’s not young love!” I yell at her. “It’s not love of any kind!”

She ignores me and stands up, picking the t-shirt up off Keith’s chest where I dropped it.

“Were you supposed to change him?” she asks, and I nod.

“How do you know what happened?” I say.

“Oh, your mom called me," she replies and lifts Keith off the bed slightly, taking off his hoodie. "At least SHE'S nice enough to inform me about things like this. Were you going to call at all?" She pauses. "Well, 'course not. You were -" She coughs back a laugh. "- busy."

“What the hell are you doing!?” I ignore her comment, refering to her taking his hoodie off.

She smirks at me. “Well, someone needs to get his shirts off, and I think you’ve proved that you can’t be trusted around him, let alone him when he’s half naked."

I stand up and shove her out of the way. “I can be ‘trusted,’” I assure her. She sits next to him on the other side of my bed and smirks like a banshee, waiting for me to give up.

I slide a hand under him to his lower back, holding him up as I carefully move his hoodie off his shoulders with the other hand. Why is this making me so nervous? I’ve seen him virtually naked a thousand times, why the hell am I freaking out now? He’s wearing a cap-sleeved t-shirt and tank top underneath. I carefully slide off the first shirt, pulling it over his head without getting it caught on anything. He’s just wearing a black tank top now … his collar bone‘s defined (good lord, he’s unhealthily skinny) and slightly bruised from earlier.

I give a nervous glance over to Lauren, who’s giggling at my lack of self control. I look back to him and lift his tank top over his head. My hand’s on his bare lower back. It’s smooth … warm … his nipples are small and pink, hard from the cold. I look up to the lips I kissed not minutes ago. Oh, goddammit.

I quickly drop him onto the bed and tug my shirt over his head. It’s bigger than the ones he was wearing, and hangs to mid-thigh and the sleeves are just above his elbow. I look up at Lauren as if to say ‘ha’. She’s just smirking at me again.

“What?” I ask. I took them off, didn’t I? Yes I did, they’re sitting right there, blood-soaked. What’s funny?

“Are you aware of what you just did?” she laughs and rolls over, her head beside Keith’s but upside-down. Her braid is thrown across his arm.

“What did I do? I took them off!”

“Yeah, but,” she snort-laughs. “You were fuckin' struggling with it! You want him!”

I blush again. “I do not!”

“You SO did, you were a split second away from tweaking his goddamn nipples!”

I growl and blush deeper, patience and mind shot. I walk over to the crappy tiny little TV at the foot of my bed and pull out the gamecube from under the stand.

“D’you wanna play Super Smash Bros?” I ask, wanting to get her mind off me and Keith; never once in her life has she turned down a video game. Her face brightens and she bounds off the bed, sitting cross legged next to me.

“You’re ON! I’ll kick your ass a thousand times in the next ten minutes!” She cheers herself on as the screen flickers to life. She picks Kirby as she always does, and I pick Captain Falcon. The first match is on, but I’m not really paying attention, my brain’s been splattered all over the boy on my bed.

xxx Keith’s POV xxx

... Why does this hurt so bad?

There’s a dull throb somewhere in my head, each pulse driving daggers into my temples. With a shaky groan, I slowly pry my eyes open. Blue ceiling … is this Coy’s room? I listen for a moment and hear a series of ‘peeeeooooowwCLANGfalconnnnpaunnnchclangclang’s in the silence, along with button clicking. Ah. Smash Bros. Mustering all my strength I prop myself up on my arms and look her over at them. Coy and Lauren are sitting there and they can’t see me yet, I’m looking at the backs of their heads. I move to stand up and feel something slip from my shoulder, causing me to look down at myself. I’m wearing a t-shirt with a red dragonfly on it that’s way too big for me, and the neck line’s slipped down my whole shoulder (it was a pretty boat necked shirt to begin with.) I recognize the shirt as Coy’s, but he hasn’t worn it in a while.

Letting my gaze fall to the bed, I see a heap of shirts, visibly mine, crusted in blood. Is that mine? The blood? I scrape bits of memories together … Dylan and Tharen .. Oh fuck, right, they beat the shit out of me. I raise a hand to my cheek, feeling scratchy gauze. Yup. Definitely my blood on the shirts. I don't know if that's something cool or something terrifying. A loud yelp comes from the other side of the room; Coy lost again. I smile and push myself off his bed and walk silently up behind him. Another game starts and he’s absorbed in beating the hell out of one of the CPU players, so he doesn’t notice me yet. I reach out and rest my palm on the crown of his head. He jumps and spins around, looking at me in tight-lipped shock, and I smile again as he instantly pauses the game and stands up. His face looks more serious than I’ve seen it in a long time as he steps forward and hugs me with such force that I stagger back a step. I take a deep breath and hug him back, nuzzling my face into his shoulder, trying to pretend I'm not. He turns his head a little and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. I shiver, he’s so warm, goddamn his house for being cold all the time. What the - his lips press just below my ear, not quite pursed or hard enough to be considered a kiss. He does it again. My hands clench in his shirt.

The gears in my head start turning and Dylan’s voice rings through my skull.

‘You filthy faggot.’

I open my eyes (when did I close them?) and drop my hands from his back and step away, forcing him to let me go. I can see a deep flush on his cheeks, as I’m sure he can see on mine. All three of us are silent and the only sound is the pause music on the TV.

Only one thought is bunny hopping in my brain:

I can’t be gay, I can’t be, I can’t, I like girls, I don’t like boys, I’m not gay, I’m not.

I’m NOT, I decide spontaneously. That’s gross. It’s Coy. I can’t like him. He's a fucking boy, and a kind of ugly one at that. His eyebrows are all out of whack and his nose looks like a shoehorn. Yeah. He's ugly. Not like that one girl at school. She's hot. What the fuck would Coy think if I liked him anyways?! That wouldn't go over too well. I look up at him and see his eyes aren’t focused on mine, but on my bare shoulder. I almost frown, then tug the shirt back up.

“So -” I begin to say, then clear my throat, my voice was raspy. “How long am I staying here?”

He smiles weakly. “As long as you want, it’s up to you."

I think about this a moment. It’d be nice not to have to talk to mom for a while. But … Coy’s here … I don’t think I be around him (I’m not gay, I’m not, not, NOT) and I’m not saying he’s … you know … but it’s a possibility I shouldn’t rule out. Who knows what the fuck he’s thinking right now?