The noise in the kitchen was what woke Corey up. He rubbed lightly his aching eyes and then got up. He went downstairs to see what was going on. Tommy was in the kitchen, he was already dressed up. He had the same clothes as the night before except for the t-shirt, he borrowed one from Corey. A dark blue t-shirt.

"Good morning!" Tommy said with a warm smile. "Feel any better today?" He asked as he placed a plate of hot crescent rolls on the kitchen table. "I just bought them at the market. It might not be as good as those made in France though. Hehehe!" Tommy sat down at the table with his plate of rolls infront of him.

"...thanks..." Corey said, almost whispering, as he sat down at the table. He was surprised. He didn't expect to see Tommy this morning. "I'll pay you back," he said softly before taking a bite of a crescent roll. It was really good.

"No need to. I didn't buy it with my money, I just bought them on credit. My dad has an account at that market, so, it helped," Tommy explained with a smile, "and besides, I wanted to make you smile."

"Oh, thanks," Corey replied with a little smile. Tommy was such an adorable guy. He has a lot of similarities with his cousin, Shawn. But Corey felt a bit embarassed, no, he was feeling a bit ashamed. Deep inside, he thought Tommy was feeling pity for him. "Tommy?"

"Yeah?" Tommy looked up at Corey with a sweet smile decorating his face. Corey hesistated a bit before saying what he had on his mind.

"...you don't have to be like that if...you don't want to..." Corey lowered his eyes a bit. Though he really liked Tommy's friendship, he didn't want to force the latter to be his friend.

Tommy laughed a bit. He couldn't believe it. For once, he wasn't the one who was scared, the one who didn't have self-confidence and such. "Corey, I won't leave you. Not again."

"W-What do you mean, not again?"

Tommy sighed a bit. "Before Shawn's...before he fell into a coma, I was part of a gang. Shawn's gang, our gang. Shawn, Fox, Kevin, you and me. It was so cool. But...when Shawn...the gang broke up. Kevin went his way, you did the same. Only Fox kept in touch with me," explained Shawn's cousin with emotion. It touched Corey.

"Can I tell you something?" Corey asked with a genuine smile. Tommy smiled back and gave his agreement. "You look a lot like Shawn. Not only physically but the way you are too. You can be proud of your genes. Hehe!" Tommy laughed with Corey. Finally, the sun seemed to shine again.

Tommy and Corey headed to school as soon as they finished their breakfast. Well, after Corey took a bath. They chit-chatted about this and that on the way. Tommy was really proud of himself. Corey enjoyed being cared for like that. He thought love left his life for good.

Tommy and Corey went separate ways when they arrived at school. They set up a meeting for lunch break before splitting up though. Corey went to his locker. Some guys approached him and started talking. They said a joke, a 'fag' joke. Corey didn't really understand it though. The 'fag' in the joke gets laid by a bull in the end. Those guys broke a big laugh, they were laughing at Corey. The latter was hurt, of course, but he was used to those type of stupid attitudes since long. He closed his locker and headed to his class. In a corner of the room he was, his book opened infront of him. Everybody seemed so happy, they were chatting about their incredible week-end plans. Corey observed them and deep inside his heart, he wished he was in their place.

The first break of the day. Tommy walked quickly past the canteen area and headed to the garden, he usually met Fox there during the small break. And as usual, Fox was standing near the isolated tree, eating his bread. But that day, it was different. Fox was there near the tree but...other people were there too, and they were talking to him. What's so wrong with that? Well, those people were Menrad's friends. Fox's old friends. Those whom he claimed didn't care at all about him.

Tommy stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed the little crowd around his best friend. He wondered if he should go and meet Fox like always or just wait for the latter to be alone. After a long moment of struggling with this decision, Tommy decided to walk towards the isolated tree. Nobody noticed him coming and when they did notice, Tommy regretted his decision. "Hi!" He said to the little crowd. All of them looked at him with odd faces. Tommy felt very bad at that instant but he knew that, at least, Fox was happy to see him. Though the latter didn't really show it at that moment. After a short moment of silence, Fox's old friends continued their chat and it was like if Tommy wasn't there. Even Fox didn't acknowledge his existence. Tommy wanted to run away...but he couldn't. He just stood there, watching Fox and his friends talk. And for the remaining 15 minutes of the break, they kept on talking, sometimes laughing, and still ignoring Tommy. Finally, when the bell rang, the little crowd started to walk away but not before inviting Fox to their little party this sunday. Fox accepted with a warm smile. And then, Tommy and Fox were alone.

"Hey..." Fox said, almost above a whisper, as he picked up his back-pack. Tommy wanted to demand an explanation on why Fox ignored him but finally decided that it would be better to play it cool. After all, those people were Fox's friends.

"...hey..." Tommy replied as they started walking. "How come your friends remembered your existence?" He asked with a little smile, trying to make it a joke. Fox looked back at him with a smile.

"I don't know. I was just standing there, like I usually do and they just came around and we started talking. So many stuff happened since I last saw them," Fox explained as he started laughing. Tommy asked what made him laugh and Fox replied, "No, it's nothing. The guys told me something that happened to Rodney, a friend of ours."

"Really? What happened to him?" Tommy asked. He didn't really care but he didn't want to be excluded from Fox's circle of friends. How can it be explained? Tommy felt at that moment that he was being but outside of Fox's pack of friends. Maybe it was silly, but not for Tommy.

Fox looked back at Tommy, his laugh fading, "You wouldn't understand. Catch ya later!" And with that, Fox walked away. He walked to his once, three best friends. They were waiting for him. Tommy froze when he saw that. At that very second, he realized that he was losing his best friend. He was losing him. And it wounded his heart.

Corey couldn't wait for lunch time. He was so tired of hearing the boring voice of his science teacher. Corey yawned at least three times during the class. It seemed to him like if the bell would never ring. But eventually, it did. And when it did, Corey quickly packed up his stuff and rushed to the canteen. He bought a pack of chips and went to sit at a table. He looked around but didn't see Tommy. "He's always late," Corey said to himself with a little smile. But that day, Tommy was even more late than usual. Corey even finished his pack of chips. Usually, he took all his time to eat them. Corey then guessed that Tommy was probably with Fox. After all, they were best friends. But just when Corey was getting up, Tommy arrived. Corey called him and the latter came to sit at the table. "Hey! How are y..." Corey asked but didn't finish his question as he noticed Tommy's red and puffy eyes. "Hey, what's wrong?" Corey asked with eyes filled with concern.

Tommy didn't reply, he couldn't. It took him a little while to stop crying. He lowered his face and shook his head lightly. Corey remained silent, he didn't know what to do or say. Obviously Tommy was hurt, but for what reason, Corey couldn't guess. Silence fell upon the table. Corey wanted to cheer up his friend, to console him. But he didn't even know why Tommy was so sad. He was so lively and cheerful that morning, how did it change so rapidly?

"I wanna go home..."

"What? What did you say?" Corey asked. Tommy's voice was so weak at that moment.

"I want to go home!" Tommy repeated, louder. Corey stared at his friend. What happened to him? What was so bad that it made Tommy want to go home? Corey wanted to ask his friend the reason of such sadness but guessed that it wasn't the right moment.

"Follow me!" Corey said with a little smile.

"What?" Tommy asked back, raising up his face. His eyes were so sad that it pinched Corey's heart.

"Just come with me!" Corey added as he got up. Tommy followed. They went in the garden. They ran to the very end of it. Tommy didn't understand at first but when he saw the gate which led outside, it made sense to him. But the gate was locked. Tommy sighed. But Corey never stopped smiling. "You think I would have brought you here if I didn't have a plan?" He lifted one of the rocks near the gate, digged a little bit the ground with his fingers and got what he was looking for. "The guy in charge of the gate always forgets the key, so he keeps a double here, just in case. Cool, isn't it?" Corey explained. Tommy smiled a little. Corey unlocked the gate and they walked out of the garden.

As Tommy remembered that his brother was home, he persuaded Corey to go to the latter's house instead. Of course, Tommy didn't mention anything about his brother, he didn't want to talk about him. He had already enough problems to deal with. So, finally, they went to Corey's house. Tommy went directly in the living room and lied down on the couch. Corey approached and sat on a chair infront of the couch.

"Now...can you please tell me what went wrong? I mean, this morning you were so full of energy and now...it's like if your batteries were completely empty." Corey was really concerned about Tommy. The latter had been such a good friend recently, Tommy helped him out and now Corey wanted to do the same for him. "You know you can talk to me, right?"

Tommy looked back at the french blond and smiled weakly. "Yeah, I know," he replied with a soft voice. Then he sighed a little and said, "I don't want to talk about it right now. I just want to forget everything that's outside this house...just for a little while, okay?" Tommy seemed so hurt. Corey wished he could at least do something but guessed that Tommy just needed some space so he nodded and let Tommy rest.

How much time he slept, Tommy didn't know. His eyes were closed when he heard that noise. That annoying noise. He opened gently his eyes as his ears started to regain reality. That noise, it was the phone. Tommy got up and walked a bit in zig zags towards the phone which was on the kitchen table. It seemed that Tommy slept for a long while as it was already late in the afternoon. Tommy coughed a bit as his mouth was dry and then picked up the phone. "Um...hello?"

"Corey Farmer?"

Tommy looked around to see if Corey was around. No sign of him. "Sorry, he's not here right now. Can I take a message?"

"Yes. Can you please inform him that Shawn Rulin woke up a few minutes ago. Thank you."

"I will. Bye."

Tommy hanged up and then lifted his arms high in the air to stretch. He rubbed his eyes lightly and looked around for a piece of paper to note the mess..................SHAWN WOKE UP!?!?!?!?!

Written by Cloud Angel
Copyright © 2002 by Cloud Angel,
All rights reserved