How it Happened is Irrelevant (Mabbell)

8

TJ's POV:

Have you ever had that moment in your life where you either want to die or disappear from existence? 

I think that I'm having one of those moments right about now. 

But damn, the fabric of Craig's shirt is too soft to pull away. The small piece of toilet paper that I'd been using for my bloody nose was beginning to get soaked through, but I was too pathetic to remember how to move to get myself a second piece at the moment. 

I'd forgotten that the door was open until Max walked by quickly. At first, he didn't notice us, but then his brow furrowed, and he walked backwards. "What happened?"

I didn't see it, but I assumed that Craig had given him a look, so he put his hands up in innocence and walked away once more. "What'd you do?" I asked, still not sitting up.

"Don't worry about it."

You know whenever someone says that, all that plagues your mind for the next three days is what you're not supposed to worry about. But I trusted him for now, and decided not to let it consume my thoughts. Besides, I already had enough to worry about right about now. 

I sat up eventually, throwing away the fabric that had been catching the blood from my nose. It really had soaked through, for now even my hand had some of the red liquid on it. I washed it off with soap and water and then left. Craig was still sitting on the floor, staring off into space. I've never seen him sit still for this long. 

I saw a message on the refrigerator that read:

TJ,

You're welcome ;)

-Thrash

I felt a mixture of emotions. On one had, I really did owe everything to him. On the other hand, I think that he was the one who'd given me that liquid courage last night. I immediately texted him, asking about it. It occurred to me then that I was alone on this bus with Craig. Even all of the management had gone by now, for it was a little past noon. 

I got a message back from Kevin, who admitted that it had been him. I wished that I could hit him through the messages. Since I couldn't do so, I sent a slew of text messages compiled of every colorful word that I knew to get the point across. 

Instead of an apology, all I got was a snarky response that told me that no one would want to kiss me with a mouth like that. 

u know ur the biggest cunt in the world

idc

I hear u kissed him!

not rly

but u did

i don't remember it. he didn't want it

It's a minor start

I put my phone away, done with this conversation. At first, it hadn't been so bad. But I also believed that Thrasher didn't want to be involved in any way. He'd only really ever been involved by accident. 

"Can I ask you something?" I heard Craig's voice from behind me. When did he get up?

"What's the matter?"

"How come you're so embarrassed about your sexuality?"

Oh, that conversation. "It's complicated."

"We're alone. I've got time."

I sighed. "It's mostly my parents' fault." I rubbed my arm my opposite hand. "For so long they instilled homophobia on me. They told me that people like that were to be damned, or killed or something like that. I never really thought much of it."

"Until?" He made a gesture telling me that I should go on.

"Until I was about thirteen. I decided maybe you can't control who you fall in love with. I mean, I'd never liked a girl by that point. I always thought that I was just not interested in that kind of stuff."

"And then what happened?"

"I had a slew of sexual dreams." I felt a heat rush to my face once more. I'd gotten better at hiding the embarrassment, but it was too stupid to bother trying to do so now. "All of them were about this guy that I liked at the time. That was until I'd found out that he'd been getting girls drunk out of their minds so that he could sleep with them."

"Yikes."

"Leave it to me," I sighed. "I have a tenancy to like all of the wrong people. But I've always made an effort to hide all of that stuff. I got a friend of mine to pretend to be my girlfriend for my parents for a bit until she got tired of it, telling me that we had to admit that our relationship was platonic. Instead of telling my parents that, I just told them that we weren't working out. I talked to her in secret every day after that. At least until we graduated and went our separate ways."

"And do you think that you still like all of the wrong people?" The question suggested that he knew. It was true though. I wasn't bothering to keep it a secret anymore.

"In terms of what?"

"In terms of whatever you thought was wrong before."

"No."

"Then in terms of a bad influence."

"I could use a little bit of dirt in my blood." I unconsciously bit my lip again. Ever since I'd learned how to do it properly, it was the only thing that I did anymore. 

Craig chuckled. "That's attractive."

My eyes widened. For once in my life, I was completely speechless. "But I thought-"

"You think too much."