Mateless and Home Bound

Chapter 6: High School Reunion

He wanted to say that he was going to be okay. At least he knew someone back home. His grandma wasn't exactly one to make friends or have visitors. He didn't know anyone but her when he was growing up in that forest. That was partially why he wanted to stay in the city. At least here he had a chance to make friends and have some fun.

Oh, who was he kidding? The only friend he had graduated a year before him and then could only talk over the phone for what he thought was going to be the rest of his life. He wasn't even in the city he was in anymore.

He was also the guy he had been crushing on since the moment he saw him.

It sounded absolutely awful, because Reggie was the only one who had kept in contact with him after high school. But who could blame him?! The guy was an absolute god amongst men! He checked all the boxes:

Short black hair that curled and made him look like a mobster? Check.

A chin sharp enough to cut diamonds? Check.

Muscles that would make a bodybuilder cry? Check.

Mysterious in a hot way? Check.

It didn't take too long to realize that he wasn't as intense of a person as he had thought he was at first. When he first met him, he was so shy to talk to him. He thought the guy was going to push him to the side and completely disregard him. He was stunned when he actually started hanging out with him. For a month he thought that the guy was just doing it so he could get help with his homework or something. It's not like he wouldn't do anything for him back then. He was a grade under him, but he could catch onto concepts quickly. The only thing that kept him from graduating with Reggie was two art credits and a P.E. credit that he needed.

Because, gods forbid he just be a brainiac who couldn't draw to save his life.

"Why not ask him out," his grandma said. She was cooking up some stew while talking to him. "Or ask him if he likes men?"

"Because I know he's going to say 'no' and it's going to ruin whatever friendship I have with him!" he whined. He was laying on the simple couch of the hut, staring at the ceiling. "It's just better this way, anyway."

"You complicate things too much, Sage," his grandmother shook her head. "There are many things in life that are simple. As soon as you see it as that, you will set yourself free."

His heart ached as he relived a memory. He really missed his grandma. She had taken care of him ever since he was a baby. He had lived in her hut in the middle of the Orion Forest for his entire life. That was why he was so excited to go to school somewhere else and see something new. He wanted to explore and make friends and really see what he could do.

And now he was a dropout of possibly the easiest school in the world without anyone to call a family.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. There were three people that he considered family, even though he wasn't related to them by blood. There was his god mother who was a lot like his grandma. She loved sending him different drinks and charms that she said would help him in life. He thought they were real when he was younger. But that kind of died out around the same time he realized that Santa Clause didn't exist.

Then he had two uncles. They weren't his uncles by blood either, but they were good friends of his grandmother too. One taught him how to hunt and set up traps to survive in the forest. He was a real mountain man, even though he really looked like he was in some tribe at some point in his life. Whenever Sage asked him, he just blew it off and said that the tattoos he had were in memory of the Native American tribe that his ancestors were from. It was cool to hear all of his stories.