The Closet Has a Sliding Glass Door

Chapter 5

Everything had been feeling bizarre to Eli lately. It was like all of the puzzle pieces were fitting together fine, but the picture on the final product was still scrambled.

Him and his boys were graduating from high school tomorrow. It was something he was looking forward to ever since the government forced him to enroll into kindergarten. For one reason though, he isn't excited at all. He would rather the day never come.

After tomorrow, he would never see Klitz again.

It's not something either of them wants, but Eli knows it's going to happen. Why would they continue to hang out and talk to each other when it was really uncomfortable to do so?

They both put on these fake personas when they were around each other. Klitz pretended that he wasn't in love with Eli and that he didn't mind hurting himself by hanging out with the tripod. Eli could see how his smile never reached his eyes. Eli pretended that he was happy living without what they had.

Neither of them could go back to before the creek; they could only pretend. Eli fucked their whole friendship over because he had no self-control. Then, Klitz joined him in the whole "fucking over our friendship" thing by revealing that he had feelings for Eli. Also that he and Matt gossiped about Eli's sexuality pretty often.

Eli chewed the fuck out of Matt for that shortly after he learned about it. It was 30 minutes of Eli screaming various obscenities in the other man's driveway along with the occasional, "And I'm not fucking gay, by the way!".

Matty took it like a champ. He apologized throughout the ranting and bought Eli food afterwards. There, Eli learned that Matt had been fully aware of Klitz's feelings for Eli. He'd been aware of them from the moment Klitz was aware of them, because apparently he called Matt to panic about it.

Eli knew his face got red when Matt started describing how Klitz then moved into gushing about him throughout the days afterwards.

"Yeah, dude, it was kind of weird hearing Klitz talk like that. He would get all smiley and call you cute and shit," Matt said with a grin at Eli's flustered reaction.

"What? No way, man... Did he say anything else weird?" Eli asked hesitantly... and with a little bit of anticipation.

Matt gave him a knowing look before replying, "Well, he'd keep going into graphic detail about you guys kissing and how hot it was. Do you know how hard it was to go back to making out with Danielle after hearing Klitz talk on the phone about him making out with my other best friend?"

Eli buried his face in his sleeve in embarrassment.

At least it seemed like Klitz kept the blowjob to himself. Thank fucking god. The only thing Matt knew was that Klitz made Eli have a panic attack over something.

During that long day of explaining and bonding over mess-ups, Matt asked Eli about his feelings for Klitz. Eli repeated the same thing he said to Klitz; he's his best friend. Matt accepted that answer with a nod, not wanting to accuse Eli of anything else. He didn't even ask Eli why he kissed Klitz in the first place.

However, Eli could tell that Matt saw right through him. He didn't look convinced that Eli felt nothing for the man. He was right. Klitz gave Eli a shit ton of conflicted feelings. Having your first real kiss and sexual experience with someone will do that to you. Especially if they're a man.

Eli wanted to yell at Matt for looking so doubtful, but he was too tired from yelling earlier. It would make him look defensive anyways.

Currently, the tripod and the rest of the seniors were piled into the school gymnasium on a Saturday. They were supposed to be running through the graduation ceremony as practice for tomorrow. Too bad their class advisor is a joke and can't get everyone together for more than three seconds. Said class advisor was trying to confiscate a football some of the guys were throwing around. It looked more like a sad game of keep away at the moment.