Best Friends (BxB)

Summer Autumn Winter and Spring

Chapter Eleven: Age 16 Summer Autumn  Winter and Spring

For the rest of freshman year, Jamie and Noah stayed as far away from each other as was possible considering their good friends were dating and their parents were super close. Which meant that they were physically in the same spaces a lot of the time, but tried not to talk to each other if they could help it.

They both lost weight. Both of their grades slipped. Dana, Kelly and Danny were concerned. But the boys refused to talk about it. Both of them, normally so open and carefree, so connected with their families, went silent on the subject of each other. It was their first ever fight. And all three adults were deeply troubled about how long it lasted. By April, they'd given up. It seemed like it was permanent. Their boys, best friends, since kindergarten, had gone their separate ways.

Still, Noah came to Jamie's house once a week, to take art lessons from Danny. Most of the time Jamie did whatever he could not to be there. Sometimes it was unavoidable. If they saw each other, at best, they nodded as a greeting, but sometimes they didn't even acknowledge each other's presence.

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In June, after school got out, Noah sat in the Nash's kitchen, as he'd done week after week, listening to Danny talk about watercolor techniques. It was super early, barely seven thirty in the morning, but Danny had a meeting this afternoon, and together they just figured this time worked out best. For this one day, at least.

Noah was working on a color wheel, and how more water affected the shades from lighter to dark. It was going ok, when Jamie came into the kitchen, heading for the sink, in only his boxers. It was a pretty typical summer pajama choice due to the heat. But Noah hadn't seen Jamie, not like this, not this much skin in a very long time. He jerked his hand and spilled his cup of water everywhere.

Jamie was completely unfazed. At the sink, he turned on the water. Then turned it off. Then on again. Noah watched, water dripping everywhere on the table, as the blonde boy did this for several successive times. Then finally turned, and walked back to his room.

Danny sighed, grabbing the roll of paper towels and helping clean up Noah's spill.

"What in the hell was that?" Noah couldn't help but ask.

"He's been sleepwalking for a while now." Danny mentioned. "We've seen a doctor. They say it's a normal side effect of stress. He talks in his sleep now too. Sometimes he yells. It's a little scary." Left it at that and continued the lesson.

As Noah was about to leave, he found himself unable to walk through the door. Instead, he went into Jamie's room. The room he'd spent almost all of his childhood in. The room he hadn't stepped into in over five months.

It was a mess. Clothes everywhere. Books spread out haphazardly. Dishes. Cups. On the wall, Jamie had tacked up a bulletin board over his rainbow stencil, covered in magazine cut outs from men's high fashion magazines. Everything so completely unlike the Jamie that he knew that he wondered for a second if he was in the right room.

Jamie lay on his bed, blankets twisted around him uncomfortably, his face pinched and folded in on itself. Noah stood over the bed for a few minutes, watching him sleep. Then slowly, he began to pick up Jamie's room. Putting papers into piles, bringing the dishes to the kitchen, and putting his clothes in his laundry basket. It only took him a few minutes, but the room looked so much better. It hurt Noah to see it a disaster zone. He found the waterfall sketch he'd given Jamie for Christmas, and propped it up on Jamie's desk.

He sat down on Jamie's bed, and without thinking, brushed the blonde curls off the sleeping boy's forehead.

Jamie moaned in his sleep.