A Crimson Rainbow

Chapter 1

I seriously do not get what he sees in her.  Ok, so she might be one of the hottest girls in school, but her intelligence makes the Dodo look like the original Mensa President.  Truth be told, I'm under the suspicion the only reason Stefi Molena hasn't failed any of her subjects is because her parents paid for our new gymnasium.
Jared Bartlett, on the other hand, is one of those rare smart-and-hot hybrids.  I heard once that his mother is a former supermodel, and his Dad is CEO at some tech company, but I never found out if it's true or not, but it would explain both the looks and brains.  Mind you, I'm pretty sure that, if he was to try to do a study-date with Stefi, it would be more "date" than "study".
He wasn't always this way though. Jared and I were actually best friends from kindergarten until our 2nd year of High School.  He started off as a short, chubby kid with glasses, but when puberty hit, he started growing, losing weight, and got contacts.  You know, the typical teen rom-com storyline.  Of course, he also started going to the gym and training, so abs started showing up, arms became more muscular, and he turned into a living Michelangelo statue (with limbs, though).
It was around the same time that I started realising he was becoming hot, and realising that I found his body more appealing than the girls at my school.  Not just his body, but a number of other guys in my class too.  PE started becoming a nightmare for me when I would start getting random boners in the changerooms.  I tried to blame it on puberty, but I knew the real reason, despite my denying it.  Of course, it didn't stop the names being thrown around.
By the time I was 15, the whole school knew I was gay.  It's funny how, before coming out, I got called all the names under the sun, but when those words rang true, nobody wanted to call me them anymore.  Everyone was like "Oh, he is.  Carry on then."  The name-calling essentially stopped, aside from the occasional taunt, but I guess trying to make fun of me by calling me a cocksucker wasn't as fun when I responded by asking if they wanted my services.  When I started behaving like their names were true, it came to an end pretty quickly.  Somehow, since I was no longer really being picked on, I started becoming more popular.  Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being "the popular kid", but I gained a handful of close friends following all this.
One of the few sporty guys who didn't call me names was Jared.  While we may have drifted apart, as he went towards footy and I leaned more into theatre, there was still an ongoing respect between the two of us.  We may not have been friends anymore, but we were still friendly towards each other.
That was, until Stefi came into the picture.  From the moment those two got together, it was like I didn't really exist to Jared anymore.  I mean, it probably would have hurt less if he bullied me, but he pretty much totally ignored my presence entirely.
A few other guys (and girls) had come out at my school after me, so I'm certainly not the only queer kid here.  Unfortunately, none are my type.  Calvin became the first guy on the footy team to come out as gay, and it was pretty big news in my town.  Keep in mind, though, my town is surrounded by farmland, so the most exciting news headline we had in the decade before Cal's coming out was "COW DUNG THROWN AT LOCAL TOP COP", which, naturally we all found hilarious.  Sgt Gilroy is an absolute twatwhistle at the best of times - he once threatened to arrest me for ogling his son, Gavin.  Truth be told, the only two things wrong with that kid are his name and that he's straight.  He's actually a really nice guy, despite the loser of a father he comes from.  In fact, I swear there are times he has tried to tease me (in the good way) in the changerooms, but then he would act like nothing happened.  Mind you, if he ever wanted me to take a ride, I wouldn't say no.

"You alright?"
The words snapped me out of my daydream, bringing me back to the harsh reality of the classroom.  Mr Harrison was going on about the square root of pie or something.  Like, what does a nerd having sex with a Four'N Twenty have to do with maths?
I looked at Ellie and yawned.  "Yeah, just over it." I responded, as I rested my head on my arms.  I flicked my eyes towards the front of the classroom.  "His voice is just so monotonous.  How does anyone even stay awake in here?"
Ellie was one of the few friends I still had since before I came out.  We met on Orientation Day and just clicked.  She wasn't your typical "pretty" girl, but she was far from unattractive too.  A lot of guys from school had tried to ask her out, but she never said yes.  She was smart, so I figured she was just more focussed on school than anything else.  At the same time, though, we often talked and joked around in class.  For me, I just found it hard to concentrate, but I'm not sure what her excuse was.
There had been a number of times we were sent to the Principal's office for misbehaving in class, and I've lost count of how many times she was told that I was distracting her from her studies, but I found that hard to believe when she aced every single assignment she was given.  Nothing seemed too hard for her, and I admit, I was a little envious, especially when I cried tears of joy when I got a C in History.
The only class I did well in was Theatre.  Yeah, I know, I did live up to the stereotype a bit, I guess.  You're probably thinking I loved drama - which, I admit, I did - but it wasn't just that.  It gave me a legitimate way to pretend I was someone else.  I could be someone who actually fit in.  Someone who wasn't bullied.  At times, I even WAS the bully in some plays.  I found it fun to be another person, and it helped me forget the shit that was going on in my own life.
If I'm being honest, when I really think about it, I know I'm lucky.  I have a roof over my head, I have friends, I never go hungry, and a large percentage of the world is worse off than me.  But that doesn't stop me hating the fact that my father doesn't take a huge interest in much of anything, and my mother is at work most of the time I'm home.  My older brother is too obsessed with video games, and my younger sister is a bigger drama queen than I am.  I swear, sometimes I wonder if we have anything in common, other than the blood that runs through our veins.  Most of the time, it's just Mum and me - at least, when she's home - since Dad mentally checks out a lot.

So here I was, standing with the other kids waiting for the bus home, some of them cuddling up to others, but Jared and Stefi stood out, as if an invisible bubble surrounded them.  It's not that I wanted to be looking at them, but it was hard not to see them.  Stefi had her arms wrapped around Jared's waist, with his behind her back.  She leaned in to say something to him, making him smile in that way that drew anyone else in.  It was clear what she saw in him.  I mean, almost everyone in the school either wanted him, or wanted to be him.  He was popular, funny, and treated everyone as if they were a friend.  At least, everyone except me.
At that moment, Jared's eyes flicked up and met mine, and his smile faltered slightly. Fuck, did he know I was staring?  I quickly looked away, trying to make it look like I had only just glanced over, and when I looked back a few seconds later, he was back to staring into Stefi's eyes like she was the only thing in this world worthy of his gaze.  Suddenly, my lunch felt like it was going to start being recycled.
Ever since we started at Bell Ridge High, Stefi had decided to make my life hell whenever she could.  When I came out, it just gave her more ammunition.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't public humiliation or anything, but there would be snide comments all around.  Whenever I got a good grade on an assignment, she accused me of sucking the teacher's dick.  That sort of thing.  It was like I wasn't good enough to actually do anything well without some sort of sexual favour.
When she saw that I was friendly with Jared, she made it her mission to get in between us - not that it took long.  She knew that, if she wanted to become the Queen Bee of this school, it would be by becoming the token girlfriend of the hottest guy in school.  It's ironic how she accused me of sucking dick to get anywhere, when that's pretty much exactly what she did to get her way with the other students.  From what I heard (not that I listen to rumours much), the way she got Jared to take her "seriously" was to give him head in the footy changerooms.  I didn't believe a lot of gossip that went around our school, but that sounded like it could well be true, especially with how quickly they got together, and the way she carried herself around.
I seriously hated that bitch, and I'm sure there were multiple times I had wished she would die, but I never expected it to happen so soon, and certainly not in the way it happened.