A Crimson Rainbow

Chapter 12

To say my head was a mess would be an understatement.  In the space of maybe half an hour, I have gone from wanting to keep boning Jared, to thinking he may be a killer, to finding out he is pansexual and has loved me for fuck-knows-how-long.  Even though it was dark, and it would take me a couple of hours to walk home, I needed the night air to clear my head.
I needed to know how I felt about all of this.  Firstly, let's get the easy one out: Jared was not a killer.  There was no way.  It's not just because I didn't want him to be, but there was no possible way he could be.  But then again, one thing all the movies I'd seen had taught me is that the least likely person was the most likely person.  So, if I felt there was no way he could be a killer, maybe he was.  Except those movies have started to become pretty predictable, and I have been able to pick the killer within the first 10 minutes of the movies lately, so ... maybe I'm right in that he isn't the killer.
Fuck me.  I thought this was the easy one to think through, but instead I'm falling into a rabbit-hole.  Ok, let's put that to the side and revisit at a better time.
So, the other issue: Jared has liked - correction, LOVED - me for a long time.  He actually said the L-word, and I'm not sure what I feel about it.  Until a week ago, I had never even thought about him sexually (apart from when I was jerking off) or romantically, but when that kiss happened, it was like a switch flipped inside me.  But even then, it just confused me until he started making out with me the next day.
I'm not going to lie, I am loving the attention, and he is like a GOD in bed, but it's all happened so fucking fast.  It's almost as if he has forgotten all about Stefi.  But, maybe that's the point - maybe all this is happening so that he can distract himself.  Maybe he is doing this to make it look like he was a lover and not a killer.  Aaaand there we go, right back to the rabbit-hole.
Normally, when I needed to talk things out, I would talk to Ellie, but something was telling me to leave her out of this for now.  But who else could I talk to?
I pulled out my phone and jumped onto Tempr.  Normally I would use this for hookups when I was feeling the need, but there were a few guys on there that I had kept chatting to, and struck up some online friendships.  I scrolled through my favourites, ignoring the multitude of messages coming through now that I was online - ok, maybe it wasn't the best idea to put a photo of my ass as my display pic, but I wasn't worried about that now - until I found Petie, the geeky 20yo who asked my advice on how to lose his virginity.
Ever since we started talking, I had taken Petie under my wing, even though he was older than me.  He had asked my opinion on a number of things, so now it was time to reverse the roles.

OK SO I'M IN A TOTAL MINDFUCK RIGHT NOW!!!  MESSAGE ME ASAP, I NEED ADVICE!

I hit SEND, and was surprised to get a response from him within a minute.

Do you want me to call?

I had given him my number when he had a bad hookup encounter, telling him to call me if he ever needed help.  However, in all that time, we had never actually called or texted each other.  I do believe, though, that this does qualify as an emergency, since I had no fucking clue how to fit it all into text, so I said "yes".

By the time I got home, Petie and I had talked through everything, and he felt I should just go with my instincts (big help that was).  I had a quick shower to wash off the sweat from the walk, then went to bed.  I was mentally and physically exhausted, but no matter what I did, my mind kept replaying the evening, particularly what I heard Jared saying in the basement.
What was it he didn't want me to know?  That he was a killer?  That he loved me?  You keep hearing people say women are confusing, but trust me, guys, especially non-cishet guys, can be worse.

After a fairly restless night, I woke up to texts from Jared and Ellie, sharing links to news articles relating to Stefi: it had officially been ruled as a suspicious death, and police wanted anyone with any information to come forward.  Evidently, the questioning of the people from the party had come up with nothing, so that was a good sign, right?  Since she died walking home from Jared's, does this mean he wasn't a suspect?  I should be relieved, but part of me was nervous.  I kept telling myself that I was reading too much into it, trying to turn this into one of the movies I would watch, but I still had doubts, no matter how much I tried to shake them.
I got out of bed, and had my 4th shower in 24 hours, trying to wash away the thoughts swimming in my gut.  I always had been an overthinker, and there were times it had gotten me into trouble.  I knew that, if I didn't get this sorted out, I could ruin things with Jared, and I wasn't ready to do that.
Once I was washed, I got dressed for school, ran downstairs, grabbed a banana, gave Mum a kiss, and left before anyone could ask anything.  I seriously wasn't ready to answer any questions about last night, especially considering I wasn't sure I had any of the answers.
The walk to school went in a blur.  I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even hear Ellie calling out to me until she stood in front of me.  "What's going on?  Are you ok?  I was calling out to you."
"Yeah, sorry, just got a bit on my mind," I told her, deliberately remaining vague.
"Yeah, I get you," Do you really, Ellie?  Pretty sure you don't have a previously-assumed-straight-hot-guy boning you and telling you he loves you. "This whole Stefi thing is pretty fucked up."
Oh.  Yeah.  That.  Should I be feeling guilty that I only care about that because someone else may be next?
"True.  So were the rumours true?" I asked. "About her body being drained of blood?"
"Apparently so.  At least, that's what Caz is telling me."  Caz is Ellie's enby friend whose father works at the morgue, so they tend to get the inside scoop on the deaths that happen around here.
"Yeah, well I wouldn't trust anything Caz says," I told Ellie.  "They want this town to turn into some slasher film.  I love my horrors, but I don't want to be in one."
Ellie looked at me for a moment longer than awkward.  "Something else is going on," she declared, pointing one palm at me, and moving it in a circle.  "You look ... I'm not even sure how you look.  I've never seen this look on you."
"Yeah, well nobody I know has ever been murdered before," I replied.  I hoped that was enough to throw her off, because I REALLY did not want to go into this as we were going into school.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure what has gotten into me.  A couple of weeks ago, I loved gossip.  I loved to dish out the dirt, and Ellie knew all about my sexual escapades.  I had never hidden things from her before, so I have no idea why I was being so guarded now.
But then I remembered what Petie had said to me the night before.
Trust your gut.