The Answer Lies in the Truth

Chapter 11 Special

Michael's POV

I wake up to Jeremy brushing his teeth in the bathroom. My body protests as I get up. My black eye itches and so does my lip. My mom said that would happen. It means it's healing or some shit.

I get up and try not to flinch. Jeremy finishes up in the bathroom. "You feeling any better?" He asked concerned.

"I feel like crap." I reply honestly rubbing my bruised arm.

"Well, I could give you some of my pain medication?" Jeremy offers. I smile and nod. He goes back into the bathroom and comes back with the pills and some water. I down them in one big gulp. He hands me my glasses.

It always astounds me how easily we fit together. He knows what I need, and he's just what I want. I get out of bed and put on some pants. "What time is it?" I said rubbing my head.

"Seven, the bus comes at eight." Jeremy said answering my next question. He tosses me a hairbrush as I pick out one of my many shirts from his closet. (He steals them then doesn't give them back) I quickly get ready while Jeremy microwaves some poptarts because the dysfunctional cutie can't use a toaster.

To be honest, neither can I.

I grab my hoodie from the back of Jeremy's bedroom door and walk out. I wonder when the pain medication will start to kick in as I go to the kitchen. I pour some OJ as Jer finishes up heating the tarts. He's humming some pop song I remember hearing on the radio.

I wonder if I could come up behind him and hug him. I vote against it, that would be way too weird. I mess with the hard drive in my pocket until he turns around. I smile at him and he hums.

We get to school easily compared to yesterday. When we get there we are surrounded by our friends. Rich and Jake are by my side trying to help me as soon as they see me, and the girls overwhelm Jeremy with questions. I try not to get too jealous. Rich snaps me back to reality when he points to Alina down the hall talking with her friends and says, "I'll kill her, you know I will." I shake my head.

I'm glad they don't know he whole story. Alina never wanted to go out with me. She convinced Jeremy to bring me to the back of the school so she could call her goonies to come beat me up for fun. She said it was because we failed our Biology project.  She didn't like the fact that I had asked her to actually WORK. I would never tell Jeremy that though, I could see that he already blamed himself even though he couldn't have known. I don't blame him, he still thinks I'm straight. He was trying to help me and I understand that. If I tell him the truth he'll ask more questions, and I can't let him. He can't know. Years of friendship are staked on this one incident.

After all the small talk the bell rang for class. Me and Jer walked over to our classrooms. (We usually walked with Rich, but he started walking with Jake just recently.) He smiled and said bye, I smiled and wished I could kiss him. Such as every day since seventh grade. We went our separate ways.

After my first was computer and engineering. I quickly logged on and as the teacher talked about the assignment. I worked on my own project as she talked. Project R.E.D. As I called it.

'Hello. Welcome to your Router Engine Detector. Please select the devace you would like to connect to.' I smiled at the chosen dialogue I made, and I groaned in frustration when I noticed the spelling error. I quickly fixed it though. This program could link me to my computer at home, my mothers phone, my fathers work computer, Rich's Squip, and of course Jeremy's. I couldn't control anything. The Squips would still be the Squips, and I couldn't make anything do anything else like change my moms phone screen to say 'Michael Mell is the best', or anything like that. The one thing I could do was send messages. I sent one to my dad asking if I could buy some chips today at lunch. The answer back was a firm no. I chuckled and started to compose my note to Jeremy.