Something About Us

Part Three

Part Three

Enter: Taylor Jude Tramblay

     Sebastian stood me up that Thursday. I kept calling him and at first he simply didn’t answer. After a while he started hanging up on me early, just to stop his phone from ringing. It took me a long time to compile a bunch of songs that I liked, ones that Sebastian wouldn’t beat me up for and now he would never get to see it. Not with the way he was acting.
       One morning I asked to be excused during math class. I felt no anxiety about missing the information. The teacher was talking about stuff I mastered a long time ago. I walked with the CD in my hand and scoured the school looking for Sebastian. He wouldn’t come to me, but I’d come to him.
      I sandwiched myself between two vending machines right next to the Gang’s Hallway. I heard Sebastian’s voice and others too. Talking loudly about something that had happened last week.
      “D’you know Dee got thirty-bucks out of his wallet? Man, I shoulda raided his wallet,” Ed complained loudly.
      “Thirty-dollars? That was a waste. What’s Dee going to spend it on?” Another boy asked with a sneer. “Well it’s in better hands. Rather it in Dee’s hands then that fag,”
       “It’s weird though, how he didn’t cry,” Sebastian muttered.
        “Yeah man, I would’ve been crying with Bam Bam kicking me the way he kicked that sunovabitch,” One of the boys made a bunch of noises like a wounded animal and Sebastian and the other boy laughed. I guessed he mimed kicking the boy and I felt a wave of nausea sweep over me.
      Sebastian hung out with bona-fide dicks; that was for sure. How could he stand to be around people like that?
      I dialled his number and called him right there in front of his friends, just to see what would happen. The results proved even better than I hoped. Sebastian’s phone bleated loudly.
      “Damn, Bastian. Someone’s always blowing up your phone,” Ed remarked.
      “Youda never guessed he was so popular,”
      “I’m not,” Sebastian said.
      “Lemme talk to her-“
      “NO!” Sebastian screamed. Finally he hung up on me and I couldn’t help but grin. Imagine if I waltzed out there, holding the CD in my hand and planting it in Sebastian’s hands while offering him a wink. I smiled in my mind’s eye but then I remembered who Sebastian hung out with. Bigots, homophobes and all sorts of assorted dicks. We’d both get beaten up.
     A week after that day Sebastian called me. I began noticing a pattern, I’d offend Sebastian and then he’d stop answering my phone calls and after a substantial period of time he would run back to me. I grew bored with Sebastian. So bored that Everett was starting to look pretty cute. Cute enough for me want to risk our relationship as friends for a kiss.
      “TJ?” Sebastian asked when he called me.
      “Yeah?”
      “Uh. . . I don’t think we should talk anymore,” Sebastian said. I laughed.
      “You sound like you’re breaking up with me and we haven’t even gotten together,” I said biting back a silly grin.
       “We’re never going to get together in the first place, which is why we need to stop talking. I’m not . . . I’m not like you, TJ.”
       “Yeah, you’re damn right you’re not like me, Sebastian. You’re terrible.”
       “Listen, I . . . you like me right? And not like as a friend. You’ve got a crush on me, don’t you?”
       “I do. You gonna call CNN and tell them the breaking news?”
       “TJ, this lifestyle isn’t for me.”
       “This isn’t a lifestyle. This is who we are.”
       “I . . . I’m not going to call anymore.”
       “Good,” I exclaimed.
       “Bye.”
       I laughed. “This is the first conversation we’ve had where you haven’t hung up on me. Isn’t that funny?” I rustled through my bad and found the CD I had burned for Sebastian. I popped open the CD case, gripped either side of the disk in my hand and cracked it in two.
       Sebastian forced a piece of laughter. “Bye.” And at last the phone went dead.