You Can't Choose (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Three

"Collier fucking Jacobson, get your fucking ass in here," was yelled almost the immediate second he set foot in the school. It was shouted by his best friend, Sarah Olsen, and before he could ask where in here was, she showed him but enveloping him in her arms and squeezing him tight. "I've missed you so much".

"I've missed you to, Sarah," he muttered into her ear, never meaning it more in his life.

She was his best friend, his other half, his person. Without her, Collier would be lost, and he had been during his three months away.

Hugging Sarah right then was the first time he felt grounded since he returned home.

"You need to tell me everything, Cole. I tried calling you Saturday night but your dad said you were busy," she said as she pulled away from him and pried his paper schedule out of his hands to look it over. "Your locker is right by mine. Come on, let's go".

Her hand grasped his and she began to pull him through the hall. As he trailed behind her, he thought about how to tell her about his parents. Should he just come out and say it, right here and now, or was that too public? Cole preferred to to it somewhere when it was just the two of them, but he understood that she may not have time to with her new boyfriend and everything, but he'd at least like to try.

"Hey," Cole said, tugging on her arm to get his attention, "are you going to tell me who you're dating yet?"

He knew that he was familiar with whomever it was since Sarah specifically wouldn't tell him that name of her boy. The few times they had texted that summer, she had called him either Hottie McAwesomeness, or, the boy. Unsurprisingly, Cole was unable to guess who her mystery man was based off of these two cryptic clues.

"You'll learn soon enough," Sarah said, smiling at him, and then her blue eyes shifted down to his arms and she rolled her eyes. "Cole, you are covered in paint".

"Sarah, we've been friends since we were itty bitty people. How are you surprised by this?" He demanded and she smiled softly at him before looking away and continuing to pull him forward.

The paint that stained his arms was navy, like the walls of his dad's new living room. While he had taken a quick shower the night before, he had been exhausted about didn't feel like taking the time to scrub his arms until his skin was red rather than blue.

"Of course I'm not surprised, I'm sentimental. I've missed seeing you all covered in paint and sometimes even blood because you fell over," she declared and he laughed easily.

That was something he could do better with Sarah than most. Laugh. She and him were just so in sync with one another, their senses of humor nearly identical. Sometimes, Cole didn't know what he had done to deserve such an amazing best friend.

He decided to immediately tell her about his parents, because if something this big had happened in her family, he knew he would have received a call the night she found out about it. She deserved to know.

But the second he opened his mouth to speak, she was stopping at at locker and thrusting the schedule back into his hands. "There we go. I'm just down the hall from you".

"Oh," Cole said, looking at his locker for a second before turning back to Sarah. "Hey, I need to tell you something-"

She was no longer listening, distracted by whatever it was she saw down the hall. "Alright Cole, we can catch up at lunch, yeah? I need to go right now, sorry," and then she was hurrying off down the hall and Cole was looking after her.

***

"You're in my painting course this year, Mr. Jacobson?" Mr. Moore asked, smiling at him as he entered the room. Collier returned the grin as he dropped his beat up gray backpack onto the floor by his usual easel next to the window and approached the teacher at the front of the room. "I figured you'd be in drawing. Did it not fit into your schedule?"