Beaches

thirteen

(song for chapter: Zombie - The Cranberries)

{a few more months later, almost the end of the school year}

Is it bad that I miss Tyler? He left to visit his mom at home for a few hours. He texted me just a few minutes ago saying he was on his way back but I wanna be with him now. Then there's a knock at my door. I turn around and see Kate standing in my doorway.

"Oh hey." I smile.

"Can I come in?" She asks.

"Uh yeah." I say.

I scoot over and she sits next to me on the bed.

"So I've been thinking about asking you this for a while now but," She starts. "I was wondering if maybe you'd wanna hang out sometime?"

No.

I don't feel comfortable, I wish Tyler was here.

"Well uh..." I say.

I fall silent when her hand touches mine. She moves closer and closes her eyes. I want her to leave. Then someone is standing in the doorway. It's Tyler.

"Help." I mouth.

"Hey guys." He says, walking into the room.

Kate quickly moves away from me. She tries to act like nothing happened.

"Hi Tyler." She says. "I'm gonna go hang out downstairs."

She quickly gets up and leaves. Tyler closes the door and sits next to me. I'd rather have him next to me than Kate. Don't get me wrong, Kate is a nice girl. She's nice, funny, pretty, but I only like her as a friend. Tyler is clearly much more to me.

"Thank you." I say.

I look down at my hands in my lap.

"What was she doing?" He asks.

"She was gonna, y'know..." I reply.

"Oh." He says.

He holds one of my hands.

"Do you want to tell them?" He asks.

"Do you?" I say.

"Only if you want to." He replies.

"I wanna keep this between us." I say. "I still don't really understand who I am."

"Me too." He smiles. "Whenever you're ready."

I smile.

We lay down together, his head on my chest. I still hold his hand. He tells me about his day so far and I listen attentively. I'm glad he had a good day, he really deserves it. We've all been doing a ton of work and we just finished up our final exams. There have been a lot of stressful nights and Tyler and I have tried to help each other out as much as we could. I haven't told anyone about him. I don't think he's told anyone about me either. I don't know what this makes me. I'm not gay, I've liked girls before but none of them are like Tyler. I feel safe with him, I can be myself. I've never felt that with anyone else. Not even my family.

My phone buzzes, I check it. It's a text from Bianca:

Up for another party tonight?

I show the text to Tyler and he nods, I reply with a yes and we get up. It's already 9:30 and we heave one hour to get ready. Tyler stands and stretches his arms.

"I'm gonna go get dressed." He smiles before leaving the room.

~Tyler~

These past few months with Josh have been a dream. I love spending time with him, he's amazing. I don't know what I did to deserve him. I've never ever felt like this towards anyone, neither boys nor girls. He makes me feel so special.

I grab a black hoodie, a gray tee shirt, black jeans, and a black baseball cap. I lace up my maroon sneakers. I check myself out in the mirror, I want to look nice. Not just for Josh but for myself as well.