Dude, I love you

Chapter Twenty Three

Jack Johnson’s POV

I could feel the warmth of his hands holding my face. His lips mashing against mine, urgent but gentle. I was lost in him then I realized what we were doing and pulled back pushing him away. His face followed after mine before he opened his eyes in confusion.

“Wait what are we doing? Why are you kissing me?” I ask holding the temples of my forehead and attempting to hide the flush in my face.

“I want you to know I’m here JJ, I want you to know; I accept you.” He explains softly lowering himself to make eye contact with me and carefully stepping closer.

“Jack what they hell are you talking about?” I’m so confused.

“JJ its okay, I’m not going to just ditch you because you’re gay. I’ll still be here.” He says grabbing my shoulders again. His hands are hot I could feel them warming my shoulders through my sweater.

“Wait what? Jack I’m not gay.” I state holding his forearms to back out of his grip.

“But that night…Y-You said you were ‘the fag, the dead weight’. I thought that what this was about, why you started cutting, because you were… in the closet and couldn’t deal.” He sat down on the foot of my bed to steady himself looking at the floor where the blade was sitting, he must’ve dropped it when he came at me.

“I’m not gay, Justin called me that. He didn’t want me to be friends with you and said that to me. I can’t believe you’re still so blind after all that.” I explain getting annoyed again.

“So then why did you start cutting yourself?” he asks clearly taken aback.

“I never started cutting you idiot.” I state loudly not bothering to hide my annoyance. I turned to leave but he jumped to his feet and grabbed my shoulder and tugged lightly.

“Wait you have to tell me,” he dropped his gaze lower. “You know I’m stupid.” He says meekly.

Feeling guilty I sigh. “Jack you’re not stupid.” I often got higher grades than him in Junior High and when I got my grades back I would get excited and want to compare scores with him, but after a while I started to notice he wouldn’t show me his test score, he would just put it in his binder right away. So I stopped realizing that to him I was probably just rubbing it in.

“At first I got the blade because I thought it would help but when I cut my finger getting it out. I knew I wouldn’t like it, so instead I used it like a totem, a reminder that I’m in control.” I explained slowly carefully choosing my words.

“Oh.” He says sheepishly. “So… when I kissed you then...” He stared upward and let his shoulders fall before he began raking his hands through his hair. “I’m so fucking dumb.” He started groaning loudly.

“Yeah, but… it’s not like I didn’t NOT like it.” I admit sheepishly. I wasn’t just trying to comfort him it was the truth. I did want it after it happened.

He stopped groaning and looked up at me before walking towards me and pulled me into a crushing hug, forcing me to stand on the tips of my toes.

Grunting “Jack, y-your hurting me.” I choke out. My back and chest were still sore from being kicked and thrown into the lockers.

Quickly letting go “Oh sorry.” He left his hands holding my arms just below my shoulders as I bent over to poise myself on my knees.  I had brought my hand up to try and soothe the pain by massaging the area softly but it only stung more. He bent lower to look at my face, looking confused.

“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you that much just by hugging you?” he asks doubting that was the cause.

“No, Justin… He beat me up today in gym class.” I admit. If Jack really didn’t know and by the way he reacted when I mentioned it earlier I knew he wasn’t going to like it.