Beautiful To Me (Boyf Riends AU)

Chapter 8: If You Confess

TW: Blood, Bullying, Homophobic f-slur

(Michael's PoV)

I sat up in the stiff white bed, contemplating what happened in the dream. Memories of junior year began to flash through my head. However, I couldn't remember anything that happened in the past hour.

I guess that proves I had a really fucked up childhood.

I looked around the room, confirming both that I was in the nurse's office and that I was alone.

I slid out of bed, and my head exploded with pain.

"Fuck," I whispered to myself. "That kinda hurt."

The pounding in my head didn't lessen as I walked slowly into the hallway. 

How did I get in there? I wondered. I shrugged and kept walking.

I stopped when I saw Jeremy. Talking to Rich and Jake. Jake was holding Rich's hand and Rich was saying something to Jeremy.

"...different perspective," Rich said, gesturing to Jake. Jake, in turn, smiled and said something to Rich, and Rich wiggled his eyebrows and said something else.

Jeremy's face turned red. "Guys," he choked out, staring at the ground.

Rich stood on his tiptoes and kissed Jake lightly on the cheek. Then both of them walked off.

Feeling a small surge of courage, I walked up to Jeremy.

Wait.

Why would I need courage?

Does Jeremy actually make me nervous?

I shook it off. "Hey, Jeremy," I said calmly, standing in front of him.

He looked up, seeming surprised to see me. "Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes drifting up to the white patch of hair on the left side of my head. I quickly ran my hand through it, blushing with embarrassment and insecurity.

"Yeah," I responded, giving him a weird look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "You collapsed in the hallway." Then he seemed to remember something and his face flushed red.

"And?" I prompted, seeing that that clearly wasn't all.

"N-nothing," he stuttered. I let him go with that.

I heard footsteps behind us and turned to see Jared.

"Hey," I said. "Do you know what happened? I can't remember what happened in the last hour."

He grinned. "Yeah, you were talking about how you and Jeremy had sex last night—"

"We did not have sex last night!" Jeremy protested, blushing harder.

"Sure," Jared said, smirking.

"After you left, all we did was sleep," Jeremy insisted.

 "Together," Jared muttered, snickering. 

"Jared, I swear to God—"

"Anyway, we started to argue, and then you screamed at all of us," Jared continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "After that you just fainted. Like a girl."

I felt my face grow hot as well.

"That's not all that happened—" Jeremy started.

"Shut up, yes it is." Jared seemed to remember something. "Then Jeremy picked you up and carried you— like a girl— to the nurse's office and started to do some really gay shit."