Out of the Rabbit Hole

Chapter 9

"To the right! He's on your right!' Cecil shouts, as guns shooting sounds.

I'm sprawled on his bed, reading a magazine as he plays Xbox Live. He swerves to one side, mimicking where his player should go. There's a gun shot and his screen prints out in big red letters 'DEAD'.

It's Saturday, so I went to Cecil's to hang over. I told him he didn't have to see a scary movie, I'm not going to put him through that. I've done it before, taking him to see 'Orphan', that made him really scared of chokers. He probably thought that any girl with one on was a psychotic woman, not a sweet thirteen year old.

"Dammit! Fucking ass! You didn't cover me!" He flings his headset off, and throws the controller to the ground.

"You died?" I flip to the next page in the magazine, the 'Hottest Man Alive' comes up.

Sure isn't him.

" Fuck yeah. Trent wasn't watching the guy come up behind me. Little fucker."

Trent is one of Cecil's lacrosse mates. He's funny and a player, telling all the girls he's related to Zac Efron. It's gotten some hooked, but he still has a lot of fish not biting.

" Sad." I smirk at my comment, when Cecil pounces on me. We lay like an 'X' with his head near my feet. "Cecil get off, and your feet smell!"

He does a body roll on me, making the bed squeak with stress.

"Nope!" I grab his ankle and bite into it, getting a yelp out of him.

"Now!"

He rotates on my back, his chin lays on the top of my head, and his legs rest on both sides of me. The breaths he takes, smoothes my hair down, warming it.

"What's up with you and that soccer dick?"

I ram my head back into Cecil's chin, recieving a much wanted ow. He has no right calling Simon that, he hasn't done anything.

"Nothing, just partners on a project."

"Partners on a project that now drive to school together." Cecil fires back to me.

"Well, then we're friends, I guess."

Can I truly say we are friends?

"You just met the dude about two weeks ago. No one makes friends that quickly."

"I knew him before, remember? And sure you can, it's not usually me though."

Simon and I date back to third grade. Sure we rarely spoke to each other, but I've played flag football with him plenty of times to know what he's like; An athletic, sweet ball of righteous energy that literally drenches you when he's close.

That could just be the sweat if I think about it.

"True, but does he know you as Andrew or Andrea?"

He's got a point. I haven't told Simon that I was a boy before, nor have I mentioned knowing him in the past.

He may discover who I was, which could lead to him hating me.

I don't want another person added to that list.

If I can stall it a little longer, I will definitely gain the courage to tell him the truth about me.

I'm no good at keeping things hidden.

"Andrea, and I want it to stay that way for now." I mumble into the comforter of the bed.

"Will you tell him? That you are a- were a boy?"

"Yeah, but it's not a problem right now, so I can just keep being me."