What I Left Behind (boyxboy)

Who?

Let me start you off where it all began.
8th grade summer, going into my freshman year.
My sister had become friends with this boy, Nick.
He was a year older than me.
They met through mutual friends and had begun hanging out. Nothing more than just high school friends who would accompany each other to various parties and functions. My parents always though they were dating, but believe me. They were not.

One day in the beginning of that summer, Nick came over to take Ally to a party across town. My parents were always cool with them going out partying, as long as they never drove, and they were always respectful of that.
Long story short, her car wouldn't start. Nick went into the shed to grab tools to reconnect her battery cable that had vibrated loose. He saw our four dirt bikes lined up. I just happened to be outside.
"Woah, you guys ride?" He said in a semi-quiet tone.
"All the time, do you?" I asked
"As much as I can! Let's ride this weekend?" He asked, a smile growing on his face.
"I'm always down" I replied, trying to play it cool.

Nick and I became instant friends.
We rode practically every day that summer.
Ally and my parents came out the first few times. But we rode on a much more daring level than they did.
After a few weeks, Nick became more my friend than he was Ally's, and I think she was cool with it.
She was usually off in a field practically dying from alcohol poisoning most nights anyways.

See, I was never really popular, I wasn't ever the kid getting shoved in lockers either. I just kind of always blended into the shadows.
Nick was an only child, his mother raised him and he never met his father.
He was the definition of a good friend.

Now my parents, sister, aunts and uncles, and various other extended family I think always knew I was gay. Years before I ever told them.
At the point in my life where I met Nick, I didn't know what I wanted.

He started sleeping over like 3 nights a week. We would sleep in the basement and prank call people and stay up stupid late. He was kind of a mentor for me. He answered all my questions about high school. Taught me a lot about dirt bikes, too.

He was a little shorter than me, army style haircut, piercing green eyes, a stocky, yet rather slim build.
He had a jaw line I've been dreaming about for years. The way his lips curled into this half smile made me turn a shade of red I didn't even know was possible.

At the end of the summer my parents would always take us camping for two weeks before it was time to rake leaves, and get ready to go back to school.
We always went somewhere different. My parents sat at the camp site, listening to seventies rock and roll and reliving their golden years over a 30 pack light beer and countless cigarettes.
My sister stopped coming since her friends got their cars.
My favorite two things to do while camping were fish, and walk.
I would wander the campground all night long. I felt a sense of peace being alone down the dimly lit dirt roads, crickets chirping, fires in the distance crackling away; the soft unrecognizable music coming from fellow campers tents and motorhomes.

So, this particular year I invited Nick to join us.
"Well, I'll have to ask my mom, but I'm sure she would thrilled to get rid me" he laughed a few days before the trip.
His mom agreed, and he spent the night at my house the day before we left.