Sins of the Flesh

CHAPTER ONE-- Simplicity

"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17."

It's a new year and Blake Whyler is one-hundred percent ready for a fresh start. He's a junior this year, an upperclassman. He has suffered two full years in this hellhole. He has officially paid his dues. So far, it seems to be going fairly well; he made it from the parking lot and through the front doors without a comment about his outfit or one of the more blunt gay slurs he had gotten so used to.

He had opened his locker, ready to redecorate the inside of the door for the year when he spots someone new.

A boy is crouched in front of an open locker a few doors down, fussing with the lock, reading the combination off a piece of paper. His hair is dark and styled within an inch of his life, and he's biting his lip in concentration. He soon successfully opens the locker doors and seems to sigh in relief to himself.

Blake doesn't even notice he's staring openly until all of his books are roughly shoved from his hands by a beefy hockey player. The edge of his still-open locker jammed into his shoulder as he recoiled from the laughter that bounced down the hallway. Blake cradles his shoulder and hisses in pain, positive a bruise is forming.

"Are you okay?" a soft voice asks from his side.

Turning his head, Blake sees a set of green eyes staring back at him with a sympathetic, nervous look furrowing his perfectly trimmed eyebrows.

"I'm fine," Blake said out of habit.

"That was really rude of them," the boy said, offering Blake his hand.

Blake eyed the proffered hand warily, also out of habit, but ultimately decides to take it and allows the help to his feet.

"It's nothing new actually," Blake mutters, brushing off his pants.

"Doesn't seem like something you should have to get used to," the new student commented.

"Well," Blake shrugs, pulling out folders and notebooks from his bag and stacking them in his locker. "Welcome to Nixon High."

"I'm Oliver," the boy says, leaning against the row of lockers. "Oliver Spade."

Blake eyes the Oliver, soaking in his impeccable appearance and just how very small he is. It'll be a miracle if he lasts a month at this school.

"Blake Whyler," he eventually says in return.

"It's nice to meet you, Blake," Oliver says with a soft smile.

"You're quite polite aren't you?" Blake teases as he hangs a picture of himself and his best friend, Tesla, inside his locker.

Oliver shrugs with a small smile and looks down at the floor. "Just the way I was raised I guess," he says.

"Well, be carefull," Blake cautions, closing his locker. "Politeness might not get you very far here."

"I-I'm not sure what you mean," Oliver says, scrunching his nose in a dangerously adorable way that Blake does his very best to look past.

Blake walks away, leaving the new kid behind. He briefly thinks that maybe he should have at least shown this boy to his first class, but it's not that big of a school. Surely he can manage.

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Blake doesn't see polite mister Spade again until lunch that day. They don't seem to have any morning classes together, which Blake refuses to be sad about. Now, however, Blake sits at a table with Tesla,his best friend, and across from Aliza Bloom who is the single most pretentious and starry-eyed person person he's ever met, but he still loved her. The two girls were having a conversation about the member of their drama club that transferred over the summer, but he was watching Oliver stand at the end of the lunch line with a sandwich in his hand and a blank look on his face. The only small tic that gives way to his nerves the the action of worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Oliver glances around the lunch room, desperate for an empty table or a friendly face.