Jessie's Boy [boyxboy]

fourteen | bestfriends

F O U R T E E N | B E S T F R I E N D S

"Nas, hey, calm down." Through the walk from Ofie's to Nas', I'd been listening to my best friend try and form coherent sentences over the phone. He'd been a mess, his voice rushed and I pretended as if I didn't hear what he was saying because it felt way too bad to acknowledge that I wasn't that surprised.

I knew he felt like this and I still sucked Ofie off.

Once I'd gotten way too guilty to just sit there and listen, I had hung up with a promise that I'd be there soon.

When I'd gotten to his house, he was home alone and I'd made my way in with the spare he'd always had taped to the bottom of his mailbox. Inside, Nassir sat with his blanket tucked around him so much that I couldn't see his face but I knew he was crying, Skins was playing in the background and there was an empty bowl stacked in another empty bowl. Under that was yet another empty bowl and pack of Twizzlers sitting on his bedside table. His 2-gallon of Sprite was nearly chugged all the way down and I was sure that there was more on the other side of his bed.

Nassir was a stress-eater and when he got stressed, he ate everything his parents didn't want him to eat, all of it at once. It was a wonder how he stayed slim, Nassir never worked out, maybe it was the sex that kept him in shape, maybe his metabolism was still light speed, I didn't know. I did know that he was resurfacing from his cover-fort, grabbing his Twizzlers quickly when he'd seen me.

The tears had risen to his eyes then, him wiping Froot Loops off his face and before I could react, he was in my arms. "Slow down." My voice was calm but my fears were intensified; I was so nervous that maybe he could smell Ofie on me or he'd somehow find out just from looking at me but his eyes were still bloodshot and then he was pacing his room.

My heart was in my fucking knees.

Wringing his hands or as if he had a secret, Nas grimaced and I felt awful, I couldn't tell him, not now. I'd let him pace a bit as I took a seat on his bed, knowing that it helped him work it what was going on underneath his wild curls. When I'd found that he'd had enough of that, him pausing in a spot, his eyes screwed tightly closed, I caught his hand in mine, it shaky. My best friend was crying his eyes out then, tears soaking into my shirt, I could at least be there for him.

His voice came out jagged, arms wrapped so tight around me as if he were afraid to let go, as if something bad would happen if he didn't have me there with him. Nas had sighed weakly, maybe all the crying had tired him out but his body was sinking into mine, "I had sex with Ofie."

And he'd sounded so... defeated. Like the world had sat itself on his shoulders, Nassir looked like he'd been through hell in such a short amount of time that it kind of scared me. He would have hated me if I told him and quite frankly, I didn't think I could function if I lost him so I kept quiet and I held him.

My hands were rubbing soothing circles on his back then and I realized he was only in boxers and a shirt much bigger than his frame -one I was sure belonged to the boy we'd been talking about- I felt sick to my stomach.

When my best friend had finally calmed down enough, he backed away. Crossing his legs, he sat his hands in his lap and he started to fill me in on the details, unaware that Ofie had already done so. "It was amazing." Were his first words, small frown on his face, his eyes were focused on his hands as they fidgeted with the hem of the shirt he was wearing. "A-and while he was giving me the most mind-shattering orgasm of my life, he asked me out, he asked me to be his."

Looking up at me, Nassir sighed, "Like real, Li, he wanted us to be real." And real was something so terrifying to Nas, because being real with someone when you weren't real with yourself, that always led to pain.