Dilemmas

02

"What the fuck?" Drake shouted as soon as Shaun began climbing the stairs back to his dorm. "She just asked you for a dance and you ditched her?! That was some bullshit."

"Stop," Shaun answered back, his voice echoing around the staircases. Drake looked up and saw that he was already one staircase above him.

Drake eventually caught up to him and held his shoulder. "That was crazy."

"I know. Now get away."

Without another word, Shaun went to the dorm and slammed it shut.

Drake just stood there, motionless for a few seconds. Shaun told him about Julie once. She was fun, friendly, and cute too. He even told him they were best friends.

But when they met in this school, things seemed cold. And odd. They barely talked to each other, much less made eye contact. The atmosphere changed around them. They had fights in group projects more often. It was like they. . .forgot about each other.

"Drake, are you okay?" his friend, David said from behind. He was about to pat Drake on the shoulder when he rushed to the stairs.

"Julie," Drake muttered. "I need to find Julie."

•

Shaun paced around the room. "Shit, shit, shit!"

"What's wrong, man?" Gio asked. "Could you at least tell us?"

Brandon looked up from his cellphone for a moment and then returned to looking at it.

"I. . ." Shaun began, his palms sweating. "Julie asked me to a date."

The weight of the situation seemed to make their eyes go wide.

"What did I just hear?" Gio said slowly. "You have a date. . .with your childhood crush?! Oh my God, that is awesome!"

"It's not awesome!" Shaun exclaimed. "I'm panicking at this very moment. Should I refuse?"

"Don't!" Brandon suddenly yelled. "You're gonna get the greatest dance of all time, Shaun! You don't want to say no."

"I ditched her!" Shaun admitted. "So that's probably a no."

"Shit," he heard Brandon mutter, defeated. "That would have been one of the best dates, bro."

Shaun heard Brandon sigh in discontentment. Bad idea, Shaun thought to himself repeatedly, wishing he could just slap himself again and again.

"The acquaintance party is a few days from now," he said, sitting down on his bed. "Probably around seven in the evening." Shaun just sat there for a few minutes. Then he took out the money.

It was still packed and bound with a rubber band. Shaun remembered asking Ryan about the money since he had no food for the night before the acquaintance party.

He played with the bills. Then he realized, Where's Ryan? Shaun looked at the bed where Ryan slept in. Not there.

Shaun stood up. He knew where Ryan would go around these hours.

•

Ah, Shaun thought as soon as he came face-to-face with the door. Room 08. We meet again.

He placed his ear close to the door and he could hear the sounds of manly screams inside. He knew how Ryan would scream. And when Shaun heard it, he knew.

Shaun took a deep breath and knocked on the door. The ruckus inside stopped and the door slowly opened with a creak. An eye appeared on the space.

"Marcus," he breathed. "Is Ryan in there?"

"Why?" Ryan yelled, his voice muffled.

The eye disappeared. "Shaun," Shaun heard Marcus say.

Ryan opened the door fully, revealing Ryan, shirtless. His body was slender and his hair was slicked back. His fury danced in his eyes in a way that made Shaun nervous.

"Um. . ." Shaun muttered.

"What?" Ryan demanded, his voice stone cold.

"I just. . .I just want to say thank you for the spare money you gave me a while ago."

Ryan harrumphed. "You just came here just to say that? Fine. I'll take it."

Then he slammed the door on his face, leaving him standing there. Shaun remained in that pose for a full minute, battling his feeling that always bothered him ever since he was nine.

"Hey," came a voice, snapping him out of thought. "Are you okay?"

Shaun turned to see a boy dressed in an oversized dark blue shirt that reached to his knees. His hair was a complete mess.

"Zeke," Shaun breathed. "What are you doing here?"

Zeke embraced his pillow. "I don't know. But I remembered something that I really needed to tell you."

"And. . .what is that?" Shaun asked.

"Remember Jason? The one who died because of an accident?"

That brought back bad memories. Shaun hated Jason, and they never saw eye to eye. When he saw him eye to eye, Jason was trying to frame him for bringing drugs into school.

Shaun's nostrils flared. "What about it?"

"Kaden Pride," Zeke said, holding an ID card of a face that looked exactly like Jason Pride. "Jason's twin is here."

"Well," Shaun shrugged. "shit."

He looked around nervously. There were lots of boys walking on the halls. Probably ten minutes from now would be curfew.

"Walk with me back to the room," Shaun said. "We need to talk about this with Ryan."