Do I Really Love You, Or Is It Just Me?

The rest of the week passed by uneventful. Just the usual everyday. Go to school, hang out with the guys, go somewhere after school with said guys, and try to not think of one guy. Ever since that night in my room when I was talking to Nathan, I’ve tried to shoot down any feelings for Frank that popped up suddenly out of nowhere. But it’s fucking hard to do.

Every single day, I would get feelings for him and then I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Then I would curse myself out and think of something else. It’s annoying as hell! Personally, I could spend the entire day and night doing nothing but think of him. But after last time, I’d rather not risk it.

And now it was Friday. It was after gym and I was walking toward my locker to get books that I would need for the weekend and to meet up with the guys. Frank had twisted his ankle yesterday at band practice so he wasn’t in gym, he was in the library. He had been on top of one of the speakers and jumped down, and then landed awkwardly on his ankle. Cute stu- No! Do not think that! Just think stupid idiot! Yeah, stupid idiot is good. I’ll stick with that. I suck at shooting down feelings.

I was walking over to the tree where we always meet after school when I thought I saw something over by the school gates. I did a double take as my heart raced. Nevermind, nothing was there. Just my imagination. It almost gave me a fucking heart attack! I hate you imagination! Great, now I’m fighting with my imagination. Just great.

My heart was almost to its normal pace when I reached the guys. “Hey peoples,” I said as I placed my hands in the pockets of my Bullet For My Valentine hoodie. Force of habit.

“Hey! Guess what! Guess what!” Frank said excitedly, not giving any of the others anytime to answer, and jumping up and down lightly. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was so cute! No! Bad girl! Stop it!

“What Frank?” I asked as Mikey walked over and gave me a sideways hug and rested his head on my shoulder, I did the same. For the second time, I noticed how Nathan’s eyes traveled over to Mikey. Dammit! I keep forgetting to ask him about it! I really do suck!

“It’s Friday!” he answered with a yell and threw his hands up in the air.

“Yes, I am well aware,” I answered as I let go of Mikey and Ray walked over for his hug. This was pretty much a routine for us. I don’t know why, but the guys always seem to give me a hug whenever I see them and leave. It’s really weird. And after school, it’s always Mikey, then Ray, then Gerard, then Bob, and followed by Nathan. And guess who’s last! Yup, you got it! Frank! The best for last! …Dammit! I need to stop that!

“On Fridays we always have a sleepover at someone’s house. I’m pretty sure it’s mine and Mikey’s house this week,” Gerard answered after he hugged me. I still didn’t understand. And neither did Nathan. After he hugged me, we looked at each other in confusion.

Ray must have saw because he said, “And you two are now members of the group, so you’re sleeping over too!” It took me a moment to comprehend that cause then I got a hug from Frank and I felt my heart skip a beat painfully and had to clear my head of his smell. Then the sentence registered in our minds.

“Wait, you guys want us to come over to?” I asked cautiously, trying to slow down my racing heart somewhat. They all looked at each other with confused expressions then at us and nodded. Then me and Nathan looked at each other, screamed and jumped up and down. We hugged each other, then turned to the guys that we would run home will quick and pack some of our things quickly, then head over to the Way house. By now we knew where each of the boys lived.

The two of us sprinted all the way home from the school then. It’s actually quite amazing that we ran faster than we did on the first day of school. We were so close to the door when Nathan stopped dead in his tracks and I crashed into him from behind. I stumbled a little and straightened, glaring at his back. “What the hell dude!? Why did you stop?” I shouted at him. I winced, maybe I shouldn’t have used that a harsh tone with him.

But when he turned around to face me, my tone didn’t seem to faze him at all. “Aren’t we supposed to help mom and dad finish unpacking everything today?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

I paused before answering, “We’ll leave a note saying that we’re sleeping over a friend’s house and that we’ll help out with everything tomorrow. We’ll just get up pretty early and come home tomorrow morning.”

He seemed to think everything over for a minute and then nodded and then turned around and walked into the house. I stopped before following him. I was pretty sure that the door was locked earlier before we left. Our parents had still been sleeping so we locked the door before heading to school. He noticed that I wasn’t following and turned toward me. He saw my confused expression and then held up his key. I didn’t even bothering to ask how he pulled that out of his pocket without my noticing. The boy’s weird that way.

I entered the house and we both made a beeline for the stairs, trying to push each other out of the way as in a race. He ended up winning and he ran into his room. I ran into mine and continued to curse him. I stopped in my room and looked around it. Hmmm… this was going to be harder than I thought. I ran over to an opened box that was marked “Sleep…Stuff” and began to rifle through it. I pulled out a pair of black Happy Bunny pajama pants and a black Hello Kitty shirt.

I grabbed my messenger bag and pulled out my school stuff and threw the pajamas in it. Then I grabbed some cloths to change into tomorrow and all of the other necessities. After about ten minutes my messenger bag was packed with cloths and other shit. And there was also a big pile of books on my bed. I stared at them for a minute, just remembering that my mom would be pissed that I wouldn’t get any of my homework done tonight. For some unknown reason my mom likes for me to get all of my homework done as soon as I got home from school. Needless to say, I haven’t actually been doing that all week. All well, I’ll deal with all of that shit tomorrow.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked out of my room and into Nathan’s room down the hall. I paused in the doorway to see him still packing. I would’ve thought he would be done packing by now. Guess not. Well, then again, the dude takes friggin’ forever packing! Seriously! When we moved out of our old house, it took him three and a half hours to pack all of his CDs and hoodies and band shirts! And it’s not like he has that many! He also has some serious OCD and everything has to be organized. And I mean everything! His shirts, shoes, CDs, and everything else!

“Um… Nathan dearie?” I asked him, looking at the so far small pile of things on his bed that he had so far. It appeared that he had the same idea as me and had emptied his backpack of his school things.

He looked up at me as he continued to walk around his room, looking for things to bring. “You do realize that we’re only going there for the night? And that we’re probably gonna be really late if we don’t hurry up?”

He smiled a little and turned his eyes away, “Well, yeah, but I just everything to be… special.”

I frowned as he walked in front of his closet and stopped. “Special? Why?”

“Oh, well, you know, because we have some new awesome friends and therefore it needs to be special and awesome,” he answered without turning around. That’s the first sign. He fidgeted from foot to foot as he looked through his band shirts. That’s the second sign. He was hiding something from me. That means it’s time for Detective Raven to find out what it is! Sorry, I had Skittles for lunch earlier.

“That’s not it, is it? There’s something else you’re not telling me,” I said putting all my weight on my right foot and my hand on my hip. He was so not getting out of this alive. Figuratively speaking of course. He turned around to face me and gulped loudly when he saw my stance. He knew he wasn’t getting out of this too.

He fidgeted some more before answering, “Well… you see…” He trailed off and mumbled something under his breath.

I frowned and said, “Repeat that. I didn’t catch it.” He mumbled again. “Dude, speak up.” Another effin mumble. I was about to say “Come on dude, louder” when he shouted.

“I like Mikey okay!” Now that took me off guard just a bit, but not much. Wait, so that’s why he kept staring at Mikey all week! Aha!

“Really? Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked once the realization past, and replaced by hurt and shock.

He squirmed a little under my gaze. “I didn’t want you to think of me as a freak,” he whispered softly. When I heard that, the shock and hurt was replaced again by shame. Why did he have to think that? I relaxed my pose and let my bag slide off my shoulder and onto the floor. I just stared at him wide-eyed and he watched me with a worried expression. Then I was across the room in a flash and had tackle hugged him.

He let out an ‘oof’ sound as we landed on the floor with a thud. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and hugged him tightly. “You are not allowed to ever fucking think like that, do you understand? You are not a freak!”

I could hear him sniffle a little and he hugged me back and I heard him make a sort of noise that sounded like a yes. “Good,” I said and I let go and sat up. He sat up too and wiped some unshed tears out of his eyes. Whenever he would start to cry, tears would come to the corners of his eyes but never spill over, and that wasn’t often. But there was one time he did cry, only once, and I never wanted to see it again. But that’s too depressing to talk about at the moment.

I sighed and it dawned on me what he said. “Wait, how much do you like Mikey?” I held out my arms in front of me. “This much?”

He shook his head no and held out both his arms to his sides. “More than this actually,” he answered calmly. I had to take a moment to marvel at that. How come I couldn’t be that open about…

I let the thought run unfinished in my head.