When Forever Ends

Best friends. They have many uses. They’re great to skate with. They help you out. They cook for you. They’re like free therapists sometimes. Well, my best friends are like that. I don’t know about your’s. Seriously, I don’t know where I’d be with out Vince and Jake right now. Deffinatley not sane...that’s for sure.

“Home!” Shayne yells. I hear her keys hit the kitchen counter. I can tell she’s pissed off. Derek probably just called her with some bullshit excuse as to why he can’t go to the concert tonight. I smile to myself. Derek is alright...I guess.

“Hey.” I say walking out of my room as she’s walking to her’s.

“Hey.” she says back sort of plainly. I know that Derek called her. Shayne pouts and shrugs out of her plaid shirt. I swallow nervously as I stare at the tan skin that her tank top exposes. Bad. I scold myself. Focus. I need to focus.

“What’s wrong?” I ask knowing damn well.

“Derek and Michelle fucking got back together and he’s taking her now. He’s such a fuckface. He could have called me sooner so I could have found someone else to go with.” I lean in Shayne’s doorway and watch her grab her shower things.

“You can always go with me?” I say smiling at her shocked face as I hold out the tickets.

“Jerk!” Shayne hits my arm. “You did this on purpose!”

“Happy Late Birthday Day!” I grin at her.

“Not cool, Ace. You made me all mad for nothing.” Shayne says and throws herself at me, hugging me. I hug her back loosely. “Okay! I’m going to go take a shower real quick! Then we can go!

“Sounds good.” I say. While Shayne is in the shower, I short just shift from spot to spot in the apartment. First, I sit on the couch. Then I sit in the kitchen. Then on my bed. Then back in the kitchen. I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel nervous and fidgety.

When Shayne is done getting dressed, we leave. She drives to the venue, singing along with whatever CD she was listening to. I don’t know what half of the stuff Shayne listens to, still after all these years.

“I’m so excited!” Shayne says. Trust me, I am too. I hold Shayne’s hand, using not wanting to get separated as an excuse. I shove through the crowd until Shayne and I manage to get a spot right against the barricade. Of course the teenage girls I shoved out of my way aren’t too happy about this, but I don’t really give a fuck.

When the bands starts to play Shayne goes crazy, screaming the words to every song. Of course, her eyes are glued to this William guy. I don’t see what’s so great about him. He can sing, big deal. I can sing, I just don’t show it off like this guy does.

Once the show is over, Shayne insists on buying a ton of shit. Then she has me take a picture of her and this William. He fucking towers over her, so he leans down and drapes his fucking arm around her and smiles nice and big at the camera. I hate him more than I hate his music.

“That was so awesome! Thank you so much!” Shayne says. We’re sitting around in the living room. It’s about one-thirty in the morning. Both of us are pretty much drunk. I mean, what else could we do after going to show. Probably a lot of things, but I needed to calm my nerves...and alcohol does the job.

Shayne and I start talking about high school. Why wouldn’t we talk about high school? High school was great. We did tons of crazy shit.

“I remember, on your first day, we all hated you.” I say laughing. “We thought you were a poser.”

“I remember I hated you guys too, you were such dicks to me!”

“You were a bitch!” I laugh. Shayne joins in.

“I know, you guys made me so angry.”

“It’s funny to think about that, now that we’re best friends.” I say taking a long drink out of the bottle of alcohol Shayne and I pretty much drained.

“I know!” Shayne says, her laughter fading into a content smile.

We drink more and more alcohol, both of us silently agreeing that we’re getting piss faced tonight. We succeed. We drink almost all of he alcohol in the house, which was a lot.

“Remember that pact we made in Sophomore year?” Shayne asks. God, how would I be able to forget something like that? It’s stupid and we were both drunk...but I remember. I never thought she remembered, because we never talked about it after we made it.

“Yeah.” I answer passing the bottle to her. Shayne tips the bottle up and empties the last of it. We made this pact one night, that if we’re both virgins when we’re twenty...then we’d lose it to each other.

Shayne throws the bottle onto the floor. “I’m still a virgin.”

“So am I.” I tell her honestly. I would never openly admit that to anyone if I wasn’t as drunk as I am now. As far as everyone knows, I have had sex with tons of girls. It’s an act mostly. I mean, it’s not that I never had the chance...believe me. I did. It just never felt right. See, a lot of guys lack the ability to feel guilty for sleeping with a girl who means nothing to them. I’m not one of those guys.

Alice and I dated, for a long fucking time. Two years. I really was starting to fall in love with her. Until I found out that she didn’t respect my choice of waiting. The whole two years in which I thought she was great for not pressuring me, she was sleeping with her ex. Awesome, right? Yeah.

“You’re twenty now.” I say with a sly smirk. Shayne’s smile is crooked as she crawls across the couch toward me. She looks almost like a tiger getting ready to kill it’s prey. I kind of like it...a lot. Shayne and I attack each other’s mouths for a good half hour. I push Shayne through the hallway, and into my room. Then I push her down on my bed. I pull of her tye dye shirt and throw in on the floor, only detaching our mouths for a few seconds.

Once Shayne is fully exposed and I’m in my boxers, I expect it to stop. It doesn’t. It feels right, finally. Shayne means something to me, she’s my best friend. I feel comfortable with her. I slide my boxers off and position myself above her. This is right.

I wake up hoping that Shayne is right next to me. She’s not. I get out of bed and put on a clean pair of boxers. Maybe she’s in the bathroom. She’s not. Maybe she’s in her room. She’s not. Shayne isn’t even in the apartment. I hear the front door open, so I peak my head out of the kitchen, hoping to see Shayne. Instead Jake walks in with a huge glare of sunlight blinding me.

“Ah!” I cover my eyes and turn away.

“Have a good time last night?” Jake asks.

“Ugh, yeah. I guess. That William guy kind of pissed me off.”

“How about after the concert?” Jake ask taking his aviators off.

“Yeah, I guess.” I say scratching the back of my neck. “We got kind of drunk.” I really don’t want to tell him that Shayne and I had sex. It’s kind of none of his business. “We talked about school a lot.” I say leaving it at that and digging through the cabinets for food. Where is she? Marley’s house probably.

“I’m hurt, Ace. You’re not going to tell me about the part where you fucked her?” Jake asks holding his hand over his heart and pouting. My face falls.

“How” is all I get out.

“I came home last night to ‘Oh Ace!’. It was pretty obvious.” Jake says smirking.

“Oh.” Is all I say.

“Yeah. So?” Jake asks expectantly.

I shrug. I’m not telling him anything. It’s got nothing to do with him.

“She’s probably at Marley’s house.” Jake says knowing very well that Shayne wasn’t a virgin any longer. Though, I’m not too sure if she was a virgin. She didn’t like...bleed or cry or anything. Wasn’t she supposed to bleed? Did she lie to me?

I walk out of the kitchen and got straight to the bathroom. I’m going to take a shower, and then go find Shayne. I need to talk to her.