Undeniably In Denial

“Hey Reese!” I heard from behind me. It was a few days after my second run in with Camron and I was at my school’s football game. I turned around to see my friends Bethany, Sara, and Milly walking up to me with three other girls in tow behind them. Three of them were in the opposing team’s band uniform and the other was in their color guard outfit, so I knew they went to school with Milly, who went to that school too.

“What’s up guys?”

“One of these girls over here thinks you’re hot,” Milly said, pointing with her thumb behind her to the other three girls.

“Actually, it’s all four of us,” the band girl with shorter hair said, shrugging her shoulders like it was nothing, while the other band girls nodded in agreement and the guard-girl blushed a bit.

“Sorry girls, but he’s going out with me already,” my friend Jason said, joking around, sticking his tongue out and trying to lick my face.

“Ew, would you stop that?” I laughed, ducking out of the way and pushing his head out of my face.

“Whatever floats your boat, dude,” the band-girl with longer, pulled back hair laughed. And with that, our groups separated and went different directions.

“Hey, at least not everyone thinks you’re ugly, Reese’s pieces,” Brent said, pushing my shoulder playfully.

“Oh, wow, that was a funny one,” I said, not trying to mask the sarcasm dripping from my voice.

“At least they were cute and not Quasimodo-ugly,” he laughed.

“Yea, but they probably just wanted to do this to you,” Jason said vaguely before leaning down and biting my nipple. “Which, you know, would have been a little weird.”

“Jason! Was it really necessary to bite my nipple?” I asked, laughing and pulling up my shirt to assess the damage.

“Yes, yes it was,”

“You’re nuts,” I chuckled, rubbing my chest. “And I think you’re going to leave a bruise.”

“Oh, you know you like it, Reese,”

“No, Jay, you like it,”

“Ah, that I do. I love it when Evan bites me,” he said one hundred percent seriously, but still raising his eyebrows suggestively. See, Jason’s gay and he seems to think that I am too. But I’m not, and I keep telling him that. He just won’t believe me, no matter what I tell him.

“TMI dude, TMI,“ I laughed, shaking my head at him.

“You know you like it that way Reese-cup,” he smiled, running his finger down my cheek playfully, but yet seductively.

“Would you stop that?” I laughed again, slapping his hand away from my face. “First off; I’m not gay. Second; you have a boyfriend. Third, I'm not fucking gay!

“Just listen to me here. Gays notice gays. You’re just really deeply in denial!”

“Admit it Reese,” Brent said, pushing me playfully again. “Even I know you’re gay, and I’m one of the straightest guys in the world. I’ve got to agree with Jason on this one. You like guys. But you’re undeniably in denial. That’s all there is to it.”

“Oh my god! I don’t even know why I’m friends with you guys,” I muttered, chuckling, and walking away from them.

“Because, if you weren’t, you’d get eaten alive by all the dinosaurs that live inside your mind. As well as the dodo birds that inhabit your heart. They’d eat you Reese. They would eat you if we weren’t here to protect you. You’d be dead. And nobody would know because you’d be eaten. From the inside out, even. But we keep them from doing that. Just by you being our friend. You keep them away from us too. Because if you weren’t our friend, we’d get eaten-”

“Dear lord, Jason! Shut the hell up!” I laughed, still walking, with my two idiot best friends following close behind me.



The next day, I found myself picking up my cell phone and calling a certain Camron Dole. He picked up on the third ring and greeted me with an out of breath, “Oh, Reese, hey. What’s going on?”

“Not much. Uh, why are you all out of breath, if I may ask?”

“I was, uh, just outside and my dad yelled out to tell me my phone was ringing. So I ran in here as fast as I could,”

“You were outside?”

“Yea,”

“Why? It’s mid-October in northern New Jersey. There’s no snow on the ground, so you couldn’t have been playing in it, and it’s a lot colder than it usually is outside. Why in god’s name would you want to be out there?”

“Well, my friend Kelly is over and her and I were taking some pictures,”

“Why couldn’t you take them inside?”

“Because they looked cooler outside. Duh,” he laughed.

“Well then, I’m just going to have to see these sometime,”

“Alrighty then. How about tonight?”

“Okay. Do you want to come over here or should I go over to your place?”

“Actually, would you want to go to a little concert?”

“Who’s playing?”

“It’s my friend’s band. They’re called Aerials and they’re playing at the church around the corner from ‘Nibbles and Bites’, that bakery owned by those two dwarfs,”

“Oh, okay. So, Aerials; like the Disney princess?” I wondered out loud.

“No,” he laughed at me. “Like aerial views and such. They got it from a song they all really like.”

“Oh, that’s why it didn’t make any sense before,” I laughed, feeling kind of stupid.

“So do you want to go? I can show you the pictures on the way or something like that,”

“Yea, sure, why not? Sounds like fun,”

“Awesome,”

~~~

“And now…here’s the Aerials!” one of the guys who helped plan the event announced into the microphone as four guys with blond hair came out on stage and got into their positions. The one Camron introduced to me as Mika was the drummer in the band, who sat down behind the awesome red, sparkly drum set and warmed up a little, while the guitarist, bassist, and singer gathered around him to tune real quick. We got a good view of the whole thing because we were up front.

Their first song was called Burning Ice, which really didn’t make sense at first, but by listening to the lyrics, the meaning became clearer. The whole song was about contradictions and things that weren’t supposed to make sense.

The next was Diamonds, which was about a girl and how she shown like a diamond in the eyes of the singer.

Then they played a cover of the song they got their name from and explained why that’s their name.

Then came Twisted Minds, which was my favorite of all of them. It was about a girl who got abused by her step-dad while the mom knew, but paid no attention to it.

Next was Intersections, and the title really didn’t relate to the song, but was good either way. Mainly it was about crazy people and how they got crazy. There also might have been a hidden meaning in the middle of the song that sounded like it was talking about stereotypes.

About this far into the concert, I noticed how all of their songs were a little, well, weird. Or at least had weird lyrics. I turned to Camron and asked, “Are you sure this is a Christian band?”

“Whoever said they were?” He laughed. “Just because they’re playing at a church doesn’t make them Christian. There are a lot of hidden meanings in most of the songs. A couple of them are about drugs, and some are about murdering, or homosexuality, and other things ‘sinful’ like that. Actually, most of them aren’t even Christian at all. They’re either Jewish or Atheist.”

“Why do they play at churches then?”

“Because, well, it doesn’t make sense,”

“That makes no sense at all,”

“That’s what I just said, Peanut,” he laughed.

“Peanut?”

“Yea; Reese’s peanut butter cups. They’re made with peanuts. Your name is Reese. Like Reese’s. So I’m calling you Peanut. Are you getting any of this?”

I laughed and shoved him jokingly. “Yes, I get you. But you’re the only one who’s ever called me Peanut before. I don’t really care. Whatever floats your bubble,”

“What if my bubble doesn’t want to be floated?”

“Well, it’s going to be floated whether it wants to or not,”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I’m going to make it float,”

“Do I even want to know what you two are going on about?” the bassist - Chip - asked Camron and I, laughing as he leaned down off the side of the stage.

“Floating bubbles,” I answered, laughing also as Camron nearly shoved me over. “What? That’s exactly what we were talking about.”

“I know,”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. I just felt like pushing you,”

“You’re an idiot,”

“I know,” he said, giving me the most shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen on someone over eight years old, proving my point.