Unrequited: A Series of Heartbreaks

“All right, everyone head to the showers. Armstrong, Wright, you’re with me.” Mrs. Bellamy, the gym teacher, led us into her office. “Never in the history of this high school has anyone behaved as you two have today. What you have done is beyond undisciplined and beyond misbehavior! You could have caused some serious damage! You almost took out that girl’s eye—do not smirk at me Mr. Armstrong! It was absolutely not funny.” I began to ignore the rest of her speech. It was the usual stuff. She was going to call my parents and Billie’s mother. She was going to give us detention, one more two out of line and we will be suspended, blah blah blah. It was kind of boring.

I don’t even know why she was yelling at Billie for smirking at her. If you ask me, it was perfectly clear he was smirking at me. I never actually told anyone this, being his best friend and all, but that Armstrong kid has the hottest smile I have ever seen. Even hotter than that girl whose eye we almost popped. Personally, I think Shelly deserved to have her eye popped; she was really the biggest bitch God put on this side of the world. You should hear her going on and on about how Billie’s such a rebel and how he’s no good and how he hangs out with lowlifes like “that skank, Nesser” and me. It’s so obvious she has a crush on him, but of course the vain little slut would never admit to her. How can someone so hot be so evil?

A few more minutes into the standard “What you have done is very serious, gentlemen” speech, and Mrs. Bellamy realized we weren’t even listening anymore.

“Well, boys, I expect you to report to detention this afternoon exactly at 3:15. And I trust that you will make an effort to keep your noses clean. Now go on, head into the showers.” Finally, we escaped the boring old goat.

“Hey Tre, can I borrow your spray?” Billie helped himself to my gym locker, taking my deodorant without asking like he did every single day. To be fair, he did ask. It’s just that I never had a chance to actually say yes; he just takes the spray while asking. Yup, I’m best friends with a serious basket case. Anyone could say no. Anyone else could tell Billie Joe that he’s being a jackass and take the stupid deodorant back. Not me. I try my level best, and I meant my very best to tell him to buy his own goddamn deodorant. But then he smiles at me with his idiotic crooked teeth and girly lips.

It makes me weak in the knees and strong in the groin. It’s pathetic and embarrassing, but there ain’t nothing I can do. What can I say? I have a boy-crush on him. Well, I guess he’s more man than boy, if you know what I mean.

Billie Joe was already under the shower by the time I peeled off my sticky gym clothes. As ritual dictated, I took a shower next to him and we shared the soap. It wasn’t awkward or anything; we’ve been seeing each other naked since we were kids. I mean, sure, all the other assholes in school pointed and called us queer, but it’s not like we cared. Screw them. Billie Joe had Adrienne and I…well, I had whoever caught my eye that week.

Tre Cool is a womanizer. Pop the collar. I’m like James Bond. I just have to say “Cool, Tre Cool” and I got brunettes swooning into my arms. I like brunettes. Even Billie used to have brown hair before he dyed it. Now it changes color every few months. It’s fucking magic!

“Tre? Anybody home?” Billie knocked his fist against my skull. I swatted it away and ended up poking him in the eye. “Oww! Dumbass! What’d you do that for?” he winced. I laughed and took the soap.

“Because I can,” I said in reply. I looked around and realized we were the only ones there. “Hey Bill. Did you notice? There’s no one here to tell us we’re homosexuals! Just us!” He looked around and his expression turned surprised.

“Hey yeah. It is just us,” he looked at me and waggled his eyebrows. “Now we can be the homos we truly are.” I leaned over to and puckered up when Billie made kissy noises. We were being stupid, but I thought it was sexy for some reason.

“Pass me a towel,” I said, turning off the water. Billie moved towards the pile of towels, but backtracked and planted a wet one right on my lips. I should have pulled away right then. It should have been the obvious thing to do. We could have laughed about it and gone on with our lives.

But Billie’s lips aren’t normal lips. They’re magic. They’re intoxicating; they were like the finest wine I ever drank in the purest air I’ve ever breathed. They were poetic and soft. They were everything I wasn’t and everything I could never resist. So I didn’t pull away; I deepened the kiss.

I could feel his fingers crawling up my sides and his tongue working its magic over mine. Hell, I didn’t care if it was just and “experiment”, the results were fucking worth it. He pushed me against the locker room wall and I felt a low growl rising in my throat. With my arms still wrapped around him, I pushed him towards the opposite wall, not bothering to break the kiss to breathe.

But he did. My hands were inching down Billie Joe’s waist and he pulled away.

“Tre,” he took a deep breath, “Tre, I’m sorry. Things got out of hand.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Sorry? Are you fucking kidding me?” I moved to kiss him again but he moved away. “What are you doing? Come on; don’t tell me you don’t want this. I know you do.” I was about to put my arm around his neck when he laid a hand on my chest.

“Tre. I want to. I really do. And if you think I’m lying, I have one hell of a stiffy that’s telling the truth,” he chuckled bitterly. I looked down at said hard on and realized that I had that same problem.

“If we’re both into this, then why the fuck can’t we?”

“We—we just can’t,” he looked at the floor began to slide his jeans on. “Adrienne,” he said softly. I nodded. I knew they were in love. It would have been wrong but no one would have found out. “Tre?” My head surfaced from my shirt when he started to speak again. “Tre, man, you understand right?” I nodded again. “But we don’t have to stop being best friends or anything, you know.”

I grinned. “Right. Best buds forever. Just like we painted on your kitchen wall in first grade.” He laughed with me. For a few seconds, I mourned the loss of his lips. I didn’t think I had anything to be upset about though. We were the cheesy kind of ‘best friends forever’ type of people. That was a balance that could not be changed. Billie Joe reassured me with another smile that it never would.

But the next day, he brought his own deodorant to gym class.