Fake

I shouldn’t feel guilty about going out with Joni just after he broke up with that bitch of a girlfriend, Nicole. And I don’t. She had it coming to her. It was her fault for hurting Joni.

Besides, I wanted to pick up the pieces. I wanted to be there for Joni like he always was there for me. Not only that, but there was a certain spark that felt like it had reunited in my chest when I saw Joni again. I guess that’s what I acted on when I kissed him. I liked the feeling of our lips joining and the way his flesh felt against mine when we held hands.

I know I’m not a replacement for Nicole. Joni wouldn’t have dated me and risked losing our friendship if he didn’t have any of those kinds of feelings for me. I know him well enough to know that.

“L-Lucas…?” Joni mumbled from underneath me. Who said I couldn’t lie on top of him if I wanted? Nobody. Especially not fucking Nicole. He was tapping my side.

“Mmm…?” I breathed into his hair. This was such a nice way to wake up. You know, suffocating your boyfriend with your body…

“Y-You’re… s-suffocating me…”

I sighed and rolled back over to my side of the bed. Guess that’s over.

“I’m only going to ask this once, so answer truthfully,” I told him, avoiding his gaze. He probably didn’t want to talk about Nicole after what happened. But this was a valid question and I felt like it needed to be answered.

“Wh-what is it…?” I felt his weight on the bed shift and knew he was sitting up, looking at me.

“Do you still like Nicole…?”

After all my years of knowing Joni, I already knew his answer was ‘no’. He wasn’t so stupid as to still like someone after they did that to him. But I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted to hear his voice say that it was over between them and that it was going to stay over.

“H-how could I!? Sh-she…” I could almost feel the forming tears in his voice. Why was I doing this to him? Because I’m selfish? That’s probably it. I was regretting asking that. The only time I’ll ever admit my flaws is around Joni.

“Jesus… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-” I cut myself off, not knowing what to say. I mean, what could I say? That I’m a selfish bastard? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I turned towards him and reached out, latching onto him with both arms and squeezing him to my body. “It… it’s okay…”

I pulled away from him to give me enough room to let my lips ghost over his. I didn’t know if the timing was appropriate or anything. After all, this was the first real relationship that I was actually serious about. So in this area, I’m pretty much useless. Nonetheless, I pressed onto his lips, letting the warm feelings that the kiss gave me runs through my veins. I sighed into the kiss, feeling something I haven’t in a long time: contentment.

We pulled away after a few seconds and his eyes looked up into mine before he gave a cute giggle, like he was a little nervous. I can’t blame him though. It’s only been a few days since we took the step from friendship into relationship. Of course it’s going to be weird for the first couple of days. However, I don’t want us to be awkward for much longer. Because the longer either of us are nervous about the relationship, the more and more likely it was that it wasn’t going to work out.

“We need poptarts…,” he said, creasing his eyebrow.

*~*~*~*

Ten minutes later we were at the grocery store picking out some kind of poptart for Joni and for me too because I can’t resist them.

I must have been zoning out because the next thing I knew, two faces were standing right in front of me. Two faces I knew very well. And that just happened to belong to my parents.

They were staring at me like I was some kind of alien. I guess that was to be expected if you just saw your son who ran away from you six years ago.

“We… didn’t know you were in town…” Dad said, his face still showing of shock.

“Well, here I am.” I didn’t want to tell them that I was now dating Joni or that I intended to stay only a few days but then I met up with Joni on chance and then met his bitchy girlfriend, threw out said girlfriend after I found her cheating on him, kissed Joni and then asked him out on a trial basis. Usually that’s not the kind of thing you really want to hear from your son. Period.

“You’re not… still doing the drugs are you…?” Mom asked, keeping her voice down. The store was remotely empty though.

But I didn’t want to hear that question. Not in front of Joni. Because then Joni’d know how bad I screwed up. How I fucked up my life and left him all because my parents found out.