One of the Boys

I woke up the next day feeling broken and disoriented, as if my head wasn’t connected to my body. My hangover wasn’t that bad, considering it was my first time being properly drunk and I was such a lightweight. That was probably due to falling asleep long after the hang over started. I stared remembering the events from last night slowly, trying to put them into chronological order. I remember the women’s mocking giggles as I winked at them suggestively, trying to see if I could attract any with my growing level of masculine prowlness. I remember Marcus telling me off for flirting with Cam. I remember Leo’s kissed and ravished abdomen. I remember a lot, but I especially remember George and Cameron.

When I dare open my eyes and face the day, I find Teddy lying on my bed eating out of a pot of Nutella, with a spoon dangling from his mouth as he flipped through the pages of his history book.

“Teds” I groan sitting up.

“You’re up?” His fan of eyelashes bated up and down fighting against the stream of light that flows in from the small window above my bed. “About time. I was getting bored,” He indignantly accused me.

I did a double take, and when the tone of his voice registered, I felt annoyance brewing deep down, like a kettle about to boil over. “Why are you in my bed?” I shouted enraged by fact that he had crept into my bed once again. He had robbed me of the few minutes I gave to myself in the mornings when I woke up. When lay still and didn’t act like a boy. The moments were I didn’t have to search my brain for boy lingo and I didn’t have to watch my mannerism. I like Teddy, in fact it is hard to have anything but like for Teddy most of the time, but how am I supposed to keep my secret safe if he is always up in my personal space. This was the third time he’s come into my bed, and I didn’t like it. He was like a little child that crept into his parents’ bed at night when he got bored or scared; he was like a puppy that hadn’t yet been dressed in the lesson of not going on the furniture.

Teddy looked startled by my sudden outrage. I had sat up rapidly and knocked him over a bit, and as he steadied himself the spoon full of nutella fell onto the bed cover and I grimaced in repulsion. Not again. Teddy’s habit of bringing food into his bed had transferred over to mine. Last time he had crawled in ( the radiator right by his bed had broken and had heated up uncontrollably, pulsing out 25 degree of unbearable heat) he had left behind two unfinished lollipop sticks behind for me to find when I made my bed in the morning.
“Please stop eating so many sweets and stop thinking you can just crawl into my bed like you’re my girlfriend or something. People are already calling me names and you aren’t helping.”

I watched the boy sat Indian style on my bed, wriggled in between my legs, wearing a trouser and shirt type pajamas with sun and moon silver stitching. Apparently Teddy didn’t do boxers. His hand bookmarked his history textbook and his long blond hair was distorted by sleep. I saw my anger reflected in his features. His big infant eyes stared me down defiantly, and his jaw jutted out in reproach. The normal pink flush that was a constant feature on his full cheeks disappeared, replaced by a heated rouge, much like the blood that rushed to his pursed lips.

"I was in it before Marcus pushed me aside at four in the morning and tucked your drunken ass in.” He rebuked, mad at my tone and composer. Teddy addressed my with a look I had only seen on a few occasions; when his teachers lectured him for not paying attention in class, and when his had discussions with his brother. The way he stared down at me was like a child whose favorite toy no longer does what it was promised on the packaging. He wasn’t just saying he had been in my bed first, he was reclaiming his authority over me. The one he never had to instill in the first place because I had been obedient to his moods and tantrums without any questions before. Now he saw the need to enforce his superiority over me. Because he was here first. I saw it in the way his eyebrows raised and his arms crossed. I may not be a first year, but this was my first year here, I wasn’t in any position to shout at him.

“You may have forgotten Lucas, but I hate it when people shout at me.” Controlled and measured. He spoke as if he was holding something back, chocking it down so hard it made his face red with distaste. “Especially people who I considered to be my friends.” Like a child about to throw a tantrum just because you had taken it’s toy out of its hands. I immediately backed down and put a lid on my frustration but I couldn’t stand to be walked all over.

“As my friend I expect you to respect my space and privacy, Teds,” I said as I looked down, towards my hands studying them closely for lack of better occupation. “You’re over stepping the line, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s bad enough that we have to be in boarding school and share a dorm, but to have to share a bed as well. I need my own territory.”

When I dared look up Teddy was pensive and with calmer, he had obviously appreciated my backing down and my lowered voice. “Fair enough. I’ll leave you be for a bit. Don’t want the boys to think there was something going on. Lack out outside social interactions make their imaginations run wild. I woke up and for lack of a better option- Marcus’ cats are gone- I thought I’d keep you company.”

“While I slept?”

“Well, I thought maybe you could keep me company. Leo wouldn’t let me come out last night and it was so boring.” He groused laying down next to me and picking the spoon of the sheets and stuffing it back in the pot. “It’s just that I am so lonely, Lucas. I tried to call my girlfriend last night but she didn’t answer, and I miss her so much. She still thinks I meant it when I said we were over. I fear I am actually forgetting what she feels like, you know. And what she smells like. You smell just like she does. It’s not just your shower gel and shit cologne. Its girl like smell, hormones and chemical things , and when I lay on the bed with you it reminds me of how we spent all the summer in bed together. Nothing dirty of course, because of the whole virginity blood thing. Well, actually I didn’t do anything dirty. I can’t speak her though,” his reminiscing smile, made me shudder in disgust.

“Like I said Teddy, you can’t get in bed with me just to remember your ex girlfriend. It’s kind of, how do I put it. Fucking wrong.” He sent me a warning glance which made me bit my tongue.

“Don’t get any high ideas Lucas. Implying I get off it. Please. You look nothing like Millie. You just...feel the same. But drop it please. Pissed off doesn’t suit you in the morning along with a vile hangover. Just saying.”

“Thanks man.” I shove him away playfully. “You look great yourself. Now what was it you said about Marcus. He, quote, tucked me in? Seriously?”

“That’s right. A boy knocked at the door, and handed you over. Don’t know who it was since I was still sleeping in your bed at the time. Apparently you fell asleep by a bush outside the entrance. That’s kind of tramp like don’t you think,” Teddy giggled feeding me a spoonful of Nutella into my wide open gob. I swallowed down this bitter news with a spoonful of sweetness. It was true that I couldn’t remember how I got into the room, and as I tried to follow my chronological time line of the night’s events, the emptiness troubled me. I just remembered Cameron and me beneath the stars, talking about nothing, and me having the shallowest little crush on him, which was gradually growing deeper.

“What time is it?” I didn’t want to dwell on the fact that I had to be carried into my room. It was embarrassing, degrading and I felt like a child who couldn’t look after themselves.

“Half past eleven. You’ve had two calls, two texts and a ring on your land line from the schools nurse. Mrs. Jones. She’s also a PE teacher. Don’t worry; it has nothing to do with you being shit faced.”

“Is she nice?” I slyly asked.

“She’s the reason I got a doctor’s note to drop PE. She will run you down. She is tank that woman. Should have become a bloody drill sergeant instead of a P.E. teacher.” The tremor he added to emphasis brought out of me a knowing laugh. That was my mother alright. And people bother to ask where I get my attitude from.

“But quite hot,” Came a voice down below. “When she asked me if I wanted a lolly or a sticker for having endured the broken arm and leg in my first year, I asked for a kiss. She let me kiss her cheek instead. That women, is a tease I tell you. PJ’s got it good,” Laughed Marcus who walked in to the room, looking energetic, bright and not in the least way hangover, with a handful of ribbons. I recognized them to be the cat’s ribbons.

“What? You find her that attractive?” Teddy sat up surprised just as much as I was.

“Why every woman is beautiful Teddy.” He grinned up at me, “Some are just sexier than other.” He was obviously making a jab at me. "Like her for example."

“You motherfucker,” I growl at him insulted by the innuendo he was attaching to my mother.

“I wish,” he jumped out of the way of an incoming pillow and laughed shamelessly.

“Like you are a good judge of what’s sexy and what isn’t. She’s is past fifty. That’s way past my limit!” Teddy added in, crawling off my bed to go back to his schoolwork on his desk bellow. “And she's had four kids. You don't even know what sexy means Marcus, you'd do anything that a uterus."

“Not true I am a true expert on it. PhD certified. You know what I do when I see something extremely sexy. I stare, I smile, and when I get tiered I put the mirror down.” Another pillow flew his way.

“You just talk big Marcus,” I called down at him from my loft. I knew he was probably lying about finding my mother attractive, just trying to make me feel lower than I already do. He had a habit of doing that.

“Not true, last year I asked Santa for the sexiest person ever, hoping to score Emma Waston, but the next morning I woke up in a box. “

“It’s true,” Teddy explained. “Cameron and Leo wrapped him up. The gift tag said. ‘Now the world will know why you prefer wanking half the time.’”

My amusement didn’t please Marcus at all and his peeved expression only contributed to my laughter cramps. “Anyway,” I said regaining composer. “Did you thank Cameron for bringing me in last night? I was so tiered I must have fallen asleep on him. I mean when we were talking. I wasn’t on him, on him...”

“What are you talking about Luc?” Marcus focus was elsewhere. In his hand was his mobile and he was reading a text that had beeped out its arrival a moment ago, with conflicting expressions transfiguring his face into a mixer of emotions. When I retried my question it took him a while to look away an answer me. How many times did someone need to read the text to make sense of it, not a lot right? Texts are very simple forms of communication. Yet perplexity brewed itself in with his already established air of disgruntlement and astonishment. “Cameron didn’t bring you in. Some other guy did.”

“Another guy? Not Cam?” Now it was my time to be astonished, as well as that terrible feeling of sick you get when you realise how close you were to making a huge mistake. What if one of the teachers had found me, or night guards? I would have been so screwed.

“Can’t remember his name, but his is in our year. Some quite guy. He seemed pretty pissed off. Came in carrying you bride style and complained about how troublesome it was to clean up after our messes. I told him that if it troubled him so much to bring you in, he should have just left you outside.”

"You'd leave me outside?" My query did not sit with him well. It ripped his attention away from the text he was rapidly composing, with an unusual sense of urgency. Marcus never rushed anything, except maybe dating.

"Why not. I am not your babysitter. I it did last night and until I get compensation for breaking my DJing to save your sorry ass from proclaiming yourself gay to Cameron, you aren't getting another favour out of me.” A sharp inhale through his gritted teeth. I don’t know what was tighter, his set jaw or the grip on his mobile. “Listen Lucas." His emphasised my name, enunciating every syllable, reminding me he was in possession of the truth. “The dude did have a point. If you do something like that again, you are going to get all of us in serious trouble. I don’t want your careless attitude to make the teachers suspicious of our behaviour. I saw Cameron this morning and he said he’d left you alone because you requested it, that you wanted some “air”. Then apperently you just pass out in front of the dorm. Now, no one knows about this except for Cam, us and that boy, but if the others did... you can bet they’d be mad as hell. You almost jeopardised the whole evening.”

“Marcus,” I cry, scared by his one eighty mood swing. “It was an honest mistake. I must have dozed off when thinking.”

“Well don’t. The dorm dean is back now, and we can’t afford any slip ups like that. You can’t afford any slip ups like that.” His briefness surprised me and shook my foundations. First Teddy now Marcus, it wasn’t normal. What’s all this superiority, domination thing going on. What happened to indecently hilarious Marcus, and cute as sweets Teddy?

“What’s wrong with both of you both today? You guys can’t cut me some slack or something? Where is this hostility coming from? It’s my first time making a mistake.”

“No. Your first mistake was coming here in the first place. Its initiation day today Lucas. After tonight, you might not be one of us anymore. And then, that’s when you’ll really need to start watching your back. Trust me. This, right here, isn’t anywhere near hostile. The only thing that’s been keeping you out of the infirmary on a daily basis is that the initiation hasn’t happened yet. No one touches anyone before they’ve been initiated.” To say the abrupt change in Marcus mood scared the shit out me, was putting it finely. It was as if I remembered who I was, were I was. Truely. I am Lucy Johns. I am a girl. I am the only girl in this school. And I’ve been stupid to think that these past two week s were as hard as it would get. Just seeing Marcus, at the foot of my loft, impatient and fed up and very much male, unnerved me.

I stayed quite for a long while. Teddy sent me big angelic eyes that aimed to look consoling but I could tell he was in agreement with Marcus. He had tried to show it to me earlier. I compressed it all down , and compacted it all in. My feelings that is, and did what I always did when I got in over my head. “I’ll deal with you two douches later,” And I grabbed my clothes and made my way to the bathroom. “I’ll be in the library today, catching up on the math work we were supposed to do for the past two weeks.”

“Oh Lucas,” Teddy called before I could slam the bathroom door. “PJ’s Mrs wanted you to come find her and PJ in his office ASAP. I’d do that first.”

“You probably don’t want to do anything to jeopardize you position in this place. I’d keep your visits to the office hush hush,“ He had finally dropped the phone on his bedside table and had collapsed on the bed himself. The arms thrown over his face, underlined his anger and strop. I knew that I wasn’t the real root of his anger. That text was, but what he said still hurt. It was still all true and it still unchangeable. “Oh and by the way. If you ever give them a reason to search the woods tonight, coming here won’t be the only mistake you’ll have made.”