Fat

Mother was happy for me when I told her that I wasn’t going to be coming home straight away after school, but she went a bit strange when I told her that I was going with Jake and, in particular, Lucas. I have no idea why. She said the strangest thing to me though, when I walked out the door to go to school.

She said, “Don’t let anyone pressure you into anything, okay?”

I frowned, but nodded, and she seemed to visibly relax. Talk about weird.

School was average. I only saw Lucas at the start of school when he asked me and Jake if bowling was still going ahead, and that he would meet us out the front of the school at the end of the day. He sat with his other friends at lunch, which was fine. Jake let me get away with only eating a small salad. Dustin didn’t bother me as much as usual. All in all, school wasn’t that bad today.

Jake and I met Lucas outside the school as planned. Lucas pulled me into an awkward side hug, which made me blush as usual.

“You ready for some bowling fun!”

It was pretend over-enthusiasm, but it made me laugh, which, in turn made him smile.
We all piled into Lucas’ car and headed over to the bowling alley. The unfortunate thing about living in a tiny town that only has the absolute essentials, like a primary school, a high school, a small supermarket, a post office etc is that the residents often have to travel at least half an hour to get to any place that’s remotely interesting, like shopping centres, cinemas and, of course, the bowling alley.

But it was fun travelling with Lucas and Jake. Jake kept up a constant chatter from the back seat, while I sat beside Lucas, who was driving and singing along to the radio that was playing quietly in the background. He has a nice voice.

When we actually got to the bowling alley, everything became a total fiasco. First, they didn’t have the right size bowling shoes for Jake’s feet (he has enormous feet) so he had to trip around in a size too big for him. Next the game wouldn’t start. Like, when Lucas rolled the ball down the thing and knocked pins down, the machine didn’t do the removing of the fallen pins or anything. So we had to call the manager over and had only just got it sorted when Jake dropped a bowling ball on his foot, breaking his big toe and his second toe.

So we didn’t get to go bowling at all. We got to go to the hospital instead, so Jake could get his toes fixed.

That time in the hospital turned out to be one of the best moments of my life.

Lucas and I sat out in the waiting room. Silently, for a while, until my curiosity about what he meant the other day about me maybe not being like him got the better of me.

I blushed just thinking about talking to him. I still find it extremely hard to not lose my mind around him. Even after…what happened between us…

“Um…L-Lucas?”

“Yeah, Cale?”

“Uh…can I ask you something?”

“You just did…but I guess you can ask me one more thing”

He smiled. My brain turned to mush.

“Umm…what…what did you m-mean the other day…w-when you said something about if I’m not like you that you still want to be friends? What do you mean, not like you?”

He chuckled. “Ah…that. Caleb, I’m gay. I was hoping you were, too, but I wanted to make sure that if you weren’t, we could still be friends”

“O-oh”

That shocked me. Why would he be hoping I was? Why would that matter?

“Are you?”

I nodded slowly, wondering if I was doing the right thing.

“Oh, excellent. Caleb, go out with me. Just the two of us. We’ll go to dinner or something. I just…there’s something about you… please?”

I just about had a heart attack. I could barely remember to breathe. Maybe I was dreaming. I don’t know. But before I knew what I was doing, my head was moving in the affirmative. And Lucas seemed surprisingly happy. It was crazy.

Then the most surreal thing happened. I’m positive I was dreaming. Maybe I passed out when Lucas asked me out. It was such a pleasant dream.

He leaned forward, towards me, keeping eye contact. Then he turned his head slightly. And… omigosh, I’m dying just writing this. His lips touched mine. For at least five seconds.

Then he pulled away quickly and looked up. Jake was standing there; with his mouth wide open and his foot bandaged (the bowling ball bruised his foot, too), staring.

Lucas spoke first. “Um…sh*t. Hi Jake, how’s your foot? We should get you home, shouldn’t we?”

Jake stared at us for a few seconds longer, before his face broke out in a grin.

“Caleb and Lucas, sitting in a treeee-eeee. Wooo-hooooo” he sang. My cheeks lit up like a stop light.

“Shut up, Jake” Lucas said, though smiling. He grabbed my hand (agh!) and led me out to his car with Jake following behind.

Lucas dropped Jake off at his house first, and then drove to mine. I was nervous as hell when he pulled up in my driveway, wondering what he was going to say or do. But he just smiled, and said,
“Is next Saturday okay for you? To go out to dinner with me?”

I was too dumbstruck to do anything but nod.

“Alright then. See you at school on Monday” he said, smiling once more. I smiled back, though my heart was threatening to leap out of my chest.

I climbed out of Lucas’ car, and tried not to trip over anything as I walked up to my front door and opened it. He waved to me, and then drove off.

I’m lying in bed now. I’m still having heart palpitations.

I just shared my first kiss with Lucas Truscott.

Oh my gosh. Jkshdkjahsk.