Homophobe

I’d never really been particularly graceful in my life ever, honestly, but dear god as soon as Chloe’s voice speared into my mind, catastrophe was all that followed in the very most uncoordinated fashion.

Instinct caused me to whip my head back rapidly and smash it against the door, pain prickling against my skin and a very loud “fuck” followed close after. The only coherent thought running through my mind was to get as far away from Chase as I possibly could, and as I had not a lot of room for escape, the panic flourished in my stomach and had me shooting out my palms and striking him in the chest as hard as I could. He on the other hand only froze; muscles visibly tensing with eyes the size of saucers when he heard her voice. After my rather forceful shove he stumbled, clearly dazed as he fell onto his back, hands grabbing at nothing in particular.

I hissed in pain with one hand instantly reaching to grab at my aching scalp and the other attempting to clumsily thrust my dick back into the safety of my pants. The fear almost felt tangible crawling up my throat. This couldn’t be happening, I told myself. We were going to get caught. This could not be happening.

Despite the alcohol still sprinting through my bloodstream, a charge of reality shot up my spine. What was I going to do if we got caught?

“Hey, are you guys up here still? Ash? Chase? You guys here?” Footsteps threatened nearer.

How could we explain this? I didn’t even know what this was. If I didn’t understand it than I hardly doubted anyone else would, especially Chloe of all people, because it had already been decided that the entire predicament made about shit-all sense. We couldn’t get caught, it just couldn’t happen. There was no way I could seemingly make this situation look anything remotely normal. Oh god, this was the end. This was the end of absolutely everything.

Swallowing audibly, I continued to fumble awkwardly with my jean buttons to create as heterosexual of a scene as possible. My heartbeat continued to thud in my ears, barely competing over the sound of my gasps for breath as I prayed to any listening deity that we wouldn’t get caught. The terror building in my stomach only doubled when I saw that Chase was basically stunned, blinking repeatedly with a gaping mouth, a blank face and letting everything hang out in the open.

The atmosphere in the room was about as heterosexual as having a dick in my ass.

“Hide on the other side of the bed!” I snapped in a harsh whisper, shooing him off with a pointed hand gesture.

“What?”

“Fucking move!”

“I don’t-”

Groaning in frustration and feeling like my throat was going to close in any second from the chocking fear, I shot up from my spot and grabbed him by the sleeve of his shirt, forcefully dragging the limp and confused Chase to the other side of the bed. He mumbled some profanities under his breath and feebly tried to slap my grip away but it failed, and I was way too high strung on adrenaline to care as I hauled his drunk ass away from wandering eyes. Something along the lines of “dumb fucker” left his mouth as he let his head fall onto the cream coloured carpet, eyes narrowed and glaring directly at me, like he expected me to give a shit.

I didn’t.

He opened his mouth to say something but I cut it off by slamming a hand over his lips, giving him a warning stare and pointedly trying to ignore the fact that he still was still rocking out with his cock out.

“Now shut the fuck up, okay?”

Our eyes met and I felt reality crashing down on me as I took a moment to finally process the predicament we were in. Dear fucking god, karma was just begging to have my ass on a silver platter.

“Ash?”

At the sound of my name, surprisingly a lot closer than the voice had been before and nearly scaring the shit out of me, I poked my head over the frame of the bed to see the familiar bob of blonde hair.

“Ash! Hey! I’ve been looking all over for you! I thought I heard your voice!” Chloe beamed, a grin slapped over her face. “What’re you doing over there, though?”

I swallowed again, trying to control my laboured breathing, and attempted to return a convincing somewhat smile. “Um, y’know… looking for… my, um, my phone. Yeah. I dropped my phone. Just looking for my phone. No big deal. Did you, uh, need something?”

She cocked her head to the side, a bewildered amusement written across her face. “Oh, really? It sounded like you fell or something, are you okay?”

I blinked, taking in a deep breath and compelling myself to disregard the fact that Chase was pathetically trying to cover himself up beside me, a frown settled on his face. Not to mention he looked pretty good all out of breath, but that thought was immediately burned the moment it appeared. There were bigger issues I had to deal with at that moment.

“I fell,” was my automatic answer. “Yeah, y’know, pretty drunk. I tripped on my way here. And then my phone fell. And now I’m getting it. That’s what happened. I’m pretty dumb. Did you need something?”

Chloe giggled and I hoped that she didn’t notice the fairly obvious awkward air I was practically radiating, sentences curt and jaw tense, my heartbeat still thrashing in the confinements of my ribcage. Her large blue eyes blinked as she poised her hands on her hips, a naïve but pleased smile settled on her face.

“Oh god, Ash, do you need some help up?” she asked with a laugh.

Chloe took a step closer and I jumped to my feet in a panic, thankfully I had managed to stuff everything back in its rightful place before, and threw my hands up in front of me. “No!” I burst out, eyes shooting wide. She jolted back a bit with surprise at my sudden behaviour and I took a deep breath, an awkward cough following. “I mean, it’s fine is all. I’m about to leave anyways, why don’t you come with me? Yeah, let’s go, downstairs, let’s go!” I quickly rambled and rushed to the other side of the room, accidentally kicking Chase’s knee in the process and issuing a groan from his lips.

Chloe’s eyebrows furrowed together and she parted her lips, ready to say something but I quickly cut her off by swinging an arm around her shoulders and guiding her outside the room. “Great party, really, super great…” I mused, glancing over my shoulder to see Chase sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, our gazes locking momentarily before I tore my eyes away.

On the bright side, thankfully, the panic managed to kill my major boner.

Once we journeyed downstairs, both Mason and Layla in their drunken stupors attacked me on sight, interrogating me on what had happened with Chase and did you punch him and really did you punch him because that would be so cool. Much to their disappointments, I told them that that I hadn’t, leaving out the fairly heavy kissing and instead half-lied with saying that I made sure he knew that what he did was not okay.

Well, for about a minute there, I did have some sort of echo of a spine at least. Not that it really did much good in the end.

“You were gone for so long we thought he’d killed you!” Layla cried, enveloping me in a sloppy hug, burying her nose into the crook of my neck.

Mason smirked, cocking his head to the side. I felt a little unnerved by the amusement drowning in his eyes. Obviously, he didn’t know anything, right? “And he can’t kill you, I’ve barely even tainted your purity yet!”

Layla giggled and I gave a sarcastic laugh, melding into a genuine chuckle when Mason cast me a devilish grin. It was completely dumb to even consider. Mason was just super drunk, was all. He couldn't really know anything, right?

“Christ, can’t have that, can we?” I murmured, patting the redhead’s back comfortingly.

“I definitely couldn’t sleep peacefully at night.”

“It’s nice to know my life means so much to all of you.”

At this Layla nuzzled her nose in my shoulder, mumbling something or another about how precious I was, but despite their ignorance to what was really going on upstairs, it still felt as if everyone knew. It was stupid to think but with Chase’s lips having been smothering mine only moments before, it almost felt like everyone could practically see what had happened on me like a giant sign over my head. Not to mention that I was still feeling rather intoxicated and I knew that I needed to talk to Chase. I wasn’t going to just let this one go. I wasn’t going to play pretend in the morning like always.

“I need to get some air though, so I’ll see you guys in a second,” I said while gently unwrapping Layla’s arms from around me, glancing at Mason to see him nod.

More than anyone else, I felt as if he could stare right through me, and with another feeble reassurance to myself, I retreated all the way back upstairs. Once I found myself standing in front of that door again, taking in deep breaths and clenching-unclenching my fists repeatedly, I felt my distaste for confrontation beginning to creep in.

Maybe I should’ve just walked away and pretended it never happened- wasn’t that what I was best at? Just ignore the problem until it finally disappeared on its own, wasn’t that how I basically answered all my troubles in my life? There wasn’t anything different now, I could just run. Walk back downstairs and find solace in the drunken atmosphere, wipe Chase from my mind and enjoy what was left of the night. And damn, did that ever sound like the right option.

But didn’t I finally owe it to myself for a goddamn answer after all that I’d been through?

Swallowing another generous gulp of air, I finally twisted the doorknob and stepped inside, thankful to find that Chase was splayed out on the navy blue bed sheets, staring blankly up at the ceiling. A lamp settled on the end table was spilling a golden light into the room, shadows playing upon the right side of Chase’s tanned face. He didn't make any physical recognition of my presence.

“Chase.”

I’m wasn’t sure where I was going with that as I gently pushed the door shut behind me, feeling that invisible pressure weighing on my chest as always. Oh god, I was regretting this already. This was such a dumb decision.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming back but figured I’d chill here waiting just in case. Guess I figured right.” Chase dryly chuckled, more to himself than anything. “Does that make you predictable or am I just psychic?”

Unsure on what to do with myself, I opted for taking a seat at the edge of the bed, seeing as Chase hadn’t even taken a glance in my direction yet and didn’t suppose he’d be moving anytime soon.

“Or you’re just a really good guesser.”

“Nah man, I think I might be the next Raven Baxter. Can’t you see it now? That’s So Chase." That usual cheesy grin was slapped across his face.

“You are so fucking dumb,” I said, a quirk of the lips involuntarily following.

He laughed again, finally gracing me a fleeting look. I swallowed. I didn’t even remember where I was trying to go with this. As Chase’s breathing regained it’s steady pace, silence once again began its downpour in the atmosphere, almost palpable in the air. My gaze concentrated on the blank wall opposite as I edged a little more onto the bed.

“You must really hate me,” he finally spoke, voice completely bare of it’s usual joking undertones.

“A little bit, yeah,” I relented, wringing my hands nervously.

“I guess sorry doesn’t really cover it, does it?”

I sighed, the frustration bubbling up my intestines. “Obviously not, Christ, Chase, I don’t even know what you fucking want from me anymore. You have a girlfriend, you know. Remember her? I don’t think she’d be too happy hearing what you’ve been doing in your spare time. You pretty much cheated on her. No, not even pretty much, you cheated on her.”

“I know.”

“And also you’ve been a real good dick to me too, we’re supposed to be best friends and you didn’t tell me shit! You never tell me shit at all anymore! And I know it’s because I was avoiding you but what… what am I supposed to do? I don’t have any idea what I’m doing at all anymore! I’m honestly so sick of thinking of best friends because you’re practically a stranger to me, I have no idea at all what’s going through your head and it pisses me off because… because, I don’t know, I just always have! And what am I supposed to do when you know you’re acting really fucking weird lately.”

“I know.”

“Like what the fuck am I supposed to think? You can’t even pretend anymore like you don’t remember anything because you do, you remember fucking everything and you can’t just beg for pancakes in the morning and play your little game of pretend. Christ what the fuck am I supposed to do, Chase?”

“I… I don’t know.”

I huffed, feeling the adrenaline simmering in my blood once again. “Well say something, goddamnit! Instead of I know or I don’t know just… I don’t know, Chase. I really don’t fucking know!”

Dropping my head in my hands, I roughly ran my fingertips against my scalp, another sigh of irritation bleeding past my lips. The bed creaked, signifying movement, and I felt his presence beside me, his legs brushing against mine as they swung over the edge of the mattress.

The usual quiet flooded between us, spare the sound of our steady breathing, constant, in and out, in and out. My mouth felt parched, mostly from all the talking I’d been doing, the feeling unfamiliar against my tongue. I was still in shock that I’d said all of that, that I managed to even spit out a single word at all.

“I’ve been a really shitty friend.”

I scoffed bitterly. “Wow, good one there.”

"And I am sorry, okay? It's just things have been..."

"Chase, you are not even going to try and make this okay. It isn't. There is nothing okay about this. I am pissed off and you can't just try and make everything all fucking peachy keen because it isn't. Stop fucking pretending like everything is fine because it's not and it hasn't been ever since that first night and you know it. Stop lying for god's sake!"

As my voice echoed in my mind, he seemed a little stunned by my words, taking a moment to register them in his mind. As he mulled over them I rested my head in my hands again, feeling my chest rise and fall with my shortened breath.

“Ash I… I just… I don’t know what to tell you, to be honest. Nothing makes sense anymore. Before it was so… simple, everything just, well, was. But now I don’t- I don’t know. I’m so confused about everything and I hate myself for what I’m doing to you. I’m just dragging you into my shit storm and even though I know I shouldn’t, I just… I hate not having you with me. I can't explain it but it just... I can't.”

I heard the catch in his voice and regained my composure, taken aback when I saw that his eyes were uncharacteristically watering. His usually coffee dark eyes were damp and blurred, staring blankly in front of him, with his jaw set tight.

“I’m just- just so confused.”

I swallowed, absorbing all of him in front of me, drinking in his scent. Despite all the sides of Chase I'd learned over the years and even the new ones I'd come to see in the last couple of weeks, it had been such a long time since I'd seen him like that. So defeated. So broken.

Feeling a tightness in my chest and my own skin prickle at the scene unraveling before me, I rose to my feet, crossing swiftly over to the door. He watched without a word passing his lips. Just as my hand touched the brass of the door knob I paused, throwing my gaze over my shoulder, our eyes locking together.

“Oh god, Chase, aren’t we all?”