From Teammates to Best Friends to Boyfriends?

A week and two day later – Monday night.

I picked up my pen and wrote down my name in the right corner of the lined paper. I badly needed to start my writing essay. In every grade, it seems like sometime during the year, you have to write a persuasive essay. Usually, teachers would assign the topic you’d write about, but this year was different. My English teacher, Mrs. Redmond told us that we were smart enough to pick our own topics. (Though some kids groaned because they had to work extra hard on coming up with the own topic, Dillon was quite excited for it. . . Nerd.) She told us that she would pick about ten essays to be sent to the Mayor Vick. I don’t really why, I mean, I bet the Mayor wouldn’t even glance at them. No one really cared for that though, so half of her sophomore classes are still going to write about persuading the Mayor to legalize marijuana or why they should be able to text in class. Those are stupid topics, really. Overdone too.

Anyways, I kind of had an idea what I wanted to write about, but I feel like it’s kind of dumb. I would text Dillon to ask him what is a good topic, since he’s so good at writing. He came up with his topic in less than three minutes. And seven hours later, I still can’t make up my mind. But anyways, I don’t want to bother him right now, since he’s probably writing his final draft right now.

The thing is you don’t actually have to have your final copy till next Monday. All we had to come back with tomorrow is a topic, three reasons, and a thesis statement. And so far all I have is my name on the paper. God, mine is going to suck so bad.

I wrote down: Schools should start later in the mornings.

I thought that was an okay topic. Lots of students hate waking up so early in the morning, right? So I think a lot would agree with me when I say that we should start school later, say around ten a.m. I just can’t really come up with reasons why. . .

“Hey, you busy?” Suddenly my dad is standing in the doorway. I looked up at him. Ah, I could use a distraction.

“Nope.”

Dad came over and sat in my wooden chair that I used as a desk chair. He looked down at my paper.

“Whatcha doin’?” He asked.

I looked down at my paper too. “Trying to come up with something for this persuasive essay for English.”

“What’s your topic?” He seemed interested.

I hid my face, growing shy. I didn’t like my topic, but I couldn’t come up with anything else.

“It’s stupid, really.” I muttered.

“Ah, nonsense. Let’s hear it.” My dad chuckled.

I sighed. “Schools should start later in the mornings.”

I was expecting my dad to laugh and tell me that was stupid or ask me why I had chosen that, but he didn’t. Instead he chuckled and said, “You got that right.”

“I hate wake up at six to get ready to go to work. So what’s your reasons?”

“I ain’t got any yet.” I muttered.

“Well, one could be half the students have jobs and they work on school nights and get home late.” He told me.

I thought about it and nodded. “I could use that. . . But I don’t know . . . I just don’t like this topic. I don’t even know why I considered it.”

He nodded. “Well, that’s all I could think of. But I came in here to ask you if you wanted to come with me to get food. Your mom wants Wendy’s.” He muttered the last part.

“Sure.” I got up from my bed and put on my shoes. I followed my dad out to his car and got in the passenger seat.

On the drive to Wendy’s, my dad started making conversation again. “So you and Dillon are a thing now?”

I glanced at him. “Yeah.”

He nodded. “So you like him, right? You’re not just doing this because you want to keep your friend happy, right?”

“I like him. I think I do. I don’t really think I want to see him as just a friend now.”

Things got quiet for a moment before dad decided to surprise me with his next question.

“Hmm. . .so are y’all having sex yet?” He asked so casually.

“What?” I nearly yelled. I was so shocked that he would even ask that.

“What? Don’t teenagers now and days have sex? Your mom and I started when we were seventeen.”

“Dad! S-stop! Ugh, I don’t wanna talk about that.” I laughed, nervously.

Dad went quiet again for a moment. “You haven’t really given it a thought, have you?” His head turned to stare at me for a second.

To be honest, I haven’t really thought about having sex with Dillon. It just wasn’t something that came up in our conversations before. All I really focused on was kissing.

“No.” I admitted.

“Oh. Well now that you’re thinking about it, I’ll need to tell you the dos and don’ts. I feel like I need to, because I’m your dad and I want you to be safe.” He started off.

“Oh, my God, dad. No.” I muttered. This cannot be happening. My dad is about to make me sit through the sex talk. . .

“What? This is serious, Garret. You and Dillon are teenagers. Y’all are going to want to explore or experiment with sex, because that’s just what teenagers do.” He explained while moving his hands.

“Dad. . . Can I just read an article or something online about it? I really don’t want to talk about this.” I felt really awkward talking about this. Completely uncomfortable. And my dad just seemed so relaxed about it.

“Uh. . . Now why would I let you waist time doing that, when I already read upon it?” He smiled.

Ugh, there is no way in getting out of this one. I groaned and didn’t say anything while he went into explaining.

“First off, use protection! Seriously, whoever is going to ‘top’ needs to use a condom. They will help prevent any STIs or STDs. Don’t do it dirty either. Always be clean before you do anything. So one thing you or Dillon could do is anal douching. It will provide a cleaner . . . canal . . . you know, down there. I’ll show you the thing people use for that sometime. Another thing, if y’all were to do anal sex, say like if Dillon was on ‘top’, don’t let him put his penis in another area, say like your mouth right after. He could pick up bacteria down there and then it could spread infections in other areas like your mouth. And use lubricants. They will provide a safe and more comfortable experience. There’s some that are a lubricant and a relaxer in one, so y’all might want to look into that. And the last thing that I need to say is let the one who is going to ‘bottom’, set the pace. Whoever is going to bottom, if he says to stop, then listen and stop. . . I believe that’s all for now. So you can stop bring your head up now.”

He stopped talking and I brought my head up from my knees. I’m pretty sure my whole head was red, but oh well. I didn’t really want to listen to his advice, but I did anyway. I’m going to have to know this stuff sooner or later, right?

After we went through drive thru, we headed back home. I decided to text Dillon about what just happened, even though it will probably make the conversation awkward.

I sent him: My dad just gave me the sex talk.

I leaned against the door, closed my eyes, and waited for him to text back.

My phone buzzed a couple minutes later and he had sent me: Really? How’d that go?

I sent: painful . . . he talked to me about anal douching at one point. . .

We had reached the house by now. So I carried in the Wendy’s bags and set them on the table. I grabbed what I ordered and headed to my room. Instead of texting me back, Dillon called me.

The first thing he said was, “Is sex or anything like that something you want to do?”

“Not anytime soon.”

Sex was just something I wasn’t interested in right now. I heard Dillon sigh.

“Thank God.” He muttered. “I don’t think I’m ready for that either.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but apparently my dad thought so.” I laughed and he laughed with me.

“So what are you doing?” He asked.

“Eating. But after that, I got to work on that stupid essay.” I grumbled.

“What are you writing about?”

I hesitating on telling him, but did anyways. Dillon would tell me if it was bad topic, right? He is still my best friend and best friends are honest with each other.

“It’s stupid. It’s about letting schools starts off later in the morning.”

He chuckled. “That’s not stupid, babe. I can think of a million reasons why it’s a good topic. What are your reasons?”

I told him the only reason that I had and it was dad’s. And just like that, Dillon helped me come up with more reasons. I asked him what he was doing his on and he told me same-sex marriages. See! That’s a good topic. Not stupid like mine. But Dillon didn’t make fun of my topic and for that I was thankful. And then he helped me with reasons. Can he get any more awesome?