Collide With This Guy

I found Kellin after school at his locker. He’d texted me saying something about that he wanted me to walk outside with him in hopes that his mom wouldn’t have gotten mad about him wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes, whatever that meant.

When I caught up with him, he was pulling things out of his locker, his papers still visibly damp. He looked up at me and frowned.

“She’s gonna kill me,” he whimpered. I leaned against the locker next to his and shrugged.

“It wasn’t even your fault,” I pointed out. He still didn’t look convinced, though. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine. Try not to think about it too much.”

“But she’s out there right now- ugh, let’s just go and get it over with,” he moaned, putting the last of his ruined papers back into his bag. I walked down the hall next to him, resisting the strong urge I had to hold his hand. He looked like he could use comforting, too.

We walked outside to the parking lot, his mom waiting outside her stupid Prius like she always did. She went to wave when she saw us, then frowned right away, pulling her hand down.

“Kellin, what are you wearing? These are not the clothes I sent you to school in,” she barked. Kellin went a deep shade of red, quickly glancing around to make sure no other students heard that remark. “Whose sweatshirt is that?”

“Um, it’s Vic’s- he leant it to me because my other clothes got soaked,” Kellin said in a small voice. “It was those same guys messing with me again, and Vic helped me out.”

Mrs. Quinn still looked pissed though. “I’m going to speak with the principal, this is not acceptable!”

“Mom, please don’t,” Kellin gasped.

“Kellin, this has to stop,” she barked, marching off in the direction of the school. “No one messes with my baby boy and gets away with it!”

I cringed at the fact that she called him her baby boy in public, but I also decided to take advantage of her motherly rampage.

“Hey, do you mind if I drive Kellin home?” I called after her.

“I don’t care,” she muttered before she disappeared behind the front doors. I turned back to Kellin and smiled. He looked unsure of himself.

“Hey guys, why are we just standing around?” I heard Mike say from behind me. I turned to see him walking up to us.

“We’re taking Kellin home,” I said to him. Kellin looked nervously back at the school, then to his mother’s car, then to me. “Kells, come on.”

He finally nodded and started walking towards me. We walked to my car and got in, and I happened to notice that Kellin was completely silent the whole time.

“You alright back there?” I asked Kellin, glancing in the rearview mirror as I backed out of the space I was in. Mike had called shotgun, so Kellin was in the back row, slumped back in his seat.

“Yeah,” he almost whispered. I decided to drop it, and that I’d ask him if he was okay once we got back to my house. Once we got there, we all filed inside. My parents weren’t home yet, so of course I thought of this as the perfect opportunity to get Kellin alone.

I told him to come with me, and we hurried up the stairs into my room. I closed and locked the door behind me before spinning around and reaching for Kellin.

“Vic, stop,” he said, stiffening and pulling away from me. I felt a twisting sensation in my chest, kind of hurt that Kellin was pulling away from me when I hadn’t been able to hug him or anything since earlier that weekend.

“What?” I said, defensively.

“I just- I don’t know, I’m nervous,” he admitted, before sitting on my bed and looking down at the floor. I went over and sat down next to him.

“Why so nervous?” I asked him. Since he’d pulled away from me, I was a bit afraid of being too clingy, so I decided not to put my arm around him or anything. It was hard though, because I really just wanted some sort of physical connection with him.

“She’s going to go out of her way to do what she thinks is going to help me, but in the end, it’s just going to make things worse,” he sighed, looking up at me with sad eyes. “The same thing happened at my old school. Kids picked on me and she went to the principal, and then I got made fun of even more for having my mom get involved.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I said. “It sucks, because they always say that telling an adult is the right thing to do, but it doesn’t usually help anything.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, sadly. I bit my lip. I was already done with this worrying about being clingy or not thing. I decided to put my arms around him anyway, and this time, he luckily relaxed against me instead of pulling away. I kissed the top of his head lightly. “I don’t want it to get worse.”

“I won’t let it,” I said, defensively.

“How? They mess with you too!” he said, which stung just a little. I knew he didn’t mean it that way.

“Yeah, and they can mess with me all they want, but I won’t let them mess with you,” I promised, though I had absolutely no idea how I was going to keep a promise like that. I just had this strong feeling that if Jaime or Rian or anyone else touched another hair on Kellin’s head, shit was about to go down. “But, at least promise me something?”

“What?”

“”You can’t let them walk all over you- you have to stand up for yourself just a little bit,” I explained. “They’re idiots in the end, and we can’t let them get to us.”

“I’ve been here a month and I’m already sick of them,” he told me, cuddling closer to me. I scooped my forearm beneath the underside of his knees and turned him so that his legs were across my lap. It was easier to hold him that way. He repositioned himself so that his arms were around my neck. I smiled and lightly pecked the tip of his nose with my lips, then pulled back quickly to watch him blush. God, he was so fucking adorable.

“Can I tell you something?” I asked him, suddenly remembering the flyer I had received in my first period that day.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Did you get that flyer today about the talent show?” He shook his head. “Oh, well there’s this winter talent show thing that happens in February and they always make a big deal about it here. Anyway, I think we should enter.”

He gave me this super concerned look.

“I don’t know about that,” he said, quickly.

“Oh come on, you said you used to sing in choir or whatever,” I pointed out. He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s totally different, it was with a bunch of people,” he pointed out. “I’ll get stage fright.”

“No you won’t … I’ll be there with you,” I reminded him, hoping that that would be convincing enough. It must have been, because Kellin smiled at that and leaned in to connect his lips to mine. My breathing hitched as little butterflies erupted from my chest at the sensation of his soft lips on mine. I tightened my arms around his waist as I kissed him back, gently moving my lips against his. I was even more surprised to feel his tongue quickly brush against my lips.

“Kellin,” I teased, laughing at his little attempt at using tongue. He bit his lip and shrugged, trying to hide the mischievous grin on tugging on his face.

“What?” he wanted to know. I just shook my head and kissed him again, this time open-mouthed to allow that tongue of his to do whatever sort of curious exploring it wanted to. We kissed a little while longer, until I heard my mom calling me from down stairs.

I got up off the bed and hurried down to see what she wanted.

“Victor, what have I told you about leaving your shoes in the doorway- oh, hello Kellin, how are you?” she asked, her voice turning sweet when she realized we had a guest. “Is your mom home?”

“No, she’s, uh, at school,” he shrugged awkwardly. I shot him a look- my mom had no idea that Jaime and Rian tormented me at school. For all she knew, we were still friends. I refused to tell her and run the risk of her subsequently finding out about my sexual orientation. I knew it shouldn’t have mattered, because she was generally accepting and I knew that she loved me, but I just wasn’t ready for the confrontation.

“Oh, everything okay?” my mom asked, as she turned from us to go through the cabinets in the kitchen. She had apparently just gotten back from the grocery store or something. I went over to help her put some things away as Kellin hung back.

“Yeah, she just wanted some more information on some, uh, school things,” Kellin shrugged. He was a horrible liar, that was for sure.

“Oh, okay,” she said. “Well, you’re welcome to stay over as long as you like.”

“Actually I should probably get home, I have a lot of homework,” he said, quickly. “But thank you, so much.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she sighed, shaking her head. “You’ll have to stay for dinner some other time.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Kellin agreed. I flashed him a small smile before he finally said goodbye to both of us and left the house. After I finished putting away the groceries, I pulled my phone out and shot Kellin a text for him to let me know how it went with his mom when she got back.