White Teeth and Blue-Blooded Boys

Henry had a girlfriend. He had a girlfriend and every time I remembered it my heart felt like it nose-dived from the top of a sixty story building, so usually I tried to forget. Which proved daunting because Sophia was around constantly, like me-and-Henry-never-had-any-time-to-ourselves always.

At first I assumed Sophia was another one of his one-week things, that he would fuck all the hopeful out of her and leave her with nothing but spite once he decided he was finished. Not until a week had passed and Sophia was still around and still totally enamored by him did I come to the white-washed conclusion that Sophia was as serious as Henry could get. It was okay at first; I could push the pain down and stand being in the same vicinity as her.

After about a month it wasn't okay anymore. I could barely stand looking at her without anger tinting my vision, could barely stomach watching Henry and her tongue-locked without wanting to cry. I felt selfish because Sophia was actually nice(nicer than the others, but you didn't hear that from me) and I should have been happy for Henry, but I wasn't. I wasn't because my heart hurt all the time and I couldn't even sleep without being woken up by the tugging at my lungs. It felt like my head caved in because maybe Henry was falling in love with blonde hair and boobs, not average brown hair and a dick.

I ignored the storm inside my chest and the stinging like a million bees inside my lungs, hoping that over time they'd ease into something I could live with.



"Hey, did you do the math homework? I need to copy it," I couldn't mistake that voice even if it was ten feet underwater, and on those nights when I was still wide awake at three in the morning I wished I could.

"Yeah, here," I shoved last night's homework into his chest, fluttering it around until he managed to grab it.

He just nodded and went to work - copying, actually, because everyone knew Henry was shitty at math. We were converged in the front of our high school, taking up one of the picnic tables made for the seniors before the day officially started. It was just Henry and I for a few minutes, he copying and me staring up at the cloudless sky, wondering what I did to make God punish me this way. I mean, being helplessly in love with your male best friend, sitting a foot away from him and touching knees and seeing him with no shirt on too many times, and knowing he didn't love you back? What kind of cruel game was God playing? It also didn't help that Henry was so comfortable with his sexuality or me, I didn't know which, that he didn't shy away from showing skin or anything, really. Hell, he liked to talk about his hygiene and weird mole he had on his dick(I tried not to blush, tried not to imagine what it looked like) and sex. Sex, which was one of his favorite topics; which would have been mine if we were talking about sex between me and him(just kiddng, not really), but instead it was always between him and some girl, or as of late him and Sophia.

I didn't want to tell him about my sex life, of course, so I always shrugged and said I wasn't interested in anyone here and he said good because I could do better and I was saving myself for him, right? (I tried to tell myself my heart didn't just drop to my toes.)

(Actually, I was having sex with someone from school but I wasn't interested in him per say and he wasn't in me so it didn't really count. And Henry knew him, too, so I wanted to avoid the weird explanation of what we weren't.)

A few minutes before the bell rang I saw blonde hair and tan knees hop over towards us. I sighed on the inside but smiled on the outside, shifting my eyes away when I heard the clicking of teeth to teeth.

"Hey babe, hi Ansel."

I couldn't say Sophia was mean, because she wasn't. She always said hi to me and included me and accepted the friendship between Henry and I. She didn't have any big faults, really, and most people wouldn't find a reason to hate her with the passion I did.

But then again, no one loved Henry the way I did.

"I was wondering if you two wanted to hang out Friday?" She sat down besides Henry and continued, "It's just a little thing since my parents are away. I was going to invite you two.." I stopped listening when she started listing off names of people I'd never met or wanted to meet until -

"And Theo. You know Theo, right?"

She was looking at Henry but I couldn't help feeling that she was asking me, like she knew something. It made my skin crawl and I bit my lip, trying to think of a good excuse as to why I couldn't go. But I couldn't really think of one since I didn't have much of a life outside of school besides Henry, so when Henry said he knew him and then asked if I was gonna go, all I could do was nod my head and hope he didn't sense the hesitation.

"Cool, we'll be there."

The shrill noise coming from inside the brick walls meant class was going to start in ten minutes, so Henry handed me back my homework and looped his arm around Sophia's waist and I thanked whoever coined the cliche "saved by the bell".