Jay& Marc (Part 5)

 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Everything felt so wrong. Playing games online with Marc, talking with him, watching movies together, being around him. It had all been so good before I'd known. Whenever we were done spending time together, I left feeling amazing, and excited to see him again.

Now that I knew I was gay, though, it was different. I was nervous the whole time. I found my mind fixating on details about him. I'd find myself absent-mindedly staring at the hairs on his forearms, or the way the muscles there tensed. Or my eyes would involuntarily flicker to the exposed skin of his midriff whenever he stretched and his t-shirt rode up.

I'd probably always been doing that. I remembered catching myself looking at him, and wondering why. But now I knew. I felt predatory, somehow, just by wanting him. Like every time we were together, regardless of whether he'd suggested or I had, it was part of some creepy plan of mine to 'seduce' him.

Because the truth was that I wanted Marc. I wanted to kiss him, to touch him. I wanted him to feel the same way - to admit that he had a crush on me too.

Realistically, I knew that was never going to happen. The logical part of my brain knew that. He'd expressed enough interest in girls that I was fairly sure he wasn't faking it - he couldn't have been gay. Even hoping he was bi still felt like a cop out.

But there were times... He'd look into my eyes and smile, or clap his hand on my shoulder and give it a light squeeze. When he did things like that, my brain flew into overdrive and logic went out the window. I had a mad, unfounded faith that he really thought and felt all the things that I wanted him to.

I'd had a couple of months to wrap my head around being gay. Honestly, I got over it pretty quickly. My aunt is gay, and she'd never tried to hide that. Our family accepted her, she and my mother were close, and there was no mystery or misery there for me. Life didn't have to be anything other than what I wanted it to be, and I knew that when I was ready to come out, it probably wouldn't go badly for me. I was lucky in that, at least.

I still couldn't come out at school, so that was still a problem. The level of Christianity in the administration was frankly a bit scary, but even if it wasn't, I'd be an outcast. I was only just hanging on to some semblance of a social life as it was. But even that didn't really bug me. I'd become thick-skinned about the way the school conducted themselves, since so much of it was ridiculous anyway. And I wasn't really close enough to anyone that I felt like they needed to know the 'real' me.

As trite as it sounds, the main thing on my mind was my crush. Marc was my best friend. I was fairly sure I wasn't his, at that point. Maybe that was the problem. I didn't know if he felt like he had one, but the way he'd shift aside plans with me to do stuff with Derek, I wasn't sure that I was ever a priority for him. The fact remained that he was the only person who I enjoyed spending time with, but it had turned into a weird sort of torture.

He was at my house again, sleeping over this time. His parents were away to visit his stepdad's sick mother, and he'd begged me to let him stay at my house, so that he didn't have to go with them. My older sister had just moved out, so there was even a guest room for him to stay in. Not that I would have said no to Marc anyway - even if it was getting hard to spend time around him. I still really wanted him to like me.

And we were having a great time. That's what always confused me. If it was just a physical thing, I probably could have blown it off. After I'd had my epiphany about why I was acting the way I did around Marc, I realised there were other guys I treated a bit weirdly. Jamie Thomas, for example. I think I had a crush on him too, but it wasn't quite the same. I was just pretty blown away by the way he looked shirtless. I didn't mind talking to Jamie, but our personalities didn't exactly click. I could fantasise about him, but I didn't feel the need to spend time with him. 

Marc was different - he was all I could ever really think about. Even when he was right there, on my couch. He was playing some racing game that I didn't even know I had - must have been Brian's - and I was sitting across from him, reading my book. Ostensibly, anyway. I was sneaking glances at him whenever I could, loving the way he bit his lip when he concentrated. I'd only managed a handful of pages the whole evening.

"Hey, Jay?"

"Uh, yeah?" I looked up with my best dazed expression, as if I hadn't immediately had to bow my head back down to my book the instant I heard him pause the game. 

"I'm thinking I should go to bed now. I probably don't want to go charging through the house in the early hours of the morning."

"Right." I put down my book and got up. "I'll make sure you get the right room."

"Thanks." He grinned. "I think I know which one it is, but I'm scared I'm going to walk into one of your sister's rooms. That'd be creepy as hell."

I laughed softly. Jenny probably wouldn't have minded so much. She might have thought she was dreaming. But Jenny could get in line. We talked a bit as we passed through the laundry room and garage, and then kept silent as we walked into the main house, and down the hall to what used to be Candy's room. I opened it quietly and let him past, and began to pull it closed.

"Just come in here a sec." He whispered quickly.

I paused, and nodded. My heartbeat quickened, even though I knew it was probably nothing. He must have just had something he wanted to talk about before I left. I stepped inside, and closed the door softly.

"I'm guessing you're probably not going to go to sleep right away." He began rifling through his bag, pulling out a contact lens case and a bottle of solution.

"Uh, no?" I wasn't sure where he was going.

"Well, before you do..." He looked up at me, and my heart skipped a beat. "You should log on to my computer, and copy across some of those anime onto your hard drive." 

"Oh, right." I nodded. I didn't know if I was relieved or disappointed. We'd talked about it earlier - he was trying to get me into some shows he liked, and there were some of them he considered 'classics', that were hard to find anywhere else. He really wanted me to watch them.

"I've put them in a folder for you, it's just in the main media thing, where all my other stuff is. But if there's anything else you want to copy off there, go ahead."

"Cool, Thanks." I nodded. "Um, goodnight then."

"Yeah, goodnight." He casually took off his shirt and tossed it on his bag. I left the room quickly, but I couldn't help glancing - and feeling terrible about it - on my way out. Not terrible enough to stop me from thinking about his broad shoulders and treasure trail while I walked back to my room though.

I sat down at his computer and plugged in my hard drive. He didn't have a password, so I just logged in and downloaded the 'Classics 4 J' folder he'd left there. It was going to take a while, so I clicked through some of the other folders to see if he had any series I thought I'd like.

Then something occurred to me. I'd been downloading - and hiding - porn on my own laptop for a while. Before my crush on Marc had made me realise I was gay, I didn't find it too weird that most of it was bi or gay stuff. It was just what got me there. And yeah, maybe it was creepy and wrong to go looking for his hidden stash, but I was desperate. If I had a chance with him, any chance at all, I needed to know.

So I went to the media folder, and selected the option to hide it, and then reversed that - applying the unhide option to all files and subfolders. I checked again, and there was nothing - even clicking through a few of the others. Damn.I checked through some of the other folders, doing the same thing each time. Warhammer, no. Photos, no. 

School Stuff. 

That instantly made me suspicious - there were like three things in there and nothing else. I did the thing to unhide the folder again, and there it was - a folder called pr0n. Sneaky. Not quite believing what I was doing, I took a deep breath and opened it. I had to know.

What I found there was more or less what I deserved - for invading his privacy, and being a creepy friend. It was mostly animated, which wasn't a surprise for Marc's stuff. Some of it involved tentacles, which was... a little more unusual, I guess. Some of it was real porn. All very full of girls.

There wasn't a glimpse of anything that gave me hope that he could ever be interested in me. I went through way more of it than I should - after a handful, it should have been clear. And he'd labelled them and organised them pretty well - probably the most shocking part, given that it was Marc.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I shouldn't have been hurt, either. I was the one that had violated his privacy, after all. But I couldn't help but feel like I'd lost something, even though I knew I'd never had it.

The next day, I'd have to wake up and pretend to be happy and cheerful, even though I knew that when I looked at him, all I'd be able to think about was how nothing would ever happen between us. But just then, I could throw myself down on my bed, and feel absolutely miserable.