Right Turn

((And off we go, into another run! Glad everyone enjoyed the last. I was trying hard not to be too preachy. : )

Ahmi: Everyone\'s time to make that leap is individual. And while you\'ve not gone so far as to walk into the world with a shirt that states \"I\'m Bi!\", you\'ve also got that handful of people. For that, I\'m glad. It helps to have those you can trust to tell. It\'s not like I walk around saying \"Hello... I\'m heterosexual. But you can call me Bob.\" *w* And we could have a long, indepth conversation on the intricacies of all of that subject, only you\'re more than aware of it, so I\'d be preaching to the choir. Thank you so much for responding! And I\'m glad that you\'ll be doing the Day of Silence...
For those of you wondering what the Day of Silence is... this is the website to find out more: www.dayofsilence.org. Check it out!
Earthgurl: You\'re so marvelous. Thank you! A compliment coming from you like that.. but then, you know the drill. I\'m so glad you\'re reading. Makes me all happy! :)
Yue: Oh I\'m glad Ben has redeemed himself. He\'s still a prat, but he\'s a sweet prat, ne? ;)
Ashlee: Kinsey says that the gay population is a lot higher than anyone is willing to bet. Recent studies have found the number to be upwards of 10% and that isn\'t counting the bi-sexual numbers. It\'s an amazing set of numbers considering how alone it can be for a teen glb student in a regular American highschool. But luckily there are some very loud voices now, and getting louder by the year. Hopefully this socially acceptable prejudice will be smaller as the years pass on. We can only hope or pray.. whichever is your wont. (And Kyler said \"I\'m right on that\" so expect him in the mail!)
Lily: :) Glad you enjoyed it! Hope this one serves as well!
D-Puppy: You think there should have been a kiss TOO! I swear, I\'m going to SO smack Jack! I was trying to get him to kiss Ben the entire time but he\'s like \"Oh no... I don\'t move that fast!\" and I\'m like \"But I thought you DID\" and he\'s like \"Well, I\'ve been stuck in the box too long with Claire and she swore she\'d unman me if I moved too quick on Ben and all that.\" And I was like \"Ohhhh... wait. Claire? CLAIRE!\" and...
And that\'s about enough of the internal dialogue I have with my characters who really should be put in a loony bin. Imagine them, turning up in MY head.
Moe: YAY! I did! And now I did again! Woo hoo! Glad you\'re enjoying it enough to celebrate! :)

That said.. enjoy the next chapter of...))

Right Turn

\"Hello Jack,\" Ben\'s mother\'s voice drifted into the kitchen. \"Ben\'s almost ready. Come in?\"

\"Thanks,\" Jack\'s acceptance preceded the smell of expensive cologne and an undertone of spring weather on the breeze from the open front door.

Ben stuffed the last of his pancake into his mouth and leaned back, patting his stomach, then smiled at the slender guitarist entering his kitchen. \"Hey there,\" he greeted the other boy.

Jack turned a chair to the side and settled into it, hesitant at the last as if he wasn\'t sure he\'d stay. It was a personality quirk Ben found himself getting accustomed to. Jack never seemed completely sure of how well he fit into the world around him. He was always poised to run. He blurted out questions that had nothing to do with the conversation at the moment; deep questions requiring all of Ben\'s attention to answer. And he visibly fought with the desire to be someone else other than who he was, where he was, when he was even. Ben\'s mother had stated he seemed like he\'d rather step out of his skin and leave it lying behind him, if he could.

\"So..\" Jack leaned over, dragged a finger through the syrup pools on Ben\'s plate then stuck his fingertip into his mouth. \"Band solos today. Did it ever strike you how self gratifying that kind of thing is? Or how self defeatist it can be? Think about it.\"

\"Hold on,\" Ben rose his hand into the air between them like a shield. \"I can\'t think that hard this early in the morning.\"

Jack\'s smirk was gorgeously lopsided and almost covered the unsettled expression of the half moment before where Jack looked like he was ready to slip out the nearest exit.

Ben, sensing that things were confusing his friend stood and grabbed his bag off of the back of the chair. \"Let\'s head out. I have to try and see Claire today.\"

\"Claire?\" Jack asked as they walked out. \"She\'s the friend who hasn\'t been talking to you all week, right?\"

\"Mmmn,\" Ben nodded, giving Jack a side glance. \"Yeah. I was an asshole to one of her friends. Well, one of our friends. But don\'t let him know that. Mr. Prick up my ass?\"

\"Kyler Davis. I saw him playing at the basketball game last Wednesday. They did well. He\'s not the best, but he seems to do well.\"

Ben grinned. \"Yeah. He\'s the guy that I can\'t stand. And I said some shit to him and so Claire was pissed at me.\"

Jack shrugged. \"Friends can be like that sometimes. I\'m sure you\'ll all work it out.\" He opened up his car door and by the time they\'d both settled into the front seat, Jack was already into another head space. The guy could change them like they were shoes. \"At my last school, I had a friend named Umber. It wasn\'t her real name of course. But she hated her first name. Florence or Flora or something like that. We\'d get into fights every week.\"

But Ben wasn\'t sure he wanted to change the subject. Claire\'s anger and subsequent ignoring of his existence really bothered him. Hell, Kyler\'s absence was bothering him and when he missed Kyler he knew he was getting desperate! \"I have to talk to them. Or, well, at least Claire.\"

Jack merely nodded. \"Yeah. That\'ll fix it up.\"

\"I hope.\" Ben frowned.

They dropped the subject after that and the drive to school managed to be filled with some discussion on a conversational circuit ranging from what they both thought on the subject of being forced to perform before others to the reasons behind 7-11\'s success or lack thereof. Ben was glad of the distraction that Jack provided him from his problem.

Except he still didn\'t know what to do really when he got to his locker and found no one beside it.

He waited by his locker until fifteen minutes to the bell, curled up against the locker and reading a Neil Gaiman book. Then, giving up on seeing Claire in the morning, he stood and went to find Jack.

The other boy proved to be impossible to find as well and Ben entered his day as off as he had the last three days since the argument. True, he hadn\'t gone out of his way the days before to make things better. But neither had Claire. He wanted to make her apologize first. She usually did break the ice, even if it was just to come over to him and call him an ass or a bitch or whatever it was she felt like calling him.

And Kyler. Ben sat with his trumpet in his lap, absently fingering the keys and watching Kyler across the way. The tall young man was leaning over to where Claire changed music on her stand and the two laughed low, waiting for the teacher to leave off of the percussion section.

He felt left out. He\'d never bothered much the way the pair of them talked. Sure it had bugged him that Claire was talking to Prick Wad, but he\'d known, in essence, who was the Best Friend.

Only it wasn\'t him any longer.

With a sigh, Ben rubbed at the bell on his trumpet and clenched his jaw. Band was excruciating. It didn\'t help that Jack busied himself talking to the girl closest to him. Their walking to class and Jack\'s picking him up hadn\'t made it any more likely that they\'d spend the day\'s hours together. In fact, today Ben found himself eating alone, walking alone to most of his classes, and even dealing with one of the common \"faggot\" encounters in the bathrooms alone. Not that Claire would have been in there with him. But he would have gone to find her and bitched about it. She would have made it feel better.

Weird how as much as he\'d been all ga-ga over Jack, he still couldn\'t be happy without Claire. His best friend was, in the end, the one person in the world he felt best around and because of. He wasn\'t stupid enough to think it was because he was in love with her. Though he supposed that this might have been the perfect answer to his younger day\'s dreamings of how to deal with his sexuality. What better than to have a lesbian best friend? Didn\'t most gay boys think of marrying a girl who wasn\'t interested in him? They\'d have their own lovers, maybe even live near one another.

\"Ben.... Ben.... Ben?\"

Ben blinked his randomized thoughts back and lifted his head. Around him, the class was filing out. Jack had his case over his back and a couple of his fan club (as Ben had come to call them) were holding back just a bit.

\"Yeah?\"

\"You were way out there,\" Jack smiled and it was a nervous, casual thing, as if the nervousness was only in Ben\'s mind. \"Look, I just wanted to tell you that I\'ve got some place to go today after school. I can\'t take you home. Sorry.\"

Ben nodded, not sure what to say.

\"Okay, see you Monday. Have a good weekend, huh?\" Jack waved and slipped out of the room with the friends he had when he wasn\'t around Ben encircling him and closing him off from view.

Ben hunched over and shoved his face into his hands. Today had gone from bad to worse.

When he had managed to snag the computer away from his sister that night for a Friday night perusal of journals he liked to follow, it was almost a relief to see Jack online.

ImKawaii: Good. I didn\'t hope to see you online, but I\'m glad. I could use some fairy tale in my life today I think.
ImKawaii: Sorry. Hi.
ImKawaii: And it\'s okay if you don\'t want to talk to me. I\'m a real downer tonight.
ImKawaii: Well - I\'ve been here for twenty minutes and my journals are starting to hurt my head so I guess you\'re not there. Maybe you\'re away or some shit. Sorry. Don\'t pay attention to my ramblings. I\'m gonna go and watch a stupid slasher film and cry or some shit.
ImKawaii: Fuck, I\'m so damn depressed.

But hope and need for some bright ray in his life made it so that he stuck by the computer and watched a DVD. When the soft post beep came through Ben switched over to the chat window. Silently, he tried not to care too much and he paused the movie. He\'d more than likely get back to it pretty quick.

BestKSSD17: Hi to you too. I\'m sorry you\'re feeling badly. Do you feel like talking about it?
ImKawaii: There, see? That\'s why this is a fairy tale. A fucking week and you never asked that once.
ImKawaii: Sorry! Sorry! Disregard that I know you don\'t want me breaking the fairy tale and all that shit. I\'m just screwed up right now.
BestKSSD17: It\'s okay. ~ss~ I won\'t take it personally. What\'s up?
ImKawaii: Sometimes I think you\'re like... someone else completely different from who you are.
ImKawaii: Anyway - that\'s neither here nor there. No - it\'s Claire. Fuck. I can\'t believe what a prick I was. And she doesn\'t give a fuck. I mean, she\'s over there talking to Mr. Prick Wad (I\'ve renamed him) and completely ignoring me and neither of them care.
ImKawaii: Fuck. I should get some tissue if I\'m gonna keep this conversation up. \"Talk amungst yaseves\" I\'ll brb
BestKSSD17: I think I\'m going to just listen for now. It sounds like you\'ve got a lot on your chest. It\'s not that I don\'t have things to say, but I think that if I say them right now, that would stop you from talking about what is on your chest.
BestKSSD17: So when you get back, just type it all out. (I feel silly saying that. Instead of \"Cry it out\" I\'m talking about typing. And it\'s stupid for me to tell another guy to cry. But we\'re gay proud and all that. So we\'re all in touch with our feminine sides, right? ~winks~)
ImKawaii: You\'re so stupid sometimes. :LOL: Man I\'m glad you\'re around. And fuck being in touch with my feminine side. I\'m just totally bummed. This so sucks.
BestKSSD17: I\'m here.
ImKawaii: Shit. I wish you were here, like right now. I could use a hug.
ImKawaii: Okay. So the entire story. I\'ve not really told you the whole thing. Kyler, Mr. Prick Wad, was being all ultra sensitive. I made a crack about him being a homophobe. (And before you be all nice about it - I know, I know.. I was the prick. Not him. Just leave me some pride, kay?) and he (again, don\'t need to say it, he had every right!) got pissed at me. Claire got him calmed down. But see. I was pissed. I mean, it\'s his type, the jocks and shits like that, that make it dangerous for you to come out. I blamed him for everything you\'re going through. So I got really nasty.
BestKSSD17: woah. No wonder you\'re so upset. I\'m still listening.
ImKawaii: I told him that he was really gay and totally insulted him. Pretty much told him he liked to bottom. Then he - huh. Can\'t call it an attack. He just shut me up, I guess. It was weird. Then he left. And then Claire called me a selfish fuck head and left too.
ImKawaii: Just, she told HIM about this family situation that was going on in her life and she didn\'t tell ME. I didn\'t find out about it until he asked us to have a truce because of it?
ImKawaii: And I can\'t help but want to smack him. He\'s not so bad when you get to know him. But he stole my best friend. And I said something like that to her. Not that whole thing. Just something about how he was her new best friend. And she got pissed. (I was pissed - and was being an ass so I made it easy for her) and she told me that if I was going to be a prejudiced fucktard than maybe I was right and she SHOULD get a new best friend.
ImKawaii: I think that\'s the worst part of it all.
ImKawaii: I\'m so fucked up. And I brought a roll of TP, not a box of tissue because I\'m crying like a baby. I just MISS HER SO MUCH! She\'s my best friend and I got called a fag today and pushed against the sink and I couldn\'t tell her.
ImKawaii: I so fucking hate myself.
ImKawaii: And you\'re probably waiting for me to stop typing so you can type back. So you can type now. As long as you don\'t tell me why I shouldn\'t hate myself any more. Not that you could think of what to say. I\'d have a hard time figuring out what to say about that.
ImKawaii: And I have every right to hate myself :P
BestKSSD17: Yeah. For this, I think you do.
ImKawaii: Fuck. Don\'t pull punches, kay?
BestKSSD17: I don\'t mean to sound cruel. I\'m sorry if I do. I know that I\'d feel really low though, if it had been me.
ImKawaii: So kick a guy while he\'s down? No - you\'re right. I\'m just sort of joking. (Sort of. Still sucks you agree with me.)
BestKSSD17: LOL You\'re really cute. An ass right now, but cute. Okay. But listen. Don\'t get mad at me just yet.
ImKawaii: I\'m withholding judgment until you\'re done trying to make me feel better.
BestKSSD17: Would it have been easier to hear that if I\'d been holding you?
ImKawaii: Fuck, I\'m crying again. Yes. Yes it would have been easier if you\'d been holding me. I hate you.
BestKSSD17: ~SS~ What do you think you want to do about all of this?
ImKawaii: Do? What can I do?
BestKSSD17: I\'m worried I\'m going to sound like my mom here. But what do you think? It\'s your life and you\'re the one who has to make the decisions. If you could do ANYthing, what would you do?
ImKawaii: I like your mom. Or is this your step-mom?
BestKSSD17: I call her Mom. But yeah, that\'s my step mom.
ImKawaii: Okay. So what would I want to do if I could do anything? Well... I\'d want to forget I did anything and wave a magic wand and make things all better. But then - that wouldn\'t make things any better. I\'d still feel like a shit. I want Claire to forgive me. AND I want Mr. Prick Wad to forgive me too. I mean, I think I\'d like him to forgive me first? I\'d feel like a shit if I went to Claire first and she had to force me to ask for forgiveness before she gave hers.
BestKSSD17: Hmm. So why can\'t you do that?
ImKawaii: Umm.. duh? Because he\'ll kick my ass?
BestKSSD17: But think about it. If you asked for his forgiveness and he kicked your ass (or maybe just didn\'t forgive you) you can tell Claire that you at least tried? What do you think she\'d do?
ImKawaii: LOL I think she\'d probably call me an ass and tell me to try again later.
ImKawaii: But she\'d probably forgive me. I mean, if I\'m being hopeful here. Scared shitless, but hopeful. How did you do that? I\'m still crying but I think I could use tissue now.
ImKawaii: I can\'t believe I told you I was using TP for tissue. That\'s so gross.
BestKSSD17: LOL The best of us have used TP when we had some serious crying to do.
ImKawaii: YOU cry? Ha!
BestKSSD17: I think most of us do. I mean, most humans. But you can thank my mom. I just pretended to be her. She\'s great at this stuff.
BestKSSD17: And if you\'re anything like me, you\'ve got a headache to beat the band, your eyes sting, and you need a good cup of cocoa and a hot bath, then lots of sleep. My mom always lets me sleep in when I have a bad night like this.
ImKawaii: I love you.
ImKawaii: Fuck.
BestKSSD17: Don\'t sweat it.
BestKSSD17: I know what you meant.
ImKawaii: Whew. I didn\'t want to screw us up too. I mean, this Fairy Tale of yours is nice. Nicer than real life.
BestKSSD17: Sleep. You\'ll feel better in the morning after a bath, some tea or cocoa, and headache meds. And I\'ll be here tomorrow if you want to talk more.
ImKawaii: Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you! I wish you were here. I wish I could hug you. I wish you could hug me! Wanna come over?
BestKSSD17: Ha ha. Night, cute crazy one.
ImKawaii: ^^ Good night. Thank you for making me feel better.
BestKSSD17: Awe. I didn\'t do anything but listen. I\'ll tell my mom you appreciated her words of wisdom. Sleep pleasant little one.