Labels Were Our Friends

“So this is your house,” Joey stated plainly while he parked the car on the curb in front of my house.



It had been two weeks since I attacked my best guy friend in a parking lot. I guess now he was more than my best friend, but the terms boyfriend and Joey being liked seemed kind of weird in my mind. I’d started going to Jericho again. Iris had been there and she was obviously just as unhappy as I was about my decision to go back to heterosexuality. Of course, both she and Joe thought that I’d gotten Megan to lie for me and tell them that I had just thought Megan and Iris were a couple. Which was the truth, but the reason they believed for my actions was far from it.



As if Iris’s obvious anger wasn’t enough, I was anxiously awaiting facing Megan for the first time since Seattle. I could only hope that she believed the same lie I was telling myself, that I had been in a very emotional state in Seattle and I’d made a stupid mistake. But the sad truth was, neither of us could ever believe such complete bullshit.



Until I was willing to admit that, I was with Joey.



“Yeah, it’s a trailer,” I muttered, unbuckling my seatbelt. “I’m not proud of it.”



“Is that why I haven’t I been here before?” he asked me.



I glared at him. “No, you haven’t been here because Darlene doesn’t like my having boys in the house.”



He leaned over and kissed me tenderly, lingering for a second before pulling away.



“Do you want to come inside?” I suggested.



“Does Fight Club have homoerotic undertones?” he smiled and snuck a kiss on my cheek before unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the car door.



As we entered the house, I took my coat off and threw it down on the floor. It wasn’t like I was making a difference by just tossing it anywhere. The whole living room was a complete pigsty. Jack Daniel’s bottles were still strewn on the floor and the lingering stench of Darlene’s Lucky Strikes still filled the air. Despite that it was a part of my daily life, every time I brought a new person into my home, I could still feel that sting of shame at my living conditions. Even when I was a little girl I felt this way. In fact the only person who I had felt comfortable bringing in my home had been- Megan.



As if he could sense my discomfort, Joe wrapped his arms around my middle and whispered into my ear, “I love you.”



It didn’t help that Megan was on my mind. I could fill a weird sensation in my stomach. Maybe inviting him here wasn’t a good idea. Was I really ready for this? I turned around to lock eyes with Joey. He deserved a girl who actually did love him. More than anything in the world, Joey deserved for a girl who felt the way he felt about her.



I wanted to be that girl, but I just wasn’t.



But I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t. He had gone through so much, and I just couldn’t break his heart like Iris had. I genuinely cared about him. I loved him, but not the way he loved me.



“Is something wrong?” he asked.



“No,” I whispered as I stood on my toes to give him a gentle kiss on the lips.



He furthered the kiss, gently cupping my face. I closed my eyes and Megan’s face circled in my mind. Beautiful Megan was standing in front of me laughing, smiling, and winking at me. She ran out into the field we used to hangout in as children, beckoning me to come with her. I opened my eyes and pulled away from Joe.



“Becky, something is wrong,” he said firmly. “Now are you going to tell me what it is, or am I going to have to leave?”



I blinked. “Oh, don’t leave Joey. I just-”



I closed my eyes and saw Megan again. God-dammit, I wanted that image to go away. I wanted to forget all about her. Why did she have to come back to Bellingham? Why couldn’t that beautiful vixen have just stayed in Chicago? Why couldn’t I just be a normal teenage girl with a normal teenage boyfriend?



“I want you,” I muttered, taking in a deep breath and putting my hands to my forehead.



I opened my eyes to see a foreign look of confusion sweep across my boyfriend’s face.



“What- What do you mean b-by that?” Joey stammered.



I sighed and took a step toward him. He seemed paralyzed as I pressed myself against his body. Bringing my lips to his ears. I whispered with a sultry tone, “I want you.”



Pulling back, I looked him in the eye and he stumbled to sit down on my couch. With a small, carnal smile, I straddled him and tugged off his shirt. Taking in his chiseled physique, I leaned in and met my lips to his. Still shocked by what was happening, Joey gave no protest. I just pressed myself against him, only pulling my tongue out of his mouth long enough to pull off my shirt and toss it on the ground. When I turned back to him, I saw his panicked blue-green eyes searching my face. There was a scared, almost innocent look on his face. I wanted to fix that. I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to be normal.



“Becky,” he managed to choke out.



I put my finger to his lips to silence him, before reaching behind my back and unhooking my bra. As I slid out of it, I noticed Joey’s eyes dart to the ceiling as if to divert his attention from my exposed breasts. Suddenly I thought of Megan again, but this time it was of that night in the hotel. I reached down to find his hand, and brought it to my breast.



“B-Becky,” he mumbled, doing his best to look at everything but what he was now touching. “We really sh-shouldn’t be doing, uh, this.”



“Why?” I snapped, slightly irritated by his reluctance. “Because we’re in high school? Because we aren’t married? Because it’s wrong?”



“Because it’s illegal!’ he exclaimed in a high voice. “I’m eighteen, and you’re sixteen. This is technically rape.”



My lips pursed and my eyebrows arched. “Who’s gonna find out unless I get pregnant?” I asked, in a hesitant voice.



In a spurt of exasperation, he put his hands on my hips. He gently lifted me up off of him and sat me down next to him on the couch.



“Okay, you really wanna know the real reason I won’t have sex with you on a couch?” he asked, before standing up and looking at the ceiling. “Could you please put something on so I can take you seriously?”



Sighing I found a blanket and wrapped it around my top. Once I did, Joey kneeled down next to the couch and took my hands in his. He kissed them like a perfect gentleman, and I felt a pang of guilt for how I had been treating him.



“I care about you Becky,” he explained in a heavy voice. “Believe me, it is incredibly hard for me to say no to you. You are incredibly sexy and beautiful and I really do love you. I would like nothing more than to throw you on the couch and fuck you like- like we’re stupid teenagers without a care in the world.”



I laughed a little and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. He smiled uneasily and continued speaking.



“I love you and you’re my best friend. I know you better than I know myself, and I know when you are hiding something from me. And every single time I ask what’s wrong; you jump me. I’m worried about you Becky. You’re using sex to avoid something and I don’t want you to cheat yourself out of your first time because of something that’s going on right now in your life. I’m begging you, Rebecca. Could you please just tell me what’s wrong?”



Tears welling in my eyes, I leaned in and kissed him tenderly.



“See you do that, and there’s nothing there,” he whispered. “It’s as if your mind is always on something, or somebody, else.”



With that statement, I knew I had to tell him. He was the most important person in my life and I could lie to myself all I wanted, but when it came to my Joey, it broke my heart to know I was hurting him.



“Joey, I need to tell you something.” I stated in a shaky voice.



He rubbed his thumb against my hands in a comforting manner.



In my head, I tried to piece the sentence together perfectly, but as I opened my mouth to seek, I seemed to just stutter out what first things that came my mind.



“I think I may- I think I may be,” I began to confess, choking on my words, “I think I may be attract- attracted to women. And I just don’t mean as well as men, I mean more than men.”



My boyfriend’s mouth fell open, but no words came out. I could basically see all of his questions swimming around in his mind. Ashamed with myself, I looked down at my hands still wrapped in his and felt hot tears streaming down my face.



“I’m so, so sorry for using you, Joey,” I stammered through the tears. “I just didn’t want this. When I saw Megan for the first time in all these years, I realized that I was attracted to her. I was jealous of Iris because I thought she had the girl I wanted.” Letting go of his hands, I put my hands to my eyes and cried into them. “I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to be normal. I thought if I could be with you, the most amazing guy in the world, maybe the feelings I had for Megan would just go away. I would understand if you hate me and never wanted to see me again. I would completely understand. Feel free to just leave me.”



For a second I thought he did, I felt him stand up, but instead of walking away, he sat down next to me and wrapped his arms around me. Flinging my arms around him, I cried on his shoulder until I couldn’t cry anymore.



“Listen to me,” he whispered in a solid voice. “I could never hate you, Rebecca. You could run over my dog and crash my car into the tree that I used to climb as a kid to get away from my aunt, and the only thing I would care about was whether you were okay or not.”



Pulling back, I looked him in the eye and laughed a little.



“Nonetheless, I’m still sorry for dragging you into all of this,” I apologized in a calmer voice than earlier. “You were, you are the last person I’ve ever wanted to hurt, and it ended up that you were, you are the single person who got hurt by my lies more than anybody else.”



“That’s not true, Becky,” Joey retorted. “You have not hurt me in any way. As I said, it’s impossible for you to do anything of that nature. The only person you’ve been hurting is yourself, and maybe Megan, just a little bit.”



Sighing, I took to heart what he was saying. “God, Megan. I really screwed that up, didn’t I?”



Joey pondered the subject and shook his head. “She should understand,” he answered. “I’m sure when she first realized her sexuality, she had trouble expressing it as well. It’s a scary subject. Constantly worrying whether people will accept you or not. Will people treat you the same if you come out? Like you said, you were afraid, and you made mistakes. If I can understand it, I’m sure she’ll welcome you with open arms. I know for a fact that she’s missed you and now that I think about it, I think she was a little upset when she found out we were together. You just need to talk to her and everything will be okay.”



His reassuring words comforted me greatly.



“Thank you,” I whispered, kissing his forehead.



“Do you want to go to Jericho tomorrow night and talk to her?” he asked in a tentative tone. “She’s been going on Mondays with Iris and me.”



“Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “Faith told me. She’s the only person I talked to from Jericho since the Seattle trip.”



“Oh, yeah, Faith, how is she?” he asked. “It’s about the time her father died two years ago.”



“Good,” I answered. “Yeah, she’s been getting through it. She’s a good kid.”



“So, can I count on seeing you there?” Joey asked.



There was a moment of silence as my heart stilled. Finally, I lifted my head and slowly nodded.



x.o.



Okay I so I had two options. Make this twice as long but make you wait another week because I’m going to the beach from this Saturday to the Saturday next week. Or, I could give you the first half before I left and then get the second half to you guys on maybe next Tuesday or Wednesday.



As always I thank my readers for reading this drabble and I thank my reviewers for the feedback. But this chapter, I would like to thank Kaiser more than anyone. I read her blog the other day and I found that she’s been advertising me! I always enjoy her criticism and remarks, but I never thought she liked me that much! Thanks Kaiser. :D