Chapter 12

While I was finishing up this chapter, an email caught my attention. I asked their permission to use a part of their email in this note because I feel it's important that I address something. At the end of their email, they wrote, "from a not so important reader of your story, but a huge fan of your writing, Samara." I want to say, Samara, you're very important. Every single one of you reading this is incredibly important. If it weren't for people like yourselves, I wouldn't exist as a writer. The process of me writing is not a selfless one, and I don't have to tell you all that I'm not exactly a humble person, for which I apologize. You all are quick to see that I'm giving you all my writing, but you're also giving me something - your time and attention. That's huge. If you never gave me that, I never would have written anything beyond chapter one. You have yourselves to thank for that. You gave me opportunity, something I never would have been able to create for myself, and I think that's incredibly kind of you. Thanks to you guys I have the confidence I lacked a year ago to pursue a writing career. I don't want any of you to think of this as Bashful Scribe writing and followers following - each and every one of you is as important as myself. It's not following the leader, it's a community, where all of you are valued. That's why I've gotten over myself and I will be creating a forum on AFF (or at least learning how to) for my works. A few of you have asked for it, and you all deserve it. It's a lot easier to throw something at the world than to see past yourself and pick up something someone else has thrown, and give it your time and attention. All I'm doing is throwing. You guys are the ones giving support to a stranger. How huge is that? Your support means the world to me. It's the reason I keep writing. So please enjoy the new chapter. Comments, criticisms, etc, are welcomed. And thank you all very much for sticking with me. ****

"Why the hell did it have to be here and now?" I ranted. "I don't want him to be here. I wanted to get away from him. I feel like I'm no longer comfortable here with him around. Every time I try to leave my past behind it just comes back to haunt me in a different way."

Mr. Salvador sat up attentively. "Did you just say there was a fight?" he asked me.

I blinked twice. "Is that all you heard?" I asked him, anger building up. "I thought you invited me here so I could talk about my feelings, not so you could document what's going on around the school. I thought you were doing this to help, not so I could be your little spy."

Instantly I regretted saying that as Salvador leaned back and lowered one eyebrow. "Adam, remember that first and foremost, I am your teacher."

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry." I meekly interrupted.

"Like it or not, when you're in this school, teachers are the authority, not students. And students do not get to talk to their teachers that way." He continued.

"I get it. My bad." I continued weakly.

"Stop talking." He ordered. "Listen to me. I am doing this to help you. That doesn't change the fact that first and foremost, I am a teacher, and I have certain responsibilities. If you didn't want me to act like this, you shouldn't have told me that there was a fight. Now, unless you want me to take this further, I'm going to need the name of the person you were fighting with. If you don't know his name, I'll need his description, and Mr. Scott will be notified. If need be, we can arrange some kind of protection."

"I don't want him to be in trouble." I feebly managed. "It's not that I'm afraid of him. Hell, I already told you I didn't throw a damn punch at him." As I recollected my previous rant to him, I thanked my lucky stars I didn't mention that it was Matt who fought me, or why. "I just ... Can we just please forget that I mentioned that?"

"Adam, even if I wanted to I'm not allowed to." Mr. Salvador answered seriously. "I would be neglecting my responsibilities as a teacher in order to accommodate something I'm doing out of my own time to begin with."

"We don't have to continue doing this then." I said, deflating a little bit more each second.

Slightly, Mr. Salvador raised his eyebrows. "I can tell you want to keep doing this." he began. "Otherwise, you wouldn't keep coming here. Are you telling me you'd go that far against your own wishes to assist someone who wants you to feel pain?"

"Mhm." I hummed.

Mr. Salvador exhaled, loudly and lengthily. "Adam, it's always good to help others, but there comes a point when it becomes self-destructive. You can lose yourself if you become too obsessed with helping others. Sometimes you need to help yourself."

"And what if telling you his name won't help me?" I asked him. "What if I have a weird history with him that I want to keep secret so badly that I would clam up like ... like this instead of telling you?" No one said anything for a giant pause. "If I was worried about my safety, I'd tell you. I just don't want this becoming the school's business." I continued, the silence making me uncomfortable.

Mr. Salvador sighed again loudly. "There's two ways we could do this." He concluded. "Number one, I tell your story to Mr. Scott and he takes this whole thing over. You're asked to comply and for both your safety and the safety of others, he'll find a way to get you to tell him." He then, uncharacteristically, took his eyes off of mine and looked at the ceiling. "Number two, you leave right now, considering we didn't just have a conversation and I haven't seen you since your exam."

Relief washed over me. "You mean it?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't make me think about it, just accept." He all but barked at me.

"I understand." I said, quickly standing up and getting my backpack. "Thank you. Thank you." I said, twice due to my overwhelming gratefulness. I didn't think he would have done that, considering how by-the-book he was.

As I neared the doorway of his office, I heard him call, "Adam." again.

"Yes?" I asked, turning around to see he was still facing the ceiling.

"I'm sorry to hear your past is bothering you." He commented. "I know what it's like to want to let go of something, but can't. In my experience, moving forward is the only cure."

I half-smiled. He listened more than I thought. "Noted." I replied. "Goodbye!"

I walked outside his room and into the main hallway to see Nicole on her phone. Upon presumably hearing my footsteps, she looked up, smiled, and almost ran over to me, greeting me with a smothering hug.

"Hey, hotshot." She sang as she broke off the hug. "I missed you."

"It's only been a day." I lamely commented.

"Don't ruin the moment." She commanded, then looked my face over. "How are you feeling, is it healing?"

I shrugged. "I feel like it's going away."

"It sure doesn't look like it." She remarked aloud, clearly staring at the gash on my lip.

I lowered one eyebrow and stared at her. "Thanks. I feel so much better now." I sarcastically replied.

"Good." She beamed. "Now, can we get out of here? I'm hungry." Not even needing a response from me, she began to walk down the hallway and I followed. "How does Burger King sound?" She asked me.

"If it's with you, it sounds like a great time." I said, half sarcastically, half sincerely.

She audibly groaned. "Easy there, Captain Cheesy." She joked.

"Don't ruin the moment." I ordered with a smile on my face.

As the end of winter turned into spring, a lot of my past melted away with the snow. The student council seemed to all but forget what had happened between myself and Megan, save for one particular member, and now I was known as student council's first ever Public Relations guy.

Matt never looked at me once during any of those meetings. Week after week would pass and every time I spoke or I was brought off, he'd suddenly become very interested in the wall. It became very clear why when during one particular meeting, after a fight had broken out between two freshmen, Phil went on a tangent about fights and how it lowers the school's reputation. Trying to be as subtle as I could, I looked in Matt's direction. Matt, his eyes somewhere else, no doubt noticed me, as was evident by the pink tone his skin had soon adopted.

I barely recognized what Megan had turned into when I stopped and thought about how she used to be. It wasn't a bad change, but all of the little things started to add up. Before, during a meeting, she would diligently keep her head forward, seemingly believing she wasn't worthy to chime in and be one of the gang whenever the council shared a joke. She would only speak when spoken to. Suddenly, she seemed a lot more loose, and a lot less lacking in confidence. I almost missed the days where she was shy and practically jumped when someone talked to her, but at the same, I was glad to have seen her grow. I never did put much thought into how her little get-together with Carson went, but I can imagine it went well, considering how confident she was.

The more school I experienced, the less classes meant to me as the weeks went on. I began to notice less and less what was happening in class, and noticing more and more what was happening outside of class. Training with Nicole in the weights room, karate, student council meetings, even just hanging out with friends ... I began to see why some kids did this every day in junior high.

Weekends were no exception. I tried to fill up my schedule to the best of my ability. I had years to catch up on.

"So where are you off to this morning?" Dad asked as he got a coffee mug out of the cupboard.

"I'm going to hang out with Carson." I simply answered, taking a bite out of the toast mom had prepared for me that morning, looking past the table, through the window and outside, admiring the changes that came with April.

"Carson..." Dad repeated, filling his mug. "Did we meet him? Has he visited here before?"

"I don't think so." I answered. "He lives near the school, so our house is kind of out of the way for him."

"How are you going to get to his place then? You're not walking, are you?" Mom, ever the worrier, piped up.

"Don't worry, mom." I soothed her. "Nicole is going to be driving me."

"Aw, that Nicole." Mom said warmly, looking over at dad. "She is such a sweetheart."

"She's certainly something, that's for sure." Dad remarked, joining us at the table with his mug in one hand, opening up a newspaper with the other.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him.

"Well ... She's..." Dad struggled with the words, then looked at me with his trademark serious expression. "She's kind of freaky."

Shocked that dad would say something like that, I turned to mom, who solemnly nodded. "Freaky?" I repeated.

"In a good way." Mom soothed me. "We've just never met someone like her."

"You barely know her." I retaliated, my tone starting to reflect how I felt towards someone calling her 'freaky.'

"Do you?" Dad asked. "You're really quick to tell me you're not dating her. Yet when she comes by, it's like you've known each other for years."

"My God, dad, you're right." I replied, my tone full of wonder, dropping my toast. "After all, friends couldn't possibly act like that. I guess the secret's out - I've been seeing Nicole since grade 2."

"Don't get sarcastic with me." Dad lightly ordered. "That's my thing. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but I really want you to be open with us, and your mother and I ... We feel like you're hiding something from us."

I turned back to mom, who nodded with a completely serious look on her face. Half of me felt outraged, and the other half felt guilty. The two halves were separate entities - How dare they think I was keeping secrets from them?! I was, but still, why would they think I was? I was a good kid.

"Nicole is the most transparent girl on the planet." I lied. "You've met her, so you know her for who she is. There's nothing more than that to her."

"C'mon, Adam." Dad replied. "All people are at least kind of complicated. Even me." He put his newspaper away. "Besides, we've met Nicole all of three times. The first time, she knew our names before we could introduce ourselves, then you two spent a few hours in your room, alone."

"We kept the door open." I lied smoothly. "You guys were just never upstairs to see that. I promise, we didn't do anything."

Half acknowledging me, half ignoring me, dad continued. "The second time, she told us that she was visiting because she wanted to get you into video games. An hour later, she's with us at the kitchen table giving us tips on making quarterly payments for our taxes while you were upstairs playing Call of Portal or whatever it's called."

I grinned to myself. Around mid-March, Nicole and I were exhausted after a vigorous training day. We went to my place and skipped all foreplay - I had her bouncing up and down on top of me within minutes. I was so exhausted, I blacked out seconds after I came, and awoke to both her and myself, completely clothed, on my bed. When I asked her what she did while I was passed out, she said "Giving financial advice to your parents." I totally thought she was kidding.

"You don't even like video games." Dad pointed out, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

I shrugged. "Nicole has a way of making them fun." I lamely remarked. "She's very convincing."

"The third time, we barely saw you two before you disappeared upstairs. Then we didn't see you two at all." Concern filled his face. "Adam, it's okay if she's your girlfriend. Really, it's okay. And depending on what you two are doing up there, we'll accept whatever it is. But your mother and I would feel a lot more comfortable if we knew just what you two are up to."

"And what if we're just playing video games upstairs?" I asked him coldly. "Why do you think I'm lying to you?"

"Well, number one, you're dipping your toast in your orange juice." Dad dryly pointed out. My eyes drifted down to note that my hands had become really fidgety. "Number two, don't forget that I was young once. True, I didn't have the same experiences as you, but I know how to be a teen. I know you from the inside out."

"Oh, come on." I teased him. "You were a nerd."

"I was a better nerd than you." Dad fired back.

"Good one."

"Now don't change the topic." He ordered softly. "Your mom and I will be okay with it if you come clean, but we'd like to know what our son is doing. Is Nicole doing drugs with you? Drinking? Are you two having any kind of ... Well, any kind of sex?"

I tried to keep my face as blank as possible. Dad shouldn't have revealed that he was reading me, because I was concentrating on making myself unreadable.

"Oh, now, Timothy." My mom softly scolded him. "He's only fourteen. Maybe he's doing drugs, but I don't think he's having sex." She turned to me. "Although asking if he's kissing her isn't out of the question. We just want to know. For our own sake."

If only she knew, I thought to myself. Thinking at a mile a minute so my silence didn't give me away, I mulled it over in my head. 'Should I tell them?' I asked myself. If I told them, it would totally be out in the open. Nicole's parents knew about it. My parents told me they'd try to accept it. Nicole and I could be ourselves around them. And it was true, my parents were the best. I didn't enjoy lying to them. It made everything needlessly complicated.

At the same time, I couldn't shake away the implications of my mom's comment. I'm only fourteen, I thought to myself. To her, sex wasn't even a thing I should have been doing. It wasn't even a possibility to her that I could be having it, which made telling her all the harder to do. She couldn't even accept the idea that I was having sex, let alone the fact that it meant nothing to Nicole. If I told them she was my girlfriend, they'd bring it up around her and she would have some objections. Plus, we really would have to leave my bedroom door open. And if I told them we were having casual sex ... Nope, not even an option.

I shook my head. "There's no kissing." I answered, and turned to dad. "And definitely no drugs. Or drinking. I thought you knew I'm not like that."

The guilt card didn't work on dad, as I should have known. He shrugged, putting on a soft face but still challenging me with his eyes. "I don't presume." He answered simply.

Just then, a lightbulb turned on above my head. Thinking on my feet, I swiftly added, "You know she had a boyfriend until recently, right? Phil Love. Head of student council. I'm not a homewrecker. And she's not into drugs." I pointed out.

"Alright, alright, take it easy." Dad soothed me. I didn't respond, but he sighed and continued. "Look, we're not dumb. You're our son and we love you, and we also know you. I know you're growing up so you think we couldn't possibly know you, but news flash, we do. And we know there's something happening that we don't know about. And as parents it's our duty to be nosy, because if you act as secretly as you do, we can't know for sure whether it's something we should know about."

I visibly shrunk in my chair.

"And lying about it doesn't make anything better." He added, a tone of slight annoyedness to his tone.

The familiar honk of a Ford Focus broke me out of my bubble of anxiety. Breathing a sigh of relief, I stood up and quickly swallowed the last of my toast. "She's here." I managed to say through my last mouthful. "I'll be back for supper, okay?"

Instead of dad letting me go, my heart sank as he shook his head meaningfully. He pointed to my chair. "Sit down." He ordered humorlessly. "She can wait."

My parents and I never fought. We never had any kind of serious arguments. I was downright scared. I could barely feel my limbs as I slunk back down into my chair. I could feel my breathing quicken as I felt my now unfamiliar anxiety coming back to me.

Looking into my dad's eyes, I attributed them to something I hadn't before: fear. It felt awful. Feeling like my parents weren't on my side was downright awful. I felt unsafe. Like my world became a lot less stable. Like the house was more unwelcoming.

Dad studied my face for a second. "Nicole really likes to get inside other people's heads, doesn't she?" He asked, not bothering to hide that it was leading up to something. I could only weakly nod. "Let's turn the tables then. She doesn't get along well with her parents, does she?"

"Why would you ask something l-" I started. Dad cut me off with a raised hand and a stern expression.

"Just answer the question." He calmly ordered.

"No." I weakly responded. "She doesn't."

"I can tell." Dad replied, leaning back into his chair. I glanced at mom. Her expression was noticeably sad. Dad was angry that I was hiding something, but mom was sad. Disappointed. Like me hiding something from her was a failure of hers and that I was making her sad just by how I acted. It tore me apart. The longer I looked at either of my two parents, the worse I felt.

Dad cleared his throat and continued. "In high school, you are who you hang out with. Ever since you started hanging out with Nicole, usually you've been happier and more confident. That's great and we're happy you are. And we mean that." He looked over at mom, who just nodded. "But you've also distanced yourself from us. You've become more secretive, and it's gotten to the point where ... Where we miss you."

Miss me. They miss me. This was getting hard to listen to.

Dad opened his mouth to speak again, but noticed I was too busy thinking about what he had said. "Are you even paying attention to me?" He asked incredulously. He looked over at mom, who just looked down. "He's not, is he?" He asked her. She didn't respond. Dad looked back at me with a look that told me he couldn't believe me, couldn't believe what I was doing. "I guess I'm wasting my time then." He said, getting up. "When you're ready to be mature and talk to us, tell us. We'd love to talk to you. Until then, we're clearly getting nowhere." He walked over to the coffee machine, getting himself a second cup. After, he turned to look at me. "Have you seen Nicole and her parents in the same room? I'm sure it's very glamorous. Is it something you want? Because you're on the right track."

"Timothy, that's enough." Mom finally spoke up. Her voice was quivering. "Maybe that topic is sensitive to him. She obviously means a lot to him. No need to bring that into our house."

Dad blinked twice, looked at mom, then back at me. I couldn't any longer be unreadable - I'm sure my face was a projection of just how uncomfortable I was. "You're right." He admitted. "I'm sorry. That's no business of mine." He sighed and sat back down at the table again. "I just ... I just want to say something that will make you talk. I'm trying everything I can here, because I want to know. We want to know."

I said nothing. Dad took a long swig from his cup, and cleared his throat. "Tell you what," He began, "Let's start with something small. I only will ask one question. One question, okay?"

I nodded weakly.

"Is there something going on that you're not telling us?" Dad asked.

I inhaled slowly my mouth, and swallowed hard. Closing my eyes, I slowly nodded.

"Okay." Dad simply said. "Thank you." He waited until I was looking him square in the face, and did something I had barely seen before - smiled. He was clearly making himself do it, especially since judging by the way his smile looked, he never did it unless he had to force it, but the feeling behind it was still there. "You can go." He added, gesturing to the front door with his mug.

I looked from dad to mom. Mom still had a sad expression painted on her face, looking down at the floor. I looked back to dad, whose gaze seemed fixated on the kitchen table. Taking it as a hint, I slowly got up, and, as if in a trance, put on my outdoor shoes. It felt like my body was moving on its own as I walked outside and got in Nicole's car.

"Holy shit, Yertle the Turtle." Nicole complained as I shut the door behind me. "Could you have been any slower? You're lucky I didn't reconsider and go back home."

"Sorry." I mumbled as she backed out of the driveway. Upon hearing my response, she glanced over at me and put the car into park, still in the driveway.

"You okay?" She asked me.

I felt stupid for having to hold back tears. This was stupid, this was small, this was nothing to cry about, I had told myself. I was crying way too much as it was. It seemed like anything anybody ever did in first year was cry, and I wanted to be the pillar of strength so badly. "Do ... do you..." I asked, trying to keep my voice from cracking. "Do you ever wish your parents and you got along?" My voice was an octave higher by the time I had finished my sentence, and I was breathing heavily to stop the tears from flowing.

"Whoa-ho, new development." Nicole remarked, taking off her seatbelt, undoing mine and holding me in an embrace. I accepted it immediately, burying my head into her chest. "What's going on, hotshot?" She asked me softly. "Trouble with your parents?"

I was breathing deeply, but had succeeded in not crying. I just nodded, knowing the motion of my head would be enough of an indication.

"Well, welcome to my flippin' world." She remarked dryly, not knowing the sting the truth of her words caused.

"That's not helping." I managed to say into her shirt.

"Yeah, well, it's the truth." She replied. "When you get older, your parents just lose their touch. At first I thought it was because of family problems, but seriously, you'll see in a few years. My parents don't get me at all."

"My parents don't trust me anymore." I said, detaching myself from her.

She chuckled. Taking my detachment from her as a sign to continue driving, she put the car back into reverse and looked behind her. "Yup, that'll h-"

"It's because of you." I bluntly said, interrupting her.

I had never seen Nicole caught off guard so greatly. She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widened, and tried as her lips did to form new words, nothing was coming out of her mouth. She faced the front again and put the car back into park. Taking her hands off of the wheel, she placed them on her legs and turned to face me. "Excuse me?"

I still fought my emotions as I continued. "My parents and I are really close, and they noticed I've been getting distant, and ... Dad knew. He asked me if you had a bad relationship with your parents. He thinks you're rubbing off on me."

Nicole stared at me as if I told her the school was bombed. "You get into a small fight with your shitty parents and your dad instantly blames me?" She asked incredulously. "Holy shit. Find me someone's dad that likes me. Find one. You can't do it. Fuckin'A."

"I'm scared, Nicole." I managed.

"Get used to it." Nicole replied, losing all emotion in her voice. "It's gonna get a lot fucking worse from here. I'm not going to stop hanging out with you just because your dad's on his fucking period."

"It's because we're hanging out." I explained. "Mom and dad noticed all the time we spent in my room and asked me if we're doing drugs or having sex or something. They equated having sex with being boyfriend and girlfriend, so I lied. I couldn't tell them we're having casual sex. They would never understand."

"So, your parents think you're hiding something from them." Nicole reasoned. I nodded. "And you are." She concluded. I nodded again. "So what's the problem? Other than daddy-o thinking it's cool to blame me for him being a shitty dad."

"Nicole, live in my world." I practically begged. "I trust my parents a lot. They trust me a lot. This isn't your fault, but I don't want to make them distrust me like this. We need to do something."

"Do something?" Nicole asked. "Like tell them about all the sex we're having?" She lowered an eyebrow. "Then they'll ask about when I became your girlfriend, then you'll tell them I'm not. Suddenly I'm not allowed over. I have to sneak through the window. We get caught." She pretended to make an explosion with her hands. "Yeah, you're right. It's the only way."

"I don't know what I want to do yet." I mumbled.

"You just want to do something?" Nicole offered. I nodded. She threw her head back and sighed. "Fine. I'll fucking think of something. But the running theme of you crying all the fucking time and me saving your ass is getting old, fast. What the hell would you do without me?"

"I wouldn't be in this situation if I was without you." I replied without thinking. "I also wouldn't have had sex with Megan." I nearly added, 'or May, ' but had the common sense not to say it out loud.

Realizing what I had said, I suddenly whipped my head to look back at Nicole, who was staring straight at the wheel. "I mean..." I lamely started.

"No, you're right." Nicole responded softly, with an worrying calmness to her tone. "None of this shit would have happened if I didn't start it. I'm sorry." She turned to me and gave a small smile. "I'll do something to fix stuff up with your parents, squirt."

I was borderline horrified with myself. "Nicole, I didn't mean..."

"It's okay." She interrupted with a noticeably weak voice. "I started it. It's the least I can do. I'm sure you want that relationship with your parents back."

I bet she does too, I thought to myself as I looked down. I couldn't find the moral energy to do anything else. Silently, Nicole began the long drive to Carson's.

When Carson saw me again outside of school it was like no time had passed, and no awkward 'I fucked your girlfriend' events had transpired. So as we began to hang out more and more in the spring, I felt more and more comfortable around him, to the point where I could actually forgive myself enough to talk openly about our love lives. Carson, of course, didn't really have that problem to begin with.

"You, uh..." He began, eyes on the screen as he continued to dominate me in our Halo match, "You still close with Megan?"

"Yeah, I think so." I simply answered as I threw a plasma grenade in the wrong direction. "Oops. Yeah, we're still close. We still talk and stuff. Her brother is kind of sore that I broke things off with her, so we don't really hang out outside of school, but yeah."

He shot me in the back, signaling his victory, and gently put the controller down on the table. "I wanted to talk to you about her."

Here it comes, I thought to myself. I had to suppress my 'I know what's coming' smile as I followed suit and put the controller down. "Yeah? About what?"

"Well, uh ... I mean, you haven't been together for a few months so I figure it's cool that..."

I feigned ignorance and smiled. "Oh man, are you two dating?"

"Oh, fuck no." Carson spat out. "I'm not fucking dating anymore. No chance in hell. I am kind of ... Fucking her, though."