Admittedly, there are parts in this story that could've been left out, but I left them in anyway. Also, maybe it might have a continuation possibly? It ends in a bad spot and in a bad way. So, I don't know.

Hearsay

Jack began having suspicions that something was wrong when Gabriel would be late coming out of the school building. They always walked home together and normally it was Gabriel who had to wait for Jack to catch up. Now he just watched as his dark-skinned friend came marching out murmuring angrily to himself.

"Let's go," Gabriel said harshly as he walked right past Jack.

"Hold on a minute, Gabe. Did something happen?" Jack asked. He had to jog a bit to catch up to him. After his friend remained silent and kept walking, Jack finally spoke again. "Gabe, say something."

"Nothing happened. Let's just go home," Gabriel said.

Well, Jack knew that something had pissed him off. A teacher must have kept him for detention. But if that were the case, that was the shortest detention Jack had ever heard of.

"We've got that test tomorrow. Wanna come to my place and study?" Gabriel asked as if there had been no prior attempts at conversation.

"Yeah, but something's bothering you and I wanna know what it is," Jack insisted.

"Don't be stupid, Jack. I said it was nothing, so let's just leave it at that."

Well, it seemed as though Jack were causing Gabriel to become even more upset by asking him about it. That was the last thing he wanted to do. "Yeah. Alright."

They'd stopped at a convenience store for sodas before they quietly made their way to Gabriel's house. No one was at home, as usual. Gabriel's parents worked the late shift and Gabriel often spent his nights at Jack's house. But they would have more quiet studying at Gabriel's house.

"You know, Gabe. This probably wasn't a good idea," Jack began.

Gabriel sighed. "What do you mean?"

"We're studying together, but neither of us is even slightly good at math. It's like a camel trying to teach a tuna how to fly," Jack told him.

The darker teen snorted. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"Yeah. Just like the two of us trying to study math together."

"Well, what were we supposed to do? Drag home one of the nerds or something?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. That one girl with the freckles and the huge rack who sits in the back of the classroom coulda helped us out. She's really smart. What's her name again? Zoe?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "It's Sadie. And my parents don't want me to have girls over while they're not here."

Jack grinned and nudged his buddy. "How are they gonna know if they're not here? Come on. You've probably had hundreds of girls over."

"Of course not, idiot. You're always here, remember?"

Jack nodded thoughtfully. "Hey! Then why don't we both invite girls over here?"

"Aren't we getting a little off topic?"

"Not at all. I'm just saying that Sadie could come over and bring one of her friends or something and we can all 'study' together," Jack said, being sure to emphasize the word study.

Jack already knew that Gabriel knew that he wasn't talking about studying at all. "Can we focus a little here? It's already gonna be hard enough to understand this stuff without you thinking with your dick."

The blond couldn't help noticing that Gabriel seemed a little upset. "What's the matter with you? Do you like Sadie or something? You already knew who I was talking about and you knew her name and every—"

Gabriel cut him off with an abrupt, "No."

Jack looked at Gabriel for a long time. He was even crankier than usual. They always joked about everything and Gabriel rarely took him seriously. What was up with him?

He watched as Gabriel opened his math book to the section they were working on in class. So, he relented and joined his friend in an attempt to study.

It was a pretty good attempt. The next day, they both received C's for their effort. At least they didn't fail like on the last couple of tests.

As Jack was gathering his books after his last class of the day, he spotted Gabriel hurrying down the hall. This was a good chance for Jack to find out why Gabriel was always late meeting up with him after school.

Jack hoisted his backpack up on his back and trotted after his best friend, making sure not to make too much noise. He watched as Gabriel hurried into the boys' bathroom near their classroom and before Jack could follow him inside, Gabriel came right back out and hurried on down the hall. Thankfully, his dark-skinned friend didn't think to look in his direction.

The blond followed Gabriel on down the hall until he darted into the next restroom. Jack thought that Gabriel might come right back out like last time, so he waited around a bit. But when he didn't come out, Jack slowly opened the door to see Gabriel hurriedly scrubbing the wall.

What in the world was he doing?

The sound of the main door closing obviously startled Gabriel. When Gabriel turned to see who was there, he quickly tried to cover up what he was doing.

"What's going on, Gabe?" Jack asked.

"Don't look," was all Gabriel said.

Jack was completely confused until he saw what Gabriel was trying to cover up. There was a hastily scribbled statement on the wall: Reyes puts the GAY in Gabriel.

The first thing that came to jack's mind was that his best friend was being bullied. "Who did this?" the blond asked.

"It's nothing," Gabriel told him, still trying to hide what Jack had already seen.

"If someone's bullying you, we should tell someone. A teacher maybe."

"It's nothing. Just..."

"Or I could help you deal with them personally," Jack added, jabbing his fist into his palm for emphasis.

Gabriel looked surprised. "What? No. You can't do that. You'd get in trouble."

"I don't care. You're my best friend. Nobody messes with my friends."

"No, Jack. You have a reputation as a good kid. Don't mess that up," Gabriel told him sadly. He began cleaning the wall again and was surprised when Jack joined him.

"Well, the least I could do is help you."

The two were quiet for a while, but Jack became curious. Not only did he wonder who was saying such things about his best friend, but why?

He looked at Gabriel, who made it a point not to look back at him.

"Does this person write random rumors about you every day? Is that why you're always late meeting me after school?" Jack asked.

Gabriel sighed. "Looks like we're done here. Let's head home. I'm allowed to order pizza."

As soon as Jack heard the word pizza, he lost all focus. "Well let's not wait around this place. Let's go."

On their way to Gabriel's house, they spent the whole time disagreeing on what toppings to get on their pizza. They finally settled on pepperoni, onions and mushrooms. The onions were a compromise. Gabriel had wanted olives while Jack had wanted peppers.

As they sat and enjoyed their pizza, Jack frowned as he chewed. "I still can't believe that someone would bully you."

"You know how teenagers are. Just drop it," Gabriel said between bites.

"I just wanna know who it is so I can knock his teeth in one good time."

"Let it go, Jack."

"How long has this been going on?"

Gabriel was quiet for a while. "About a month."

At least he answered that. "So what exactly has he been doing?" Jack went on.

Gabriel glared at him for a while, then sighed and said, "It's like a game to him. A scavenger hunt, I guess. He writes stuff on bathroom walls after school and I 'm supposed to find them. If I don't, they'll be there for everyone to see the next day."

Jack groaned, aggravated. "Doesn't this clown have anything better to do than make up lies about people?"

Gabriel averted his eyes.

The next day, the two of them were walking to school behind a group of girls. Those girls were looking back at them and whispering and giggling among themselves.

Jack was feeling pretty confident that he and his buddy were the topic of their conversation. Especially since they kept looking back at them.

"Which one do you like?" Jack whispered. But when he looked at his friend, he didn't seem to be paying attention to what was going on.

"Huh?"

"Those girls," Jack whispered. "Which one would you go for?"

"I don't know. The blond one, I guess."

Jack laughed. "No way. What about the little exotic looking one? I like her way better."

"From what you were saying the other day, I thought you were into girls with freckles," Gabriel said, sounding a little bitter.

"Well, I like to stay open-minded in my tastes."

"Hey, Gabriel. You two are really close, huh?" one of the girls finally said.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Just shut up, Amanda."

The girls went back to giggling with each other and Jack looked confused. "What was that all about?" he asked.

"It's nothing," Gabriel said. "Don't pay attention to them. It's what they want you to do."

Jack chuckled. "Fine. But maybe we should get you that blond's phone number."

Gabriel rolled his eyes yet again.

Having a reputation as a 'good kid' had its advantages. Jack left his last class early so he could keep his eyes open for any unusual activity regarding writing on boys' bathroom walls.

He was in luck. Jack spotted a suspicious looking kid rushing down the hall and into the bathroom nearest his last class. Whether or not the kid saw him, he wasn't sure. Nor did he care.

Jack walked into the bathroom and sure enough, the kid was writing something on the wall. 'Gabriel luvs...' and then a horizontal line that could have been the beginning of the letter T.

"Hey!" Jack said, interrupting what the guy was doing. Upon closer inspection, Jack realized that he did recognize the kid. His name was Dustin and he was in Gabriel's last class. "You're the one who's bullying Gabriel?"

"Bullying? Of course not," the one by the name of Dustin said. "There's nothin' wrong with—"

"Hey!" Jack heard Gabriel say behind him.

"I'm glad you're here, Gabe. This has gone on long enough. Let's teach this guy a lesson," Jack said as he rolled up his sleeves. He had to admit, though, that he felt a little bad. This Dustin kid was way shorter and smaller than both he and Gabriel. Why was Gabriel allowing himself to be bullied by this little punk?

"We're not teaching anybody anything," Gabriel said to Jack.

"You're right. This has gone on long enough. I'll put a stop to it," the kid said. "But only if you let him see the inside of your locker, Gabriel."

Jack looked at them both strangely and he noticed that Gabriel's dark skin seemed to become flushed. And now that he thought about it, Jack had never seen the inside of Gabriel's locker. He'd never even been over there.

"Come on, Gabriel. You do this and I won't write on the walls anymore," Dustin told him.

"Fine. It's not really a big deal anyway," Gabriel said.

Jack was completely confused, but he followed the two teens to the lockers on their end of the hall. When Gabriel opened his locker, Jack saw that there were tons of pictures all over the insides of it. And they were all pictures of Jack.

"He's my best friend. Of course I have pictures of him everywhere," Gabriel said quietly.

Jack was flattered, but he also felt bad because he didn't have any pictures of Gabriel in his locker. "Wow. What a friend. Thanks, Gabe."

Dustin looked utterly astounded. "You always were slow on the uptake, huh, Jack?"

"Shut up, Dustin. Don't say that about him. You got what you wanted. Now, don't go around writing weird stuff on the walls anymore," Gabriel said. "Or I might start playing by my own rules. Got it?"

"Alright!" Dustin said. He was about to leave, but as he was passing by, he stood close to Jack and whispered, "The only reason someone keeps that many pictures of a person in their locker is if that person's a boyfriend, girlfriend or crush. Think about it."

With that, the weird kid left and Jack watched as Gabriel hurriedly shut his locker. The darker teen's face had become even more flushed, but he looked relieved. "Glad that's over. I'm gonna go clean that wall and then we can head home."

Of course Jack quietly went along to help Gabriel.

It took Jack a few minutes to put all the pieces together. When he thought about the first message he'd seen—'Reyes puts the GAY in Gabriel'—and the second message he'd seen—'Gabriel luvs', which was a partial message—and all the pictures of him in Gabriel's locker, he couldn't help making the connection.

Jack began feeling heat spread all over his face and up to his ears. "Gabe, can I ask you something?" he asked as they finished cleaning the wall.

"What is it?" Gabriel asked slowly, making sure not to look at his blond friend.

"Do...do you have a crush on me?" Jack asked.

"I don't know what that guy said to you, but are you really gonna believe everything you hear, Jack?" Gabriel asked, still not looking at him.

Jack quickly shook his head and laughed uncomfortably. "No, of course not. Besides, we've still gotta get that blond's phone number for you."