Chapter two:
Now, when you're a senior in high school, you know who you are, and who everyone around you is. So you think. You develop a type of camaraderie with the rest of your graduating class that you never felt through the past three years leading up to this year. Because now you're seniors. You got through the war that is high school together, and all your friends suddenly become your best friends, and all your acquaintances become your friends.
I sat next to Roxas every day in every single class we had together since we met in eighth grade math.
We became friends in ninth grade, but you meet a lot of people in your first year of high school. He was dating Kairi, I was seeing a girl from another school none of my friends even ever met. Both of those relationships ended in tenth grade. Me and Roxas became closer, me and Xig stopped talking. Roxas talked to a lot of people, but he never really had that many actual friends. I had friends outside of school from before I came to the school district. Saix and Xion. I still talked to them but, I pretty much dropped everyone else to be attached at the hip to this blond spikey haired boy.
I'm not really sure why.
By eleventh grade, we did everything together. He slept over at my house every single weekend to escape his house and his crazy parents who liked to criticize everything he did and push all their responsibilities onto him. Responsibilities being a little sister Rikku who was about ten years younger than him. Not that he didn't love her, he just wanted to stop being a parent at the age of sixteen. Imagine that.
Well that was my fault according to his mother. Who also thought it was a good time to start making fun of him for his "boyfriend". Little did she now that was the year I decided to come out to Roxas and a few of our other close friends like Xigbar. I would have told Nam if we were better friends at the time. I was still talking to girls, but I wanted it to not be a surprise to my close friends when I eventually started hooking up with guys too.
Once I told my friends, I think that's when the homo wave really hit me, and for the first time since I started thinking about it in fifth grade, that I really acknowledged and accepted it. I guess it's hard to figure it out when you went to a catholic school for the first seven years of your education and surround yourself with highly religious friends, even if you think the whole thing is a load of shit.
In eleventh grade I made Roxas go to prom with me. Not as a date, but just to go. We went with a group of friends. I think that might have been when I started to have an inkling of my attraction to Roxas…
I wouldn't have even said I had a crush on him at that point. I just…liked him. A lot. And didn't want anyone else to have him, even though we weren't together; and neither of us wanted to be. Roxas was straight.
In twelfth grade, things started changing. Me and Roxas were still best friends, but we started expanding our friendship circle again for the first time since ninth grade. We started getting close to Xigbar again after his crazy broad of an ex left our school. Namine started hanging out with us all the time the summer before twelfth, so I guess things started to change before that. With her came Seifer and Rai. Selphie was around a lot. A boy named Tidus sat with us in the morning and was in a graphic design class with pretty much all of our friends that we took as seriously as our creative writing course.
The Friday after the fire at Namine's we were sitting at the breakfast table together. When I say we, I mean me, Roxie, Namine, Seifer, Xigbar, Tidus, and Selphie.
"Guys we should go camping prom weekend instead of going to prom." Roxas said out of the blue, "It can be for my birthday too".
"This is the greatest idea you've ever had," I said sipping on my customary coffee I brought to school every morning.
"Yes! Can we promise to actually do this?" Tidas yelled with excitement, "I'm one hundred percent in if everyone else is".
"Seriously prom blows, and although I look damn good in a suit and tie, I have to say, I'd much rather go get shit faced in the woods with my friends." I admitted to my friends.
"We're in, I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on another night of being stuck in a room of people I don't like for a second time in my life." Namine said matter of factly to the table.
"Yeah this'll be great! Can I bring Rai and Yuu too? I mean the more the merrier right?" Seifer asked Roxas.
Roxas was filled with enthusiasm at this point, "Yeah sure! I don't care! Everyone bring whoever"!
Selphie looked at Tidus, "We should ask Wakka if he wants to go, I'm sure he's not going to go to the dance".
"Yeah, good idea Selph." He agreed.
"Well I'm only going to this shindig if there's alcohol." Xigbar finally made his input towards his seal of approval.
"Didn't you hear me numskull? That's what I already said." I knocked on his head as he pushed me away. "Baby don't push me away like that I luh you". I blew a kiss and winked at the man next to me.
"Get away from me you fuck".
"Love you too".
"I'm so excited about this," Roxas said, "I need to get away from here, even if it's just for the weekend".
The bell rang and it was cue for us to go to our designated homerooms. "Just text me guys, I'll see you in class". Roxas said to the table. He waited for me to gather my things and his excited face from before went back to his normal solemn look.
"I'm excited about this Rox," I said throwing my bag over my shoulder, "this is definitely going to be a better time than last year".
"Yeah that's for sure," he sighed, "I just need to get away for a little ya know? My mother won't leave me alone, and everything I do is wrong, I just want to go away and have a good time for once".
"Yeah," we walked together up the stairs to where our homerooms were. "Look I'll see you in class okay?"
"Yeah see you then". Roxas walked to his classroom and left me feeling uneasy.
I spent the rest of the day worrying about him, and wondering what was on the blonds mind. I know his parents were constantly on him. But he was doing good with school like usual, he barely had to try. He seemed ecstatic to say the least to make plans to go do something for a weekend with a group of people which he never did before.
As much as I wanted to hang out with new people and have more close friends, maybe a boy or girlfriend for the first time in forever instead of just a bunch of hookups no one gave a shit about, I didn't like the feeling that Roxas was starting to pull away from me. After years of him clinging to me and only me, in a way that was content, he was different this year. He started worrying about the future again, college, and leaving his parent's house for good. Every once in a while he would say something about finding a girlfriend, and this new 'more the merrier' attitude was freaking me out.
"Axel" I heard him say to me as I stood in the hallway in front of my open locker.
"Huh?" I looked over to him standing alone with his bag and his jacket, "Ready to go?" I asked.
"You've been super spacey lately". He looked at me with narrowed eyes and a borderline pout. "What's wrong"?
"What? Nothing's wrong." Nothing was wrong right? "Let's go".
We walked silently together to the car Roxas picked me up in every morning and drove back to my house making small talk about our classes that day.
That night Roxas stayed over like usual. He stayed over all weekend every weekend, and most of the time I didn't mind. Like this weekend, I wanted him around.
We sat in my room on my bed like usual. He worked on homework, and I was on the popular social networking site of the time when a girl named Payne from our class messaged me with the classic, 'heyy'.
After a few minutes of us doing the usual small talk online full of 'whats up?' and 'not much, just chillin's' she finally got to the point with a 'Ya know, you're pretty cute ;)'
That god forsaken wink face.
'Oh yeah?' I typed back smirking.
'yeah ;)'
'you are too ya know?'
A few more small conversational sentences lead to, 'hey why don't you text me sometime', and me and the white haired girl started a shallow text conversation that'd last all night.
"Who are you talking to?" Roxas finally asked.
"Payne".
"Like from school?"
"Yeah".
"Why?"
"Does it matter?" I asked sharply.
"Nope, do whatever you want". Roxas' eyes squinted and he lied down on the bed that we shared when he stayed over and turned to the wall, "I'm going to sleep".
"For fucks sake, Roxas what is the big deal?"
"Good night Axel!" He said without turning over to look at me.
"My god you're a pain in the ass". I got up to turn off the light and stumbled back to my bed to lay down next to the blond.
I continued to text payne that night about what a ball buster Roxas was. And occasionally went along with the 'you're really sexy ya know?' kind of bullshit she was throwing at me until I fell asleep.
The next morning Roxas was before me like usual. The fucker could get up at five in the morning and be awake until two the next. I liked to sleep. I wiped the sleep away from my eyes and started to stretch.
"Good morning". He said nonchalantly like nothing happened. "Do you want to go to the mall today? I just kinda want to do something. Maybe go see a movie or something"?
"Um" I shook my head and tried to wake up so I could think about what he was saying. "Yeah sure".
He looked at me and smiled, his blue eyes practically sparkling. There was a strange innocence about Roxas. He was naïve even though he knew first handedly how awful people could be. He was naïve to himself. "Awesome. I'm going to go take a quick shower".
We acted like a couple. A very platonic couple. We had for a long time. We almost had an unspoken deal that we were not together. Roxas was straight, he was my best friend. Fine. But were neither of us supposed to be in a relationship ever again? Fuck that. Not if he's trying to branch off to other people like he was.
Later we walked around the mall. We went in a few stores where we bought a random assortment of crap. A pair of plugs for my ears, a few band tees, a new wallet I just had to have, and a new book all came home with me. Roxas bought a tee shirt and a new hoodie for himself. When we walked by the pet store he looked longingly at the puppies in the window.
"You wanna see a movie?" I asked as I motioned towards the movie theater with my head. At the very least, it snapped him out of his puppy dream.
"Yeah sure". He smiled and linked arms with me as he took me over to the line for the box office. I grimaced slightly as he did that, and looked away blushing a little bit. Why does he do this kind of stuff if he's still playing this straight card?
We went to see the most recent addition to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I didn't pay much attention. No one really shivers me timbers in those movies per say, and the fact that there is so many of them, it was getting old. I don't think Roxas was really into it much either, but both wanted to get out of the house.
We went home after and spent the rest of the weekend together as usual. I continued to talk to Payne and Roxas pretended not to notice. And we went on about our wannabe couple life as usual. He asked me to play with his hair at night like usual. And Roxas continued to be his usual clingy self. But I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his head while he continued to frustrate me daily by doing little things typical friends don't do.