The next couple of weeks carried on in much the same fashion.

Adam's jealousy increased on a daily basis while Barry became more and more confused and anxious.

Poor Jay, meanwhile, was completely lost. Any time he tried to talk to Adam about what was wrong, the other blonde would immediately brush him off, saying that everything was fine.

It eventually got to the point where Adam's jealousy turned to suspicion, and rather than clinging to Jay, Adam began avoiding him altogether. This lasted all of a day before Jay had had it and decided to confront Adam about what the hell was going on.


He made sure to get to school extra early that morning, giving him time to talk to Adam before the first bell.

His boyfriend, however, was nowhere to be seen. It was getting close to time for classes to start when Jay decided to give up, figuring Adam hadn't come to school that day and he'd just go to his apartment at the end of the day to both talk to him and make sure he was okay.

As Jay was walking to his first class, he did a double take at what looked like someone huddled in a corner.

He walked over and asked uneasily, "Hey, you okay?"

The person's head lifted to reveal the bugged out eyes and heavy breathing of Barry.

Jay remembered the few times from when they were little when Barry would have a panic attack if he got too nervous or worried. Jay pulled Barry's head to his chest in order to help steady the other boy's breathing.

Once he felt the attack was under control, Jay asked softly, "What happened? What brought this one on?"

"Adam hates me. I don't know what I did to him. And now he's even mad at you! I'm causing all these problems!"

Jay, ever the caretaker, was quick to reassure. "No, you're not. And Adam doesn't hate you; he's just..."

Jay struggled to come up with an explanation for his boyfriend's recent odd behavior when he himself couldn't think of a reason for it.

"He's just in a funk right now. But I'm going to talk to him today and everything will be fine, and me and him will be back to normal by tomorrow."

Barry let out a relieved laugh as he removed his face from Jay's chest. As he looked up, his eyes grew wide at the sight of Adam Copeland with an absolutely murderous look on his face.


Over those two weeks, Adam had no idea what he was doing. Every rational part of his being kept telling him to talk to Jay.

Unfortunately, Adam had never really been a very rational person.

He liked to think of this aspect of himself as being impulsive and acting on his instincts.

Jay preferred to think of him as a drama queen.

This lack of rational thinking tended to amplify one hundred-fold whenever Jay was concerned, which made those two weeks two of the most confusing and agonizing he had ever experienced.

He began to question Jay's fidelity, which, if he thought rationally, was utterly ridiculous. Jay was both the best man and the best friend he could ever ask for, and he was almost loyal to a fault. Still, the war going on within Adam's head caused him to avoid Jay altogether, even though that in itself felt unnatural to him.

In that time, his traitorous mind kept conjuring up the worst possible scenarios.

His mother had of course taken notice of Jason's absence and Adam's constant presence at home, but whenever she attempted to question her son about it, she got no real answers.


Everything culminated that fateful day.

Adam had rolled out of bed late that morning, a combination of lack of sleep due to his nightmarish thoughts and a complete lack of desire to start another day of avoiding the one person he longed to be near.

Once he got to school, he shuffled down the hallways, his eyes fixed on his shoes. As he got closer to his first class, he glanced up and came face-to-face with his absolute worst fear.

TBC


I finally got a chance to update...Sorry it took so long! :( This is another chapter I had to write entirely on sticky notes at my job today. And for those of you reading The Players and Their Masks, I should finally be updating that story soon. Reviews really are amazing and I appreciate every one. :)