The room was quiet. Dead quiet, probably for the third time now. Bryce was missing again. I probably knew him more than anyone in the entire baseball team and I should've noticed his grey, depressing mood when the match ended. I should've said something to him. Why didn't I say something? I looked at the rest of the team, and even after the shower, Bryce was being stared down by Steve, who really loathed losing, and loved to blame others.

Bryce was the closest I've been to with someone. He made a part of me. His dark, tan skin, his laughter, his beautiful poems and short stories, his beautifully sc- Wait. Was I in love with him? It can't be. I'm straight. Cindy proved that. Did she? Did she? I thought about it, and it all felt so strange. We were at our best in our room, but neither of us had shown actual attraction. It was only until I had him disappear on me for the third time when I realized it was something more than just friendship.

It was then, that Rafe, my new best friend, came into my room. Even as the new kid from all the way in Colorado, he had fit in well with Steve and the gang since day one, and had been my best friend when Bryce started to go distant from me. He was panting, and looked like he watched a ship hit an iceberg.

"Hey," he stuttered a bit, nervously fidgeting his fingers. "Is, um, Bryce here, by any chance?"

"No, I'm actually kinda worried about him."

My heart began to pang.

Rafe told me about Toby, a gay kid with spikey hair and a small frame, and Albie, a shorter and chubbier boy, both whom are Rafe's friends, and their findings on a police scanner. Listening to Rafe's news, I just pushed Rafe aside, and I ran. I ran and ran. To the quad. The field. The gym. The library. He wasn't in anywhere. Curfew was coming, it was 10:45 and we'd be locked in our rooms in fifteen minutes.

I ran back, out of breath and sweating.

"He's not anywhere in the library, he's not anywhere around the quad, I don't know what to do here. Help me figure out what to do!" I began to get louder, as my mind began to drown out any sense of rational thought. Bryce had disappeared. Where could he be going?

I told Rafe about his look when we lost the match. About how Steve and the others treated him after the game. He was clinically depressed. He hated taking pills. But most importantly, something had changed for this year. Bryce was always less extroverted than the others, but so was I. That was why we hanged around.

"A couple nights ago, I woke up to him sitting by a corner, and he would stare at a wall for hours at a time. I'd go sit with him, but he'd have no response." I began to tear up slightly. My desperation began to show in my voice.

"Rafe, not good. I'm really scared." My voice cracked.

"Okay. We'll go find him."

"There's more, he has already skipped curfew twice." I told him about Bryce's absence in the campus past curfew. This was the third time. And if you missed curfew for the third time, you're kicked out. Both of us turned our eyes to my alarm clock. 10:56pm.

"Shit."

"He has a car. He could be anywhere." I added.

I followed Rafe to his room, where Toby and Albie were. I explained to them about Bryce, and before I knew it, I was climbing through the first-floor bathroom's open window, falling into a bush. We dodged the floodlights and avoided the parking lot, eventually arriving at Sleepy, Albie's car.

We went to Bryce's favorite diner first. On the drive, some stupid argument happened between Rafe and the two boys, but I was too busy thinking to listen. When we arrived at Sparky's, the diner, I rushed into the diner while the three waited in the car. There was nothing. Not even any evidence. I asked the waitresses and waiters, but after checking the bathroom, I returned to the car empty handed. My heart began to pump faster.

We began to drove through the crowded streets of Natick, but there was nothing. This was rural Boston, but a black teen, even if they were easy to spot, wasn't like Bryce. He would be singled out by me even if he was in a crowd of black high schoolers.

I called him, probably for the hundredth time, and there was no answer.

"Bryce liked going to Boston." I spoke, remembering his constant drives with me to the famed city. It was already 11:20. This was my first time missing curfew.

"Did you call his cell?" Albie asked.

"No answer."

"Because Boston is a big place."

"I know. It's not going to work." My voice began to faulter.

"I guess we need to go to…"

"I'd say the police, then the hospital." As I said it, Rafe looked at me. He could see my fear from my voice. I began to tear up once again, feeling the panic that probably only came from me.

The police had nothing on him, but the nurse in the hospital's reception knew something. She knew that we were Natick boys.

We sped off back to the school. The car was now quiet. Everyone was saddened, maybe depressed by Bryce's disappearance. Albie turned off his car, and we got out. And as we were following Albie back to East Hall, the floodlights filled our vision.

"Why don't we just use the front door." Mr. Donnelly, our coach and the head of security, spoke behind the floodlight.

After he got us back in through the front door, we were escorted by Mr. Donnelly to his office. He explained to us, that the nurse from the hospital had called him about us.

"Bryce is in the hospital. He's going to be fine." He said, attempting to comfort our worried minds. "He had what they called a major depressive episode. In layman's terms, that's a depression."

As he continued on about Bryce, I sighed. Anger began to brew on me. The next stage of grief. Donnelly only spoke of his value as a team. My fist tensed up.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" I shouted. "Why didn't you come up and let me know?!"

I instantly regretted my sudden outburst. He told me that he arrived at my room too late. When we were already on our trip outside. Rafe began to spill the beans.

"I'm sorry, it was my idea. We heard something on the scanner- "

"You guys have a police scanner?" The coach looked at Rafe, confused.

The police scanner wasn't a punishable offence, so when Albie confessed, Donnelly broke into a grin, and had let us go.

"I'm sorry about Bryce, and I'm sorry that I was such a jerk. I don't think sometimes." Albie apologized to me.

"It's okay. Thanks." I saddeningly replied.

As we arrived at Rafe's room, he looked to me.

"I'm gonna hang out for a bit, if that's okay."

"Sure," I said. "I could use the company."

My mood began to improve, and when we returned to my room, he sat on the floor, beside Bryce's bed while I laid down on mine. I noticed Rafe pulling on one of Bryce's socks.

"Having fun?" I said, with a beginning of a smile.

"In Colorado, I used to spend all my Saturday nights doing this." Rafe said, with a stupid grin on his face. "I'd got to the laundromat and steal single socks out of different dryers, and take 'em home, and pull on them. It's pretty much my favorite thing."

I smiled, and jumped to the closet, opening up my mini fridge to get two Gatorades.

"Bryce and I used to mix this stuff with vodka." I explained. "He called it a plastic screwdriver, I guess because it's like a screwdriver but the juice is, I don't know, not real."

Rafe sat up, and asked: "Do you have any- "

"I think Bryce does." I began to rummage under Bryce's bed, pulling out another sock.

"He called these orphans." I said, looking at the sock. "When he folded his laundry, he always called the matching of socks Sock Mahjong, like the computer card game."

Rafe picked up the sock, chuckling at the idea. "I wish I knew him better; he sounds funny."

I wish I knew him better. I wish anyone had knew him better. I then found a quite new bottle of vodka, filled our drinks with it, and sipped it. He enjoyed it. I did as well. I never quite gotten the idea of drinking, but if you were going to be spending time with Steve, you were bound to have a few drinks every few weeks.

We had fun that night, and got another couple of plastic screwdrivers. Both of us laughed at my imitation of Bryce's imitations. I began to crack up with a huge belly laugh, rolling on my bed, hearing the happy laugh of Rafe. We began to tear up, laughing like two old best friends.

I swept the tears off my face, the image of Bryce coming up again. "I should've said something this afternoon." I said, full of regret for my past actions.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Rafe said, consoling me. He moved to sit on my bed.

"I didn't do anything right either." I said, on the verge of tears. "And I will never forgive myself for that." My heart ached once again. This was love. Romantic love.

Tears began to roll down once again, due to the combination of alcohol and my returning thoughts. Rafe wrapped his arms around me, his warm, skinny body warming up my cold broken heart. I began to cry to his shoulder. My heart, my mind began to open to him.

"He's my best friend. He's made this place bearable for two years. What's going to happen to him?" What's going to happen to me?

"He's going to be fine. He'll be back here again, I know it." It was then that I knew Rafe was going to be my new Bryce. His sweet voice calmed me down, and I began to open up his history with me.

"He sounds like a great friend." Rafe said. I sniffled. Rafe smelled like alcohol and shampoo. I began to melt around him, enjoying the euphoria of the hug.

"Why didn't I just stick up for him?"

"The reason I didn't. We were afraid." It made sense. Steve was the alpha of our group. If I stood up to him, if he stood up to him, we'd be pushed out. We'd be losers.

"You're a really good person, Rafe. I was wrong about you. You're not like those other guys." I thought back to Steve and Rodriguez's disgusting comments. I could've done better.

"You think?"

"I know."

"Thanks."

"I like this Rafe better than the football and party Rafe."

"Me too." Rafe replied.

He let go, sitting on the burgundy chair Bryce brought. We finished our plastic screwdrivers, and after looking at the clock, Rafe stood up, preparing to go back to bed. Then, something came out of me. Something that Straight Me had regretted ever since.

"I don't wanna sleep alone tonight." Maybe I was just drunk. But I thought about it. Just being around him made me feel so good.

"That's sorta… I don't know…" Rafe scratched the back of his head, with a slight smirk. "It's a pretty small bed…"

"In Bryce's bed, you maniac." We both cracked up from that comment. Surely, he wasn't serious. Hopefully he is gay. Isn't. What?

He then went over to Bryce's bed, taking off his pants and curling into Bryce's sheets.

"Goodnight." Rafe said.

I turned off the lights, replying: "Thanks for staying, friend."

"You got it, friend."