Wow, ten reviews, that's the most I've ever got! Thanks everyone, it's really encouraging to see you like my story, I just hope I won't disappoint you later.
Jen - I've tried to get rid of that irritating punctuation mistake, thanks for pointing it out. That's what happens when you let Word autocorrect things for you!
"Tommy, are you you?" said a whispered voice.
Tommy turned to see Merton standing staring into his locker rooting through the contents as if he were looking for something. "Yep, plain old present day Tommy, no kisses, no confusion." Tommy glanced into Merton's locker and saw that there was hardly anything in it. Judging by way he was searching through he would have thought it was full to overflowing. "Lost something?" he asked.
"No," said Merton, still whispering, "I just didn't think you'd want us to be seen talking to each other for a few days, not after what happened yesterday."
Part of Tommy wanted to agree with him, the part that was so revolted by the idea of what had happened that he never wanted to even see Merton again. Thankfully that was the smallest part of him and seemed to be shrinking by the minute. The rest of him was split into two more parts, half that wanted to carry on as normal, after all it wasn't really him that had kissed Merton, was it? And half that was curious and terrified by the strange, new emotions that he was pretending with all his might that he wasn't feeling. No matter how much he tried, the images of him and Merton just wouldn't go and he found his mind wondering back to them again and again. He tried to think about what it could mean, but he wasn't sure he liked the answer. Either way, Merton was his best friend and he wasn't going to let anything come between them. "This is ridiculous, Merton, I'm not going to not talk to you because of what people might think, I don't care what they think. And you've never worried about other people's opinions, so stop trying to protect me."
As soon as he said it he realised he may have made a mistake. It was true that Merton didn't seem to mind constantly being called a freak and being bullied for the way he dressed and acted, but just because he didn't act like he minded didn't mean that it didn't bother him. Not only that, but the rumours that were probably beginning to circulate around the school were nothing to do with Merton's dress sense or the style of his hair. People would be whispering altogether different things behind his back, untrue things, things that Merton shouldn't have to put up with. Why would anyone want to have to put up with that unnecessarily? Tommy asked himself, but there was a bigger question praying on his thoughts.
Why didn't he mind? Why was it that instead of being filled with dread at the idea of the rumours flying around, the pointed fingers and the laughing faces, he was excited? He wanted to know what it would be like, not the experience of being a laughing stock, but what it would be like to have people think that Merton was his boyfriend.
Merton slowly pulled his head out of his locker and looked at Tommy in confusion, wondering what strange thoughts could be going on in the jock's head. "Alright, have it your way," he said, "but you're not going to like it, don't say I didn't warn you."
Tommy smiled and put an arm around Merton's shoulder as they walked to class, a gesture that the day before no one would have thought anything of, but now it could mean something else entirely. It didn't, but it could.
Merton looked at the empty corridor and wondered what to make of Tommy's actions and whether they would be the same when someone was really around to see them. He had felt for sure that everything would change now, and it was changing, he just wasn't sure in which way.
Tommy tried not to meet anyone's eyes as he walked along the corridor to his third class of the day. He didn't know whether he was being paranoid or whether he was really being stared at. He knew he'd always attracted a certain amount of attention as captain of the football team and one of the most popular guys at the school, but he'd never noticed smiles and smirks being concealed behind hands or by people turning away. He'd never noticed conversations stopping as soon as someone set eyes on him, and as much as he sometimes liked to be the centre of attention, he'd never noticed quite so many people staring at him before. Was he being paranoid? Could it be that he was making everything up in his head because he was feeling more self conscious than usual? He didn't think so. Merton had been right, he didn't like it, not one bit. Everywhere he went he felt eyes staring at him, waiting for him to do something else.
Had he been spoiled by his social position at school? Did other students have to put up with this every day, wondering and worrying what people were thinking and saying about them?
Did Merton?
His fellow members of the football team seamed to be avoiding him, it was almost as if they were afraid of him, and everywhere he looked there were those damn smirks. He made a vow to himself that if he ever did find himself sucked into the past and confronted with Merton, who had been dead for years, he wouldn't kiss him. No matter how strong the temptation he had to remember, kissing was out of the question. If he remembered not to do it when he became future Tommy, future Tommy wouldn't have kissed Merton and he neither of them would have to be putting up with this.
He wondered how Merton was coping. He hadn't seen his best friend since first period ended and he had seemed fine then. Of course, Merton was a little more used to dealing with that kind of attention than Tommy, but the sort of negative attention Merton usually attracted was the sort that he wanted to attract or brought on by something he had done himself. Tommy wondered again whether he had done the right thing by insisting that they carry on as normal at school, Merton might have wanted to distance himself from the incident as much as he could. He might have been as embarrassed as Tommy felt he should be. He decided that when they met up in their next class he would ask him and find out for certain what Merton wanted to do. It was true they would both probably receive the same kind of treatment whether they didn't speak for weeks or carried on as normal, but at least they could be trying to do something about it. The way things were, Tommy felt as though anything that might happen would be partially his own fault because he hadn't discouraged the rumours as much as he could have. If he did something about it, it was all future Tommy's fault, unfortunately that didn't help him much because if future Tommy was real, Tommy was going to become him one day and go back in time, kiss Merton and cause all this trouble. Thinking about it made his head hurt.
Tommy didn't want to cause his best friend any more embarrassment than was necessary just to try to sort out what was going on inside his own head. Merton had embarrassed Tommy a few times in the past but he couldn't really remember any time when he had embarrassed Merton.
Then again, if he thought about it like that, maybe the Goth deserved a little payback.