Chapter Four: Schism (restored: April 22, 2005)

I look around the classroom.

Marco and I are the only people in the back.

There's a huge homework assignment due and the teacher let us pair up. Marco was nice enough to help me again, that and save me from making myself look like a friendless ass.

"Train 'A' leaves North Battleford at 1:00pm. Going 128 kilometers per hour, it arrives at the Moose Jaw station at—" Marco reads a question out of the Algebra book, only to be interrupted by me.

"We did this one already."

"No, we didn't."

I lean across the table and read the jumble of letters sideways. "Yes, we did. You're in the wrong section. The answer's 80 kilometers per hour."

Marco stays silent as he looks over the page. He groans. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Honest mistake," I say and lean back into my chair, picking up a pencil and twirling it in my right hand like a drummer does with his sticks. Hey, a guy can dream. I soon stop when I notice Marco is staring at me.

I start to panic.

Maybe he wants to know why I've been stealing glances all day, but I think he may already know that I like him…. I told everyone I was gay after all.

Over the course of the weeks I've been here I've memorized Marco's face. I can tell if there's a crease that normally isn't there or if a hair is out of place…. Right now there's a hundred things wrong with his expression.

"How do you do it?" he asks weakly.

"Easily…if I knew what I was doing."

Marco lowers his voice slightly so he'll barely be heard over the hum of other students. "You're so comfortable with your sexuality. You didn't even seem to care that you nearly gave everyone at the lunch table a heart attack."

"I've done this many times before, it's nothing new to me."

"I wish I was as comfortable as you," Marco says below his breath, quickly looking back into his book. As if he never said his last sentence, he reads another math problem we've already done, but I go easy on him because of the huge weight on his shoulders.

I sigh. I want to slap Marco across the face for acting like this. I want to tell him self-loathing isn't attractive. I want to lean across the table and wrap my arms around him. I want to take him. I want to do all the things I shouldn't do.

"Vinny can't go to the concert if he stays another hour at the birthday party unless he doesn't go to soccer practice or to the record store. That'll leave him with an extra two hours to kill. But if it's a crappy band he wants to go see, something like the Strokes, then I hope he tries to off himself with the string to the pointy party hat."

Marco kicks a rock over the curb as we wait for Dana to pick us up.

With Marco's parents being gone for the weekend they want him to crash at a friend's house for the time being. For some strange reason, he thought he'd be more comfortable with me…. I'm giddy, don't get me wrong, but he's really been acting oddly lately.

"You sure you don't want to stay over at Ellie's? It's not too late. Once we get your stuff Dana can drop you off at her house."

Marco shakes his head. "Her parents wouldn't be too happy if I stayed over, we are going out after all."

"I was just making sure…. You all right?" I notice that Marco's eyes are fixated on the ground.

"Something's on my mind. I'm fine." He looks up and smiles at me lopsidedly.

Frowning I cast my gaze down the road, then back to Marco. "You're really starting to scare me, man."

"It's just…," Marco starts and pauses, most likely to think about what he wants to say. "It's just that I'm with Ellie, but I really like someone else…someone who I don't stand a chance with, y'know?"

My heart is ripped out of my chest by an invisible being. It's thrown onto the road in front of a bike rider. Run over. Blood and smashed heart puss everywhere.

There's a silence before Marco starts talking again. "We're opposites—" another long pause, like there's an Intelligence Agency out to get Marco and he has to word his sentences correctly or someone'll pop out of a sewer grate and cut off his head "—She really stands out and doesn't care what anyone thinks."

Oh look, a hawk's picking my heart up now, most likely to feed it to its little hawklets; talons ripping into the structure and more blood pouring to the ground.

Marco continues talking despite my inner attempts at shutting him up. "Gorgeous, amazing brownish eyes, tall, funny, and a great friend."

The hawk loses grip and my heart's hurled into a power line. Blamo. Sparks flying everywhere and the smell of burning heart wafting through the air. Who wants barbecue Cyril heart? I wouldn't recommend eating it, though, not unless you have a death wish.

I blink, coming back into reality as a car horn sounds.

Dana's red convertible is sitting right on the street in front of me. She smiles broadly from her station in the driver's seat.

"Sorry I'm so late, but you wouldn't believe the gridlock on the highway." She waves a hand, motioning for us to get in the car. "Hop in."

Being closer to the car I open the passenger side door. I move the seat back and look at Marco.

"After you," I try not to sob. Why did I ever think that I would have a chance with him? I'm so stupid.

"Thanks." Marco walks over and climbs into the back seat, having to move over a pile of crud to make room for himself.

I replace the seat and get into the car, slamming the door shut and already beginning to dread this weekend.

"Seat belts!" Dana calls, pulling out into the street and starting to drive us to Marco's house a few blocks away.

I sigh into the wind blowing at my face, not caring that my hair is getting messed up or that if we run into another car I'll go flying through the windshield because I didn't put my seat belt on. The only thing that's keeping my mind off my heart-broken state is the nagging voice in the back of my mind.

In the rush of getting ready for school before missing the bus I don't think I took my medication.