"You're gay, right?"
I looked up. Three days in the hell hole called boarding school and I had already been found out. I loathed people who could see right through me.
But I was finding it hard to hate this particular boy.
"What?"
He held out his hand. "I'm Zack. Your comrade, compadre." He flashed me perfectly straight teeth behind, what I could see, a perfectly kissable mouth.
Dammit. I had a boyfriend!
"How-" I took his hand in disbelief. I could feel my mouth hanging open, because my tongue was suddenly drying out.
"Your hair is perfectly straightened each day. You don't have any disgusting stains on your clothes, and your shoes match your outfit," he pointed out.
"But-"
"You're one in a million around here, pal. I'm surprised you've made it this far."
"I'm not-"
"You really don't have to deny it around me. I have plenty of experience in that category, and any excuse you give me I'll see right through." He finally let go of my hand. The finger with Dylan's promise ring on it singed right through.
It, and the picture, was my only remembrance of him. Serenity pulsed through my head.
I missed him so.
"I'm Marco." I smiled back at Zack. Finally someone who might understand.
"Let's walk." He motioned to a corridor leading to the dorms. "I'm gonna take a shot in the dark here. Your parents found out you're gay, they got mad, accused you of sin, and sent you here, shutting you off from the world as you know it?"
He could really read me. And I still couldn't find it in me to hate him.
"Right on the money."
"That was the obvious answer. Now what I can't figure out is if that ring on your finger is something Grandma gave you last Christmas or a sign of your boyfriend's everlasting love." He looked up at the elevators in the dorm lodge. "What floor?"
"Three," I answered weakly.
He pushed the button and it instantly dinged. We stepped in simultaneously.
"His name's Dylan," I quietly offered.
Zack smiled again. We reached my floor, and he ushered me out by his hand. I took the key to the dorm out of my pocket, my picture falling out with it.
He reached it first.
"He's gorgeous," Zack remarked, his head placed in a quirky position.
Checking out the competition, I supposed.
Wow, I don't have a big ego.
"The rest of the pictures were for my presidential election last year, but he kinda decided to mess the last one up." I chuckled and let us into the room.
Thank God my roommate was gone.
"You love him?" Zack asked pryingly, sitting down on my bed.
"Uh-" I sat down next to him.
"Yeah, you do," Zack decided.
Tears exploded from Lord-knows-where. I hadn't felt them coming, and I didn't know that they had arrived until I felt them on my cheeks.
"Hey, man. It's all good." Zack patted me on my shoulder.
I wiped the mess off of my face. "It's- it's not like I'll ever really see him again."
"What about…" He whipped something small out of his pocket. "Talking to him?" I finally realized it was a cell phone.
My savior.
"You really mean it?"
"Don't waste another gosh-darn second!"
I snatched the damn thing out of his hand. In four seconds flat Dylan's number was connected through and the phone was ringing in my ear.
"Hello?"
Dylan. He answered on the second ring.
"Dya-" I started off pronouncing his name wrong.
"Look, I'm sorry, but I'll have to call you back. Paige, you found anything?" The phone clicked off.
I stared at the screen in disbelief. I had heard his voice. He'd been right there, and I'd let him go.
"Call him back, dammit!" Zack reached for the redial button.
"Zack, give up." I fell back onto the bed.
"It's useless."
Zack was the only thing that kept me sane for the next couple of months. Any thoughts that passed through my head, and observations I had, I told to Zack. And I'd always be surprised to find out that he agreed with everything I said. The more and more time I spent with him and Dylan just growing to be a memory, I grew to love Zack.
And boy did he know it.
"First time I saw you I knew I liked you," he announced one afternoon, the two of us sitting in a stairwell together. It was our secret hideout. A place no one knew about but us.
"First time I saw you, I was pretty intimidated, to tell you the truth."
We smiled together.
"But I knew that your heart belonged to someone else."
He touched my hand. And, to put it directly, I touched it back.
It was time to let go of Dylan, and I knew it.
"Not anymore," I whispered.
He slowly slid the promise ring off of my finger and put it into the drain pipe next to us.
"Five months and ten days I've been waiting. You're way over due, Mister."
I kissed him, long and hard. He ran his fingers through my hair, I ran mine through his. We touched each other's cheeks.
And he was crying when we pulled away.
"You still love him," he whimpered.
"My life's full of heartbreak," I stated.
"Oh, Marco. Ellie loved you. Dylan loves you. I love you. How much more love can you need?"
We were sitting on the bench. I had my head rested on Paige's shoulder like a pathetic cat.
Ellie was dead. Dylan still loved me. And for the first time in three years, I confided in somebody about Zack, the guy I thought I could love. Not to be confused with my lovely, oblivious roommate.
"What happened to the ring?" she asked.
"I picked it back up when Zack ran off in a fit of love angst. I strung it around this chain," I pulled out my necklace to show Paige. "I never talked to Zack again, after that."
"Your heart belonged to someone else."
"I have to see him, Paige."