Deliverance
Jeff's in his room, watching TV, only not really watching it, because he keeps getting stuck remembering the way Byron looked all lost and… Jeff stares at the TV and tries to get caught up in the show, which seems to be some generic soap opera, set in California, with happy teenage surfer boys and girls, not unlike his Californian friends.
'Ugh, not helping.' He mutters, as the camera pans out over the ocean and shows all the people surfing. He still has almost three months until he heads back there, and he can't wait. Things are much less complicated in Palo City. There are no best friends in love with him in Palo City.
Everything's so fucking complicated. Jeff wants to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, make out with girls and just do something generally stupid and totally teenage that won't be complicated. He doesn't want to think of Byron and the letter and the way that his eyes looked when Jeff pulled his hand away.
It's been almost a week since the incident with the letter, and Jeff's talked with Byron a few times over the phone, but neither of them has mentioned it, and the conversations were always distant and sounded strange to Jeff's ears.
He knows he shouldn't have rushed into Byron's room like that, like a fucking madman. Byron's been weird about it for the entire week and Jeff knows he has good reason, even if he doesn't say so.
'Fuck.' Jeff knows swearing won't help, but he feels like swearing, god damn it, so he's going to swear. He throws his pillows to the ground to punctuate his words. 'Fuck fuck fucking fuck.'
'Jeffery, that is really not appropriate language. I will not tolerate curses in this house.' Jeff jumps, sitting up fast on his bed, his head snapping in the direction of the door. Richard is standing there, staring at him.
'God, can't you knock before you come into my room?' Jeff yells it, and he knows he's going to get into trouble, but he doesn't really care.
'I won't have you speaking to me like that, young man.' Oh geez, "young man". Jeff rolls his eyes.
'Oh yeah?' Jeff says it in that sarcastic tone he knows that Richard hates.
'You are in my house, Jeff; you should show your mother and myself the proper respect. I would never have dreamed of shouting at my father when I was your age.' Jeff's mouth drops open.
'You're not my father.' Jeff's voice is icy. He stands up and races out the door, slamming past Richard and knocking him off balance. He picks up his mother's car keys from the table in the hall and makes a move for the front door. His mom looks up from her book as he races past and she calls out to him, but his blood is pounding in his ears so loud that he doesn't hear her.
'Taking your car, mom, back later.' He shouts back into the house as he opens the front door, not waiting to hear her response. Richard's coming down the stairs with an angry glint in his eyes and Jeff makes a break for it.
Jeff jumps in the car and starts it up, driving fast, but carefully, away from the house. Last thing he needs is to total his mom's car. See what Richard would do to him then.
'Well, shit. What the fuck do I do now?' He mutters to himself while manoeuvring the car around in a U-turn when he realises that the street he just drove down is a dead-end cul-de-sac.
He drives aimlessly for a while, just running the fight through his head over and over again.
"I would never have dreamed of shouting at my father when I was your age."
"You're not my father."
Jeff groans and flips on the radio, finding something loud and angry sounding and just letting the music wash over him as he drives. He has a vague feeling that he's just driving around in circles, and he's slightly worried that he doesn't seem to recognise much of the streets he's driving through.
Just then he turns a corner and comes to the high school. He has to laugh a little. Okay, so maybe he just wasn't paying attention to where he was. And things look kinda different at night.
Seeing the school gives him images of Byron, which is just as bad, if not worse than the fight with Richard. He has to fix the thing with Byron. He can stand having a stepfather who hates him, but a best friend who seems to be simultaneously in love with him and hating his guts? Yeah, he needs to fix that, pronto.
Jeff sighs and pulls the car over and just sits there with the engine idling. He thinks of Byron and everything the letter said and how talking to him about it actually felt. He decides to head to the Pike household now and try to talk to Byron in person. Maybe it'll work better in person.
He revs the car and drives towards Byron's house.
Jeff pulls up the car out the front of the Pike house. There's one car there, but it's not one he recognises and there are only a few lights on in the house. There's one in general living room area, one in one of the girl's bedrooms and one in the triplet's bedroom.
He takes a deep breath and leans his head down on the steering wheel for a few minutes. He wonders if it's too late for him to be paying Byron a visit.
'I can do this.' He whispers and licks his lips nervously.
He gets out of the car, shivering slightly in the cool air, and walks to the front door. He raises a hand to the doorbell and then pauses as he wonders if he should ring it. Some of the younger kids might be asleep. He knocks softly on the door instead.
He hears some fumbling with the latch, then Claire opens the door, yawning sleepily and clutching a glass of water in one hand.
'Shouldn't you be in bed?' Jeff asks quietly, and she nods, yawning even wider.
'Drink.' She explains, holding up the water and opens the door wider for him to come in. 'Adam an' Jordan are out. By's around. Prob'ly in his-' Yawn. '-his room.'
Jeff comes in and rubs his arms to get warm as Claire shuffles off to her bedroom, waving goodnight with an extra large yawn.
He walks into the kitchen to see if Byron's there, but he isn't, so Jeff heads upstairs to the triplet's room. He's not in his room. Jeff frowns and heads back downstairs to check in the living room.
Jeff stops dead in the doorway of the living room. Byron's on the couch. Jeff can see that. Jeff can see a whole lot more than that. He makes a choking noise, and he thinks he sees Byron twitch, but he's not sure if it's because Byron heard him, or because of something the girl he was making out with did.
Jeff heads straight for the door, not stopping to see if Byron had noticed he was there.He drives fast and recklessly.He doesn't really think about what had happened until he stops the car and turns off the engine. Then he thumps his head onto the steering wheel and stares down through the darkness.
He's just walked in on his gay best friend involved in some pretty fucking heavy petting with some random bimbo. His chest is aching and he's not sure how he's supposed to feel.
to be continued
