A/N: Here's the chapter. I hope you enjoy it. :)
"Hey, Paige," said Marco, answering his phone. He tried to keep his nerves as low as possible. "What's up?"
"Rumor has it that you've got a date with my brother," said Paige, smiling.
"Who knows?" Marco asked quickly, fearing the whole school was going to be aware soon of his sexuality without his consent.
"Hazel, Jimmy…and I didn't tell Spinner, but it's not going to be a secret forever, Marco. That's just a warning," she said cautiously.
"Paige, I actually don't have the time or patience to deal with him right now. I have no idea what I'm going to wear!" he said, feeling as though he were about to lose his mind due to one night with Dylan Michalchuk.
Paige laughed. "Relax, hon. Dylan doesn't care about that stuff," she laughed. "My brother!" she said, more to herself than Marco.
Marco ignored her second comment, too distracted to care. "I know, but," he bit his lip, "I do. Besides, I won't even know how it looks on me!"
"Okay, I have to go, but you will be absolutely fine," she assured her friend. "And, don't worry; just be yourself."
"I am being myself!" he argued. "I'm worrying! That is what I do!" Though, he knew full well, she had already hung up. He sighed.
Marco hung up the phone, now forced to face his only choice. He was going to ask his own mother to pick out clothes for him.
Marco walked carefully into the living room still debating on whether or not talking to his mother was the best plan.
"Hey, ma," he said timidly, standing in front of his mother.
She looked up from the towels she had been folding. "Marco," she smiled. "Something the matter?" she asked.
"I don't know what to wear!" he told her, running his hand through his hair.
"What is wrong with what you're wearing," she raised an eyebrow, chuckling at his appalled expression.
"I don't even know what it looks like, for one thing! I am quite…specific about what to wear, but…I've never been…you know…" He had been trying to avoid that particular part of the conversation.
"I hate this feeling…that someone else has to tell me what to wear! How can I trust your…your…choice?" he asked.
His mother rolled her eyes. "I will tell you what I pick out. You worry too much. Now," she put her hands on his shoulders, leading him to the bedroom, "where are you going?" she asked.
Marco pushed open his bedroom door, taking a seat on his bed while his mother sorted through his drawers.
"I'm just…" he thought about the best way to go about answering the question.
"What about this nice black shirt?" she asked, obviously approving of it herself.
"Which black shirt?" he asked.
"This one," she laughed. "Oh…right, that does you quite a lot of good. Well, it's black, and I insist you wear it."
Marco shrugged. "I don't have any bad black shirts, I guess, but the question is, should I wear it on this…" he took a deep breath; now or never, "Date?"
"A date?" she asked, surprised. Marco, too, was surprised when he found himself in his mother's arms. "Really?"
"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck, fearing he was blushing. "Dylan…"
She smiled. "He is nice boy?" she asked.
" 'Course," he replied, without a second thought."
"And these jeans," she held them up in the air, tilting her head to one sighed before nodding in approval. "This is what you'll wear."
"Thanks," he smiled. He tried to think of something else to say to his mother. After all, they'd both been through a lot, and he'd spent most of the time blaming her for the things his father had done. It seemed appropriate to thank her for getting over the fact that he wasn't straight, helping him through so many hard times, trying to put his life back together, being so happy about the date, and kindly helping to assist him with the clothing.
"Just…thanks," he said again. It was all he could really think of, but he knew she understood.
"When are you leaving?" Mrs. Del Rossi asked.
"Soon," said Marco.
It was about ten minutes after he'd gotten dressed when he heard Dylan's car pull up in the driveway. He didn't move for a moment, trying to go over his words in his head, making sure he wasn't going to say anything absolutely stupid. Though, he considered that it might be stupider if he simply refused to exit his bedroom.
"Marco, Dylan's here!" said his mother from outside his door. He couldn't hide anymore.
Marco got up from his bed, moving in the living room, Dylan standing at the door.
"Dylan," said Marco, pointing to Mrs. Del Rossi, "I'm sure you remember my mom."
"Hi, Mrs. Del Rossi," he greeted politely.
"It's nice to officially meet you, Deelan," she smiled. She looked to her son. "Be good, and have a good time."
Marco and Dylan smiled, slightly nervous, walking out to his car. Dylan watched concernedly as Marco felt around for the handle. Finally finding it, he sat down in the passenger's seat next to Dylan.
"What?" Marco asked, apparently feeling Dylan's eyes on him, causing tension.
"Nothing. I'm sorry," he turned away from him as he started the car, pulling out of the driveway.
Dylan drove down the block in silence, realizing that, most of the time, he forgot about Marco's blindness, which always seemed to cause him to accidentally bring it up, embarrassing Marco. For example, at school when Marco had asked about the two books, he didn't even think about why he couldn't tell the difference. Whenever he did remember, though, it was hard for him to restrain himself from offering help.
"So, I leave it up to you where we go," said Dylan after a few minutes of no speaking.
Marco looked at him, shocked. "You want me to choose? Wait, you don't know where you're going?" he laughed.
"Until you tell me, I'm just driving around," Dylan, too, laughed.
"Well…I don't care," he shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, there are certainly…some…things… You know what," he said, "I am kind of hungry."
"Okay," Dylan laughed, knowing he felt uncomfortable, and he wanted to change that. "Any preference?"
"Please, I'm the new guy in town. You know where to go."
"Well…" Dylan thought for a moment.
"Seriously, it doesn't matter to me."
"If you want to go to a place you'll probably like, I'd suggest The Dot, but…there's always the threat we'll run into Spinner. He does work there."
"Oh," said Marco. Was he willing to risk that? He didn't really want the date to turn out more humiliating than it was already going to be.
"You know what," said Dylan, noticing Marco's internal battle, "I've got an even better place," not wanting Marco to have to face the Spinner situation.
"So," said Dylan, swallowing a French fry, "how was your trip?"
Marco sighed. "Honestly? Terrible," he replied.
"I don't suppose you want to talk about it," said Dylan. Marco shook his head quickly.
"I mean, my family is irritating," he said simply.
Dylan nodded, laughing. "Isn't everyone's?" Marco smiled.
"Listen," Marco started, "by pointedly ignoring the 'blind' subject, it's making me think more about it," he laughed. "So, if you want to ask me something, please do it now."
By giving Dylan permission to ask him anything he wanted to, he was giving him complete trust. Since the incident, Marco had sort of avoided giving that particular feeling to anyone. He simply smiled, showing he meant it, and Dylan gave him a half-smile in return.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes," said Marco surely, taking a sip of his water.
Marco expected him to ask, 'How did it happen?' That was one of the first things he'd asked after they met, but instead, he asked something else.
"If you could have your eye sight back," Dylan started, "just to be able to see one thing for one day…that you used to be able to, what would it be?"
"You said used to?" Marco asked. "Because, what I want to see, I've never ever seen," he smiled.
"Okay," Dylan rolled his eyes, "then what?"
"Right now," Marco said, being honest, "I'd love to be able to see you."
"You know, it's funny how things happen," said Marco. "If I didn't get hurt, I wouldn't be in Canada. If I could see you, we wouldn't have crashed. If you hadn't ended up with my book, you wouldn't have come to my house; we wouldn't be here."
Dylan considered all the facts Marco had just given him carefully. He put his right hand on the table, reaching for the last French fry in the dish, thinking.
"You believe in fate?" he finally asked, laughing slightly. However, he didn't want an answer. "I wish you could see me," he admitted, frowning.
Marco nodded. "Well, keep dreaming," but he didn't sound devastated anymore.
Obviously, he was devastated in some way that he'd never see Dylan, but maybe it was fate. Everything happens for a reason? Whatever. He didn't know if he believed it or not, but all he knew was the blindness didn't matter much if Dylan was sitting at the table with him.
If everything happens for a reason, (which was slowly becoming Marco's philosophy) then there could be no regrets. No regrets.
"I really…" Marco didn't know why he had to say it. After all, it wasn't as if Dylan didn't already know, but he wanted to just get it out there. "…really like you, Dylan."
Dylan smiled brightly, leaning his hand across the table to put it on Marco's. "I really like you too."
They were both done eating, so Dylan, despite Marco's protests, had paid the bill. He excused himself by stating that it 'really hadn't been much, anyway". Marco and Dylan didn't want to go home quite yet, so they decided to just drive around for a bit.
For a few moments, there wasn't much either one had to say, which seemed to happen quite a bit. Marco, mainly to remind himself that Dylan was still with him, started up a conversation.
"So…" he started. Okay, maybe it wasn't a conversation, but at least he had made his presence known.
"So," Dylan repeated.
The conversation seemed to be getting nowhere until Marco remembered something. "You knew I didn't want Spinner to know about…me," said Marco. "How?"
"Well," said Dylan, "I actually didn't," he laughed. "I just though it would be weird for you having Spinner witness this. I didn't realize he wasn't even aware it was happening."
"Oh," said Marco, "I mean, it's not that I'm," he turned to Dylan, wondering what to say, "embarrassed because of you; I'm not. I just…" he stopped, begging for Dylan to save him from drowning.
Dylan took his right hand off the wheel, placing it comfortingly on Marco's knee. Marco tried not to show that his entire body froze up at the simply touch.
"I understand," Dylan assured him. "But I'm going to give you fair warning, he'll know by tomorrow…if he doesn't already."
"I know, but," he didn't want to start any sort of argument while they had been having such a good time, so he let it go.
"You don't care that anybody knows about," (Why couldn't he just say it?) "your uh… problem?" he finished, using the word 'problem' only because he had a lack of any better words, but it still seemed slightly fitting.
"No," said Dylan. "I don't care because it isn't a problem. You need to understand that. Besides," he finally removed his hand from Marco's knee, disappointing Marco, "I have a lot of problems, Marco, and that isn't one of them."
Marco was curious as to what, exactly, Dylan meant by that, but he figured it was better to let it be Dylan's own business, at least, for a little while.
"I really wish I didn't have to go home," Marco laughed, "but I should be getting back now."
"No problem," said Dylan, turning in the direction of Marco's house. When the arrived, Marco tried to think of every excuse in the book to try and be able to have five more minutes, but he knew enough was enough. He had to go inside.
"This is your house," said Dylan, pulling up into the driveway.
"I guess it is," Marco agreed, though made no movements. "Okay," he sighed, opening the door, "I guess I'll see you, uh, Monday?"
"Yeah," said Dylan, debating whether or not it would be okay to kiss him. What if Marco hadn't has as good of a time with him as he had? What if Marco didn't want to go out with him again? What if he wanted to just get in the house as quickly as possible, and his saying, 'I don't want to go home, but…" was just a cover-up?
"Marco?" he said, just as Marco had been about to walk out the door. Marco sat back down.
"Yeah?" he asked, turning to face him eagerly.
Dylan leaned over, placing a light, but sweet, kiss on the younger boy's lips. It was extremely short, but that didn't matter. When he saw the smiled that appeared on Marco's lips and in his eyes, Dylan knew he'd done the right thing.
A/N: Okay, so please tell me what you thought. I must know. Review!