A/N: Short chapters. I'm so bad with these. But hopefully this will satisfy for now. If you don't find this chapter that interesting, the next one will be. P:

Enjoy.

Showering in other people's houses was never my forte.

Not even Stan's. There's always that nervous paranoia. I can't stand it. I need the privacy and comfort of my own home. But I need this one shower more than anything, and as I glance around at the tiled wall and the misted shower door, I feel it sinking in.

Fear.

Not a lot of things scare me. But today, I am scared. I'm piss-frightened of everything, and I just want to get out of his house - Craig's house.

I've wanted to be home from the moment he blackmailed me into coming here in the first place. Now, I'm not sure if I even care if he tells my parents about my homosexuality; I just want to leave. I want to be anywhere but here.

Breath hitching somewhere in my throat, I try to wipe away the memory of a hand gliding over my stomach in the dark. My panic kept me silent then and it's keeping me silent now as I reflect the violations to my own body in the shower. I press my palms to my eyes, wondering what sort of trap I've walked myself into. I feel like I've been raped, and I've never had a sexual experience past my own hand.

All the touches, even the kiss, even the sounds of him jacking off against my back aside - that is not what frightens me the most. It's his fear that gets me - it's the fact that he was afraid. I roll back to the moment I'd had enough - when I felt him closing in to make out with me in my apparent sleep, when I pushed myself away to wrap my arms around myself defensively.

I watched him feign sleep, expression mixed with nerves and horror, the expression I'd been working hard to restrain from my face with a prayer scraping its way out of my core that that had been a dream, and it would stop soon.

I stare at the Head and Shoulders shampoo bottle on the side of the tub, unwilling to touch it. I don't want to smell like him. I don't want his odour clinging to me any closer than from his bedsheets. I don't want to think about how my own personally scent is probably clinging to my half of his pillow from the night before, and how perhaps, at the end of today, he might touch himself to that scent like he did to my simple presence in bed beside him.

I can almost feel the heat of his breath once more on the back of my neck from eight hours prior, but my common sense alerts me that it's the steam of the shower lingering around my form and not Craig Tucker. The name alone sends discomfort climbing a weary path up my spine, and I give my hair a better rinse before shutting the water off and standing still to listen.

The cold catches me fast, and I step from the shower wearily, drying off and dressing. I'm glad I had the foresight to bring my clothes with me; I don't want him to see me naked. I don't want a sliver of skin to reach his eyes at all.

He's fully dressed after I enter his bedroom, combing his hair with some kind of favour. As if it needs to be combed - I don't understand it. It's thin and wiry, much like Stan's, and neither of them have a curl to worry about. For that I'm jealous; I would kill to look normal, like the rest of my friends.

His eyes look me over, from the wet mess of my hair wrapped in a white towel down the rest of my body to where my toes are hidden in my socks. Self-consciously, I grab at my elbows with my arms folded across my torso, as though this will shield me from his wandering eyes. With anyone else, I would not feel so small under their gaze - but I'm afraid. How could I not be?

"Can we leave soon?"

My voice is trained and normal. I'm more scared that he'll find out I know than the fact that I know in general. I think it would be scarier, however, if I didn't know.

But I didn't. I was suspicious, but never sure. He's a better actor than me - his facade is casual and simple, but now I'm seeing past it with my knew knowledge. The twitch of his hands as he nods in response to my earlier question, and the uncertainty to his actions; the feign of an innocent nudge as he brushes by me to grab his book bag. I could vomit at the feeling of his thigh pressed against mine, and I wonder if he's aware he's doing it, or if it's really just an accidental crossing of limbs because I'm in his way.

I recoil and stand by his bed instead. He looked up at me curiously and I retain my passive look, instead peeling the towel from my hair and shaking it out. My curls hang limply around my head, a reflection of the hopelessness I'm feeling stirring within me. Nothing is the same. I want to go home - I don't want to leave my house. I feel like I'm in danger even though I'm in the house of one of my classmates. I need something, anything.

"Kyle? Are you there?"

"Yeah." I raise my hand to my eyes and rub them individually. "I'm not a morning person."

He gives me a queer look that suggests that he knows something I don't, but turns and picks my bag up off the ground, tossing it to me. I catch it with reluctance, and we leave, my hair springing up as it dries during the silent car ride.

My classes pass slowly.

I'm inattentive.

I feel ill and unmotivated to do anything, mostly because I know that English is my last class today, and English class is where Craig sits behind me.

He sniffs my hair. I know he does.

"Kyle? You alright, dude?"

Stan stares at me over our notes in Biology and I nod, forcing a smile. "Yeah, dude. Why?"

He's disbelieving and I can tell, because he's doing that risen eyebrow thing. "You seem completely out of it, man. You getting sick or something?"

I can feel the corners of my lips tremble, threatening to drop my pleasant expression. "Maybe. I dunno. If I feel shittier later maybe I'll leave early."

He nods, shrugs, and turns away, leaving me to dampen my lips from their dryness due to nerves. The time ticks closer to the end of Biology and the beginning of English. The illness weighing me down mentally and physically hits full force on the walk between classes. I stop off in the washroom to breathe, do my business, adjust my appearance to maybe look messed up, or to look less attractive than I think I do. Anything to make me look unappealing with a hope that it will take Craig's attention away from me and instead on the front of our class and on the teacher.

Maybe.

I sit down as soon as I enter. He greets me from behind quietly but I ignore him, dragging out my notes from the previous day's class for review, setting out my pencil case and holding my pencil in a shaky hand. Twenty minutes into class goes undisturbed, and then I feel it.

Warmth. The hairs on the back of my neck raise with my shoulders, and I wonder what he's smelling me for this time; it would be his shampoo in my hair today if I had used it. But I can hear his intake of breath and as panic rips through me I dump my belongings off of my desk in one fluid motion and into my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

I don't ever hear the teacher calling me as I exit the class, sneakers slapping the tiled hallway.

I just run.