4. Denial
Having accepting that he'd been fooling himself, Jimmy resolved that the best way to get over his ridiculous crush was to simply ignore it. He declared it an unreality, never gonna happen, and the sooner he stopped acting stupid the quicker it'd all be over.
But he did still have needs, and figured that maybe he could substitute to deal with his raging emotions. So he went out on the prowl; since confirming his place at the top, it didn't really take much more than a walk around campus to find someone looking to spend some time.
"Hel-looooo there." That'd do.
"Hey, you," Jimmy returned. "What's up?"
"Oh, the usual," Gord declared. "Little shopping, buy some homework, High Tea at the club." Jimmy had only made the mistake of thinking that 'High Tea' would be the sort of thing he'd enjoy once, and he only needed to make it once. There wasn't anything remotely high about it, except for attitudes.
"Nice, so, uh... wanna take a walk?" Gord's little sculpted eyebrows lifted.
"And where would we walk, Jimmy?" he posed, catting around because he was one of those people that approached the world as some kind of kiss-chase game that he was the master of.
"Around," he said with a shrug.
"Well... they do say that it's the journey, not the destination," Gord discussed, as if having some conversation with himself on the side. "All right, James," he consented, stepping up to Jimmy's side. Jimmy had half-expected him to put his arm out for escorting, but he kept them tucked neatly behind his back.
They got about fifteen paces away from Harrington House, heading wherever it was that was good for chatting the shit and making out, but each step had felt heavier than the last in Jimmy's shoes. Gord was chattering on about the rising cost of buying grades these days, and Jimmy knew something was off.
Well, he could just force it on, he decided. He stopped Gord and put a hand on his arm.
"Hey," he started, squaring off with the prep and reminding himself of what he was meant to do. "Come a little closer." Gord arched his ever-expressive eyebrows and leaned forward, bending only at the hip, staring Jimmy out.
"Close enough?" he baited, a smile on his lips. Wrong smile. Wrong lips.
"Ughh!" Jimmy growled, gritting his teeth and throwing up his hands. "It's just not the same!"
"Wh-" Gord had backed off. "What's not the-? Jimmy... Jimmy!" Gord called to his back. "You can't walk away from me!" he was heard to cry as Jimmy did exactly that.
"You're pathetic," Zoe told him, commandeering the spoon.
"You're lucky that it's true, or I'd spank you," Jimmy threatened glumly, ice-cream going warm in his lap as the TV lit up Zoe's place in dingy colours.
"Spank me?" she questioned. "I'd like to see you try."
"They won't be able to tell which is top and bottom with you when I'm done," he threatened playfully, lunging over and struggling with her as the ice-cream rolled perilously between them on the couch. She intercepted his attempts to swat at her ass, but the effort didn't carry too far. In time he was resting his chin on her shoulder and sighing.
"What, you can't even mess around with me any more? Zoe posed. "Are you really that lovesick, Jimmy?"
"I just... need time," he mooned. "I said something about us not being on a date, an' he laughed it off like it was nothing."
"It wasn't a date," she reminded him.
"Coulda been," he countered morosely. "It didn't even occur to him."
"Because you haven't said anything about your massive boner for him," she countered, and he jabbed her in the side. Just because was true didn't mean she could rub it in.
"Well, he clearly doesn't think of me like that," Jimmy lobbied, trying to make it easy for himself.
"I don't believe it," Zoe declared.
"What?"
"You're giving up," she slandered. "Jimmy Hopkins, King of Bullworth, beat the best, and now he's giving up because of one little crush."
"I'm not giving up," he argued. "More like... quitting while I'm ahead."
"You're not ahead," she told him. "You're wallowing in self-pity and melted ice-cream."
"Well not if you say it like that," he retorted.
"You didn't give up when I knocked you back," she reminded him.
"Obviously," he remarked. "You were just playing it cool, an' I knew that. Pete's not playing at all."
"So get him in the game," she summarised.
"You think I haven't thought of that?" he retorted. "I'm not stupid."
"Coulda fooled me," she muttered, and he gave her a shove and snatched up the half-abandoned ice-cream, biting down on the spoon as he took a sloppy mouthful.
"Thing is," he murmured through a mouthful of mint choc chip. "What if I get him into it and it's someone else he wants?"
"You're afraid that if you kick-start his engine he might go for someone who's not you?" she gave back to him, and he shrugged. "So you'd rather he was ignorant and sexless than getting with someone else?"
"I didn't say it was rational," he excused. Zoe pulled the spoon from him and claimed a scoop for herself, although it was practically soup at this point.
"You're about one step away from slipping notes in his locker," Zoe warned.
"Hey, that might-"
"No," she cut in. "If you did that, I'd have to kill you."
"Why?" he queried.
"For being a loser!" she barked, whacking him on the head with the dirty spoon. He was going to have to try and wash that off later. "Really, Jimmy," she sighed. "Why can't you just talk to him?"
"If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it."
"Everyone is doing it," she retorted. "If you don't do something, I will."
"You'd go behind my back?" he gasped.
"If I don't you're going to eat all my ice-cream," she argued, snatching the tub back. "And I'll get sick of your lovesick whining and have to kick your fat ass out of my house."
"Oh, bring it," he challenged, and they were back to wrestling again. This time they tumbled to the floor and Jimmy landed on top of the soupy remnants of the ice cream, totally ruining both his shirt and the carpet, though the carpet was fucked already so it was more of a loss on his part.
Play-fighting wasn't going to solve the problem of his crush, but apparently nothing would. He tried everything; listing Pete's faults, checking out other guys (and girls), pornography, telling himself to 'get over it' dozens of times as he lay in bed at night. Nothing worked.
And on the note of being in bed at night, he had a new ordeal to face in that he didn't feel like other people jerking him off, and if he did it himself his thoughts tended to wander.
'It's easy, Jimmy,' he told himself, hand down his pants. 'Just don't think about Pete.'
Except that not thinking about Pete was kind of thinking about him, and then he had to think of him in order to not think of him, but not not thinking about Pete was just the same as not thinking about him, which was really no different to thinking about him. He was therefore torn between accepting that he wasn't going to be able to jack off without a many-tiered denial ladder of Pete-related thoughts in his head, or not do it at all.
His first attempt was the latter, but after a week he cracked, and felt so crummy about it when he saw Pete the next morning that he had to avoid him for the rest of the day. Couldn't look him in the eye, smirk, and say 'I was thinking about you last night' in the cheeky, flirty way he might do to pick up anyone else in the world.
Except when he stopped waiting for Pete in the mornings, Pete didn't wait for him. It shouldn't have hurt because he was the one not waiting in the first place but it did. He started skipping his last few classes and avoiding him around school, retreating to Blue Skies with a miserable mood more often than not.
He even had to start toning it down around Zoe, or she was going to get sick of him too, and that meant if he really wanted to wallow he'd buy an eighth off Duncan and smoke himself stupid in the Blue Skies hangout feeling sorry for himself. But that was only, like, once or twice a week.
In the end he decided that Pete either didn't care enough to miss him, or didn't really like him as a friend. Maybe he'd only stuck by Jimmy because he was strong and bringing order to the school. He was head boy now, so perhaps he'd gotten what he wanted.
Except to look at him, you couldn't see a conniving mastermind who used people for his own advantage. He said hello to anyone who greeted him; was often observed chatting with the younger kids like he actually had time to listen; and the prefects reported with much confusion that he'd made timetables for being on-duty that both made sense, gave them free time and were easily changed if you just asked him. He was the perfect model of a nice guy and somehow Jimmy found himself resenting it.
He hadn't realised what a bad mood the entire thing was putting him in, until he bumped shoulders with Lucky in the halls one day and figuratively bit his head off, then literally stuffed him in a trash can. The poor Greaser scuttled off with terror in his eyes, and Jimmy realised what he'd done, snapping like a chained dog. This was ridiculous, he told himself. He couldn't keep on avoiding Pete and then getting pissed off because he felt like Pete was avoiding him.
So he went to Pete's room after class, hoping that he was on his own – Constantinos had practice doing whatever it was the mascot did while the team played the actual game – and knocked.
"Who is it?" a muffled call from within. Jimmy pushed himself to open the door.
"Hey," he announced, trying not to skulk or seem too guilty. Pete was at his desk and twisted round, half-turned on his chair, face alight.
"Hey Jimmy," he chimed. "What's up?"
"Does somethin' have to be wrong for me to stop by?" he rushed with such defensiveness that Pete's brow furrowed into lines.
"No, of course not," Pete answered, laying his pen on the desk with a characteristic care. He didn't throw his stuff around the same way Jimmy did, and consequently wasn't always losing things. "How's it going?"
"Fine," Jimmy bluffed. Fine as he could be in a perpetually grumpy mood at his own self-inflicted drama, or whatever Zoe had called it. "Haven't seen you around much." He was pretty sure it sounded casual, the way he delivered it; like a school bulletin that would only be read by Beatrice and Mandy.
"I figured you were busy," Pete explained cheerfully. "You can't always have a loser like me trailing round after you, right?" He'd said it like a joke, but Jimmy snapped.
"Hey!" he barked. "That ain't true. I just... uh..." -just been ignoring and avoiding Pete because he had a big, fat crush and didn't know what to do with himself around Pete not to make it obvious or uncomfortable. "Don't talk yourself down," he murmured forlornly.
"Sorry, I was just joking," Pete made up without it really being clear why or if he ought be apologising at all.
"It's not that I don't wanna hang out with you Pete," Jimmy began, eyeing the toes of his sneakers for a moment before looking back up. "It's... complicated." In a simple way.
"I understand," Pete excused genteelly, and Jimmy couldn't take it.
"For god's sake, stop being so nice about everything!" he snapped, and Pete looked shocked.
"What?" he retorted, a familiar scowl crossing his face. "Why?!"
"Because I don't know if you mean it, or you're just bein' nice cause that's what you do," he ranted.
"Jimmy!" Pete scolded. "I'm not like that, am I?"
"You're nice to everyone," he produced, running a little thin on tolerance and patience for the situation.
"So? That's what nice people do," he berated.
"I know," Jimmy bit. "It's just..." How could he tell if Pete actually liked him or just tolerated him, when he was just as friendly to his roommate who was an utter dick? These things were starting to matter more in his deranged mind.
"So why're you getting mad at me?" Pete pressed; he could get catty and aggravated with the best of them, when he wanted to. Wasn't being nice to Jimmy any more, that was for sure.
"Because Ilikeyou and I wanna know if you're just puttin' up with it because I'm the new boss around here!" Jimmy burst, and then realised a moment later he'd actually said it. His eyes widened and his heart started to go into arrest in his ribcage, to say nothing of the churning seasickness that'd liquefied his intestines.
"Jimmy! How could you think something like that?" Pete exclaimed, although he was far from his usual etiquette now. "Of course I like you. We're friends, right?" He paused for a moment, moving his chair to face Jimmy fully. "Being king doesn't have anything to do with it."
"So why weren't you bothered when I wasn't around?" he asked dolefully. When he was avoiding Pete, he meant.
"I assumed you had stuff to do, and would show up when you were ready," Pete replied cautiously. "If you wanted to."
"Of course I-!" he started, then recalled his temper on a chain and choked it back into the pen. He could save this, he steeled himself. It could be going worse. At least Pete hadn't commented on-
"Uh, when you said you liked me," Pete interjected, dashing all Jimmy's hopes. No, he was well and truly fucked now. "Did you mean...?" Jimmy shrugged, thinking that the less he said the better, probably. Maybe. Pete wasn't playing to the silent treatment, though. "The way you like, um... Gord, or-"
"No," Jimmy snapped. Gord was fun and easy, but he was as flightly as a moth and about as likely to settle down as Jimmy was. Had been. But then again. "Well, kinda like that," he muttered shamefully.
"I think I'm missing something, Jimmy," Pete paced out. "It almost sounds like-"
"It's what it sounds like!" he erupted. "Pick up a hint already!"
"What?!" Pete yelped, burned by Jimmy's uprising.
"I spent two weeks trying to find out what you were into, but thatwas a big waste of time!" he raved. "Then I was like, 'I can handle this', but turns out I can't, so I went off on my own business and it was as if you didn't give a damn. And now you're just being so goddam nice that it's doing my head in, 'cause I can't tell if you mean it or if I'm being crazy or what!"
Pete looked stunned, which was understandable given that Jimmy had just yelled the world's crappiest confession at him.
"I think, maybe... you need to calm down?" he offered quizzically. "You seem stressed."
"I'm stressed because you're always there and oblivious and-" and stuff like how even when he was yelling Jimmy still felt that sick-anxious twinge of really liking someone for no good reason and just wanting them to feel the same way.
"How is this my fault?" Pete protested. "I didn't do anything."
"Not on purpose," Jimmy conceded.
"On purpose?!" Pete echoed almost furiously. "It's not my fault, especially if I wasn't doing anything on purpose!"
"I know, but-" Jimmy pitched in.
"But what?!" Pete cried. "This isn't fair! You're acting crazy."
"Yes!" Jimmy burst. "I know! Because I fucking like you and I don't know what to do!"
"Maybe don't yell at me!" he countered, and Jimmy realised that much more yelling and the whole dorm was going to know what was going on.
It occurred to him that people might already have heard, and if word went around that the new King was hung up on Pete Kowalski and flailing around like a drunk English teacher, his reputation would take a killer blow.
"You know what? Forget I said anything," he announced hastily, backing half-way out the door and looking around. No one was in the hall, which meant he might've gotten away with it. People weren't usually in their rooms at this time of day, more likely in the playground or up in Bullworth Town. They had all evening to spend in their rooms.
"Jimmy-" Pete entreated, but he was already gone.