5. Anger

"Zoe," Jimmy announced as he practically knocked down the door of her place, stormed in and then faceplanted on the couch. "I fucked up."

"What now?" she inquired distantly, hunched over the kitchen counter painting her nails. The air smelt like solvents and frozen pizza.

"I kinda... told Pete," he muffled through the musty couch cushions.

"Uhuh," she prompted, "and how did it go?"

"Pretty bad," he replied. "I kinda yelled at him."

"Figures," Zoe delivered without hurry. "So what exactly did you yell at him for?"

"Mostly being too nice," he confessed, and she gave a sharp laugh. "What?" he snapped. "I can't tell if he likes me, or he's just being nice because he's afraid of me, or because I got him made Head Boy and-"

"Jimmy, it's not like you to think so much into things," she commented, focused on her nails. A bright red that looked familiar for some reason, but not on her. "You should probably stop, it's not a good look," she concluded.

"You're telling me," he grunted, sitting upright and kicking off his shoes. "You got any more ice-cream?"

"After your fat ass ate it all? No." She raised a hand and blew on the nails. "Why don't you just talk to him? Explain it."

"Explain how?" he challenged. "Sorry Pete, got kinda mad because I fancy you and I'm a goddamn idiot, but hey, I like you so how about we go on a date?"

"Would it really be so bad?" she posed, and Jimmy knew that it wouldn't really, but he was scared. He didn't like being scared, much less of a twerp in pink shirts who just wanted friends and an easy life. In his world, you got angry before you showed your fear, so no one could tell if you were secretly shitting your pants.

"I try, but as soon as I get one-on-one with him I start screwing up," he explained.

"Ohh, lovesick Jimmy Hopkins," she lauded, sauntering over to the couch and fanning her hands for him. "Whaddya think?"

"Why is that colour so familiar?" he questioned, trailing off as he searched his memory. Then he landed on matching claw-marks across his shoulders that one time and the kitty-cat source. "Lola," he seized. "She wears somethin' like that too." Zoe was giving him a shocked look, one that Jimmy actually recognised. He never claimed to be the brightest tool in the shed, but he had a memory for some things, and people were always surprised when he pulled out trumps. "Why'd you look like you seen a ghost?" he prompted, and Zoe put herself to rights.

"No reason," she deferred, lying through her capped teeth. "She leant it to me, that's all."

"I didn't think you two were friends," he replied easily, and Zoe's head turned like it was on a whip.

"We're not." It came like a slap in the face. Jimmy felt suddenly like he wasn't the only one in denial. "Anyway," she forced the topic onwards. "Pete is a nice guy, so if you just explain it, I bet he'll understand."

"He alwaysunderstands, that's half the problem," Jimmy moaned. "I don't want him to be all detached and 'understanding'."

"What do you want?" she asked, pulling off one of his socks. "Can I paint your toes?" she asked.

"No," he bit. "And I want him... to... I dunno, feel things, insteada just rationalising them."

"C'mon, it'll look pretty," she insisted. "I did mine already."

"So get a job at a nail salon," he retorted. "We were talking about my feelings."

"Pete's feelings," she corrected, propping up his foot and shaking her bottle of guilty nail varnish.

"I thought I told you no," he commented. "Exactly. His feelings. He's so nice all the time I don't know what he really thinks." Not like the rest of the heart-sleeved kids at Bullworth.

"Are you going to stop me?" she pointed out, and Jimmy relented to the fact that he wasn't going to. He didn't actually mind in the first place, he was just being uncooperative for the hell of it. "Just because he's nice to everyone doesn't mean he's faking it," she pointed out, applying a first coat to his big toe.

"I know, but I can't tell if he likes me just the same as everyone else," he confessed, and Zoe hummed through her work.

"If you wanna be special, you gotta make it happen," she advised. "Just come clean with him."

"I did come clean," he explained. "That's just the fucking problem. I sucked at it."

"So wait it out," she advised. "Give Pete some credit. He's not half as dumb as you."

"Oh thanks," he goaded, shaking his foot out so she streaked a big red line up his toe.

"Jimmy!" she scolded, grabbing his ankle with ironlike fingers and vicing him down. "Just give him time. Now you got the hard part out of the way, it can't possibly go any worse."

–

Jimmy had wanted to believe Zoe. Oh, how he'd wanted to believe that. It made perfect sense; he'd awkwardly put his cards on the table, so Pete could take it in, process it, and then he and Jimmy would sort things out again.

But that was resting on a number of things that just weren't going to fly – Jimmy acting rationally where feelings for Pete were concerned, and also, Jimmy not being totally irrational when it came to his feelings for Pete.

So when the knock came at his door along with the follow-up quiver of 'Uh, Jimmy...' his hopes weren't necessarily low. They weren't high, but floating somewhere around the middle.

"C'mon in, Pete," he said with as much of a veneer of relaxation as he could hammer down on top of his straight-up freaking out nerves.

"I guess we need to talk," Pete said reluctantly.

"Kinda," he agreed. "Look, I'm sorry for unloading on you." The way you'd unload a shotgun into a deer. Except instead of lead shot he had emotions, though the impact was more or less the same.

"It's okay," Pete insisted, seeming uncomfortable in his own skin. "So you, uh... you said you... like me?"

"Uhuh," he confirmed with half a groan.

"Could you be more specific?" he inquired, and Jimmy clenched his jaw. He could do this. Pete was here, so he wasn't totally freaked out – yet.

"I don't know if I can," he replied. "It was kinda a surprise to me."

"What was?" Pete tracked.

"Liking you," he explained, and saw Pete's face drop. "Not generally liking you," he fixed. "I like you already, like, a friend." He realised he was saying the word 'like' too much and it was getting awkward. "Like, I mean, liking you the other way... was a bit of a surprise."

"You mean, the way you like... uh." Pete was searching for a name, an example.

"Guys," he substituted. "The way I like dudes. Yes." Pete looked right about like he was going to combust inside his skin. "It doesn't have to be a big thing," he rushed out to explain. "Really, Pete. If you're uncomfortable we'll just drop it." He thought he could do that. Maybe.

"No, it's okay," Pete insisted. "I just wasn't expecting it."

"That makes two of us," he quipped.

"How does that make sense?" Pete called on. "Surely you're aware of your own..." he hesitated, getting smaller, "feelings."

"It ain't that simple," he replied. "You don't just decide to get a crush on someone." Jimmy didn't. He could do without all that shit. All this shit. "At first I thought I was sick."

"Charming," Pete commented, and Jimmy sighed.

"It's not an insult," he said. "It's been a long time since I got a crush, okay? I wasn't prepared."

"What do you mean?" Pete pinned. "You're always going round with people." What kind of lingo 'going round' was meant to be puzzled Jimmy, but that wasn't the point for now.

"That ain't the same," he explained. "You don't have to be crushing on someone to get with them." You didn't really have to like them much at all. All it took was a bit of chemistry. That was how things had been with Gord until he softened up to Jimmy and stopped being a professional stuck-up asshole.

"So you wanna get with... me," he mumbled, eyes riveted to his feet. Good thing the door was shut, Jimmy didn't need people poking their heads in on this awkward nightmare.

"No," he rushed. "Well, no, not... I mean, yes, sure, but that's not the main thing," he tried to explain. "It's different."

"Different how? What do you want?" Pete queried, and he was being pretty okay about it so far. As in Jimmy wasn't yelling and Pete wasn't freaking out and no one was running away or climbing out windows.

"I don't know," he confessed. It wasn't really true, because he knew what he wanted. He wanted Pete to feel the same way. But you couldn't tell people to have feelings.

"Well, you've gotta have some idea," Pete prompted. "I mean... you wanna go on a date, or-"

"It's not like that," he interrupted. "I'm not expecting you to do anything." He frowned, rubbing his brow. "I know it's all in my head."

"It's all right," Pete offered out to him, and had now actually looked at Jimmy. With him on the bed and Pete at the door, they were only a couple meters apart. "I mean... if you wanna, Jimmy. I don't mind."

In some ways those were words he'd love to hear. But on the other hand.

"You don't mind?" he echoed. "Well gee, I'm flattered."

"Hey!" Pete bit back. "I was just saying. I thought you'd want-"

"I don't want anyone taking pity on me," he found himself growling. "Even you."

"It's not pity," Pete argued, "I just... you're the one who said you wanted something."

"I said I liked you," he stated. "Not that I want some kinda pity-fuck 'cause you don't mind."

"Well good," Pete snapped,"because that's way off the cards."

"Good!" Jimmy retorted, scowling.

"If this is what you call having a crush on someone, you've got a funny way of showing it," Pete gibed, and Jimmy grit his teeth.

"It's not," he growled.

"But then apparently I can't even be nice to you," Pete continued, throwing up his hands in frustration. "That's me being insincere or patronising you or something."

"It's not like that!" Jimmy snapped, shooting up onto his feet so he wasn't looking up at Pete any more.

"Then what is it like?" Pete threw back at him. "I gotta be honest, this isn't my idea of a good time."

"And it's mine?!" Jimmy realised that tempers were slipping away, but he was never any good at stuffing the fireworks back in the case.

"You're the one getting mad!" Pete accused.

"Because I'm confused!" he raged. "I didn't ask for all these fucking feelings and I don't know what to do-"

"Great," Pete interrupted. "Just great. Jimmy Hopkins has some emotions that he doesn't recognise so he gets angry instead. Another normal day at Bullwor-"

It was almost exactly at this point that Jimmy took one long step, raised a fist and punched Pete across the jaw.

"Don't you EVER talk shit about me to my face!" he snarled, heart banging a drum inside his head, his ears ringing like bells.

Then he realised what he'd done. He was so used to fighting he barely thought about it, moved quicker than the electricity in his brain, faster than his words could make up for or excuse anything. He'd punched Pete, who was holding his cheek and just staring at Jimmy like he didn't know who he was.

"Shit," Jimmy said, regret hissing out of him like steam. "I'm sorry. I..." He could've tried to start something, to explain, apologise, try to put things to rights. But then again, he'd just punched Pete Kowalski for the great crime of being nice and interesting and tolerant enough of all Jimmy's bullshit to be liked by him. That was his reward.

So he went for the door instead, moving past Pete like he could put a wall between them; to keep him in, rather than keeping Pete out. He paid no attention to people in the dorm corridors, speeding past and almost running into the front doors.

He burst out into the searing sunshine, drawn like a spotlight on his monumental fuckup, and then broke into a run for the gates. He had to get some space, before he did anything else stupid.