Categories > Celebrities > The Used > Tales About God (Or The Closest Thing)
Chapter 5
I must have been granted a magical power by those beautiful angels up above in heaven because I didn’t cry. My mouth was pressed into a straight determined line as I stared blankly at the back of the seat in front of me. One hand held the strap of my backpack, forming a weak fist around it, intended for punching Chase if I ever developed the guts. My other hand remained on my cheek in pursuit of the same hopeless challenge it had been given earlier. While my eyes continued to stay dry, I felt like I was suffering from internal bleeding. I felt like all my bones were being chopped down by some metaphorical lumberjack inside of me. Muscles? They didn’t even exist anymore. If I stood up, I’d probably fall over. The only thing left in me was a mush of organs and all the tears I refused to let out.
I stole a glance at Quinn and his new best friend. The sight sickened me beyond an understandable extent; the talking, the laughing. How could they be when I was dying only a mere foot away? It was not like it bothered me the slightest that Chase didn’t care. It was a given that we were meant to be enemies, ever since I met him back in the fifth grade. But Quinn...he had seemed so... nice. I sighed and leaned over the window, pressing my scorching forehead against the contrastingly cold glass. I should have known the impossibility of somebody being as perfect as I imagined Quinn to be. My obsession with him would have to destroy itself somehow.
When the bus finally came to a screeching halt, I stayed in my seat. Noisily, the other kids filed out of the vehicle. It was only after they all were at least a few yards away that I stood up. I trudged outside with one hand still over my blemish. A light breeze blew at my hair, which I would have regarded as comforting on any other day. Keeping my eyes fixed on the ground, I took slow steps into the school building. Without even looking up, I made my way to the nurse’s office. The nurse was a jolly lady with wispy white hair and rosy cheeks. She reminded me of Santa Clause. I wondered if she would consider that as an insult or not. Either way, I didn’t tell her and instead, politely forced a smile in her direction upon entering her office.
“I need a band-aid,” I told her before she could greet me.
The thing I loved about that lady was that she never asked any questions. Even when I peeled off the plastic and pressed the sticky surface on top of my pimple, she simply raised her eyebrows and smiled. I sincerely wished her a good day before walking to my next destination; the front office. The evil front desk lady had piercing blue eyes which accused me of murder when all I did was smile at her. Stuttering all the while, I explained to her how I was absent yesterday and how I needed my schedule and locker number.
A few more lapses of time later, I found myself weaving through students, on the way to homeroom. I had Mr. Kessler, reputed to be the toughest math teacher in the whole school. Perfect. Not only that, I recalled that I had my first period class with Quinn. I was taking a huge risk by continuing towards the classroom; who knew whether I’d break down into tears right in the middle of class? The last thing I needed was even more shame put to my name. However, I was boldly pushing the door open and stepping inside the classroom. My mind (at least the part of it which existed) was screaming for me to turn around. Mr. Kessler lifted up his large, sharp nose and looked at me through thick framed glasses. I approached his desk and handed him my late pass. He stared at it for a few moments before pointing towards a desk. My breath hitched when I realized each of the desks seated two kids. And out of every kid in the room, guess who I had to sit next to? None other than the already notorious Quinn Allman.
He flaunted his blond hair and grinned at me. I shot him a death glare as I slammed my books down onto the desk. He frowned, apparently confused about my response. His mouth opened, as if he was about to say something but it snapped shut when Mr. Kessler began speaking. This was fine with me; it would probably only upset me further if Quinn said something in that angelic voice of his. I moved to the far edge of the bench on which we both sat. I focused my attention on whatever my math teacher was saying. All I heard was something about a pre-test of some sort. The words he said sort of went in through one ear and came out another. What I really concentrated on was trying not to notice how Quinn was staring at me. I self-consciously worried. Was there another zit there, or did he just find my band-aid weird? As a solution to all my problems, I shook my head so that my hair fell over my cheek. I was using the ostrich principle; I couldn’t see him and thus, he couldn’t see me either.
I gazed at my desk when Mr. Kessler pushed a paper onto it. It contained a whole bunch of formulas and symbols. There was a whole bunch of shit about solving problems using trigonometric ratios. The small, black print made my head spin. Math was not my subject. I glanced around the room and saw that many of the other students looked perplexed as well. At least I wasn’t the only stupid one here.
Mr. Kessler apparently noticed this too, because he said, “Unlike most tests in this classroom, I will allow you to work with the person next to you. Get started.”
I nearly screamed in protest. Why was Mr. Kessler torturing me like this? Was he one of God’s henchmen, just like Leslie? I used my hand to shove back a great deal of black waves from my face. Leaving my fingers to clutch the thick hairs, I rested my elbow on the desk. Once again, I felt Quinn’s eyes on me.
He cleared his throat and scooted closer to me, “Uh...so do you get any of this stuff?”
I pretended not to hear and foraged through my pencil case for a writing utensil.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice laced with obviously fake concern.
I ignored him and filled out the easy no-brainers first; like the date and class period.
“Hello? Earth to Bert?” he waved a hand in front of my face, “Can you hear me? Blink once for yes, twice for no.” When I left my eyes stretched out, being sure not to blink at all, he seemed to finally get it, “Did I do something wrong?”
I snapped my head in his direction, “No.” My voice dripped with sarcasm and hopefully a dash of scorn.
His chocolate brown eyes were wide and sincere, “Well, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to...was it on the bus? Cause Chase made fun of your...” he leaned in close to whisper in my ear, “...zit?”
The softness and closeness of his voice startled me, making my angry mask disappear. His face was literally less than two inches away. I was sure this didn’t strike him as wrong, but my head was shouting, “Kiss him! Kiss him!” Of course, I didn’t, but it was pretty tempting. I backed away nervously.
“That was it, wasn’t it?” he smiled and put a hand on my arm, “Hey, I shouldn’t have laughed. I’m really sorry; I don’t know why the hell I did. And that was genius, getting a band-aid. I never would’ve thought of that,” his fingers left my arm. I was sure I could feel a burning sensation where they used to be. Quinn moved his hand to his blonde bangs and lifted the hair up, revealing more than one mountainous zit, causing me to rudely gasp, “I had to work pretty damn hard to grow all this hair out. If I was as smart as you, my hair wouldn’t be all weird looking.” I felt like telling him how gorgeous I thought his hair was, but I left my mouth at rest, “So is that all, Bert? Are we cool now?”
The question hung in the air between us. My mouth opened slightly, letting out air but no reply. Quinn’s eyes were like wormholes, sucking me into them. As much as I tried, I couldn’t break away from his gaze. I completely lost track of whatever shit was going on in the room. Mr. Kessler may have said something, but I didn’t hear. If you asked me, nobody else was even here; it was just me and Quinn, Quinn and me. My salivary glands threatened to produce an excessive amount of drool. Am I really to blame for that, though? I mean, honestly, he was just so hot! Even the straight guys in this school would have to agree with me on that. Maybe in my lovesick daze, I unintentionally moved closer because Quinn suddenly looked freaked out.
“Bert? Are we cool now?” he repeated.
I could have just forgotten about the whole faggot thing. I could have said yes and grinned and not totally blew it with a potential friend/lover. But I wouldn’t be a freak anymore if I did that now, would I?
“No,” I said, much to my heart’s displeasure, “It’s not about the zit.”
Quinn looked like a tile from the ceiling had just fallen on his head. Chewing his lip, he slowly switched his stare to his test. My stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as punishment for making such a beautiful boy miserable. A bastard like me didn’t deserve to live. He looked so...so sad. But why? Because of me? The corner of my lip twitched. Did he actually like me? I turned my head and shook my hair out again to hide a smile, only for a moment. Then it dawned on me that Quinn was still upset. Thoughtfully, I stared at my test. The numbers all danced together, but never formed a solution to my Quinn problem. I cocked my head in his direction once more to see him raise his hand.
Mr. Kessler noticed this soon after I did, “Yes, Quinn?”
“Uh...can I go to the bathroom?” he asked politely, but not in grammatically correct words.
Mr. Kessler didn’t seem to care, “Go ahead.”
“Thank you, but I’m new so I don’t really know where everything is yet. Could someone maybe help me?” as he said this, he threw me a sideways glance.
I frowned. Didn’t I just show him the boy’s room yesterday?
Mr. Kessler obviously didn’t know this, “Bert,” he barked my name, “Guide Mr. Allman please.”
A quiet word of defiance left my mouth but strangled itself upon seeing Mr. Kessler’s expression. Wordlessly, Quinn and I walked out of the room. The door shut behind us with a loud sound. It echoed throughout the otherwise silent hallway. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my hoodie as I led him through the familiar corridors. If he thought we were going to talk, he was sorely mistaken. The only thing I could hear was the quiet rhythm of our shoes. I hated it. Continuously, I would make sentences in my brain to make the situation better, but they never reached my mouth. Something inside me grabbed the words and shoved them in a box before I could. My throat tightened, giving me an awful sensation. Ohgodohgodohgod. I was going to cry and completely embarrass myself any second now. I would have loved to swallow a couple of my pills right now, but they were so far away in the medicine cabinet at home. I stopped in my tracks and rubbed my currently dry eyes, as if that would help.
It only caused Quinn to slam into me with a noise which resembled, “Oof!”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
My feet suddenly felt like rubber. I couldn’t take a step forward, despite how much I wanted to. What the fuck was happening? Was I cursed or something? Desperately, I thought of something to say.
“It’s because he called me a faggot,” I blurted out.
Quinn stared at me for a long while before asking, “What?”
I sucked in a great deal of air, “On the bus. Chase called me a faggot and you laughed.”
Quinn closed his eyes and said something under his breath that sounded like “Oh God.” I had no way of telling if he meant, “Oh God, what a loser.” Or “Oh God, I’m such a doofus.” Either way, when his eyes flickered open, he appeared to be pissed off, “Bert, it’s just a word. You can’t get insulted when people say shit like that. I didn’t even realize that you...” he paused to sigh exasperatedly, “Why the fuck do you care that he said that?”
I crossed my arms over my chest angrily, “I don’t care what he said. I hear shit like that every fucking day, I’m immune to it. But I care what you didn’t say.” I watched him look down and shuffle his feet before quickly adding an unnecessary closing to my speech, “I know about your parents.”
His head shot up, “You...I...how’d you even...? Never mind, don’t tell me. We’re not even talking about my parents right now. Look, here’s what happened on the bus; I figured you never really acted like you gave a shit what I was saying before, so it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t say anything to Chase. I guess that was stupid since I knew you for what? Five minutes? I’m sorry anyway,” he stopped to scratch his head, “And you seem...way cooler than Chase too...so uh...yeah.”
A small smile played at my lips. I was tempted to wrap my arms around Quinn and squeeze him tightly in a hug. The miniscule bubble of common sense in my brain may have been popped because that’s precisely what I found myself doing. My body filled up with a weird kind of pleasure. I felt like I was high off of nothing. It was just a hug, nothing I should have been this happy about, but I still was. There was something definitely wrong with me. Realizing how awkward this must be for him, I pulled away. Unfortunately, I felt my cheeks burn into a bright shade of red. I forced myself to grin until I remembered how ugly my smile looked. Then, I sort of just waited to see his response.
The only word he said was, “Wow.”
I figured that it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, especially since he laughed while he said it. Clearing my throat, I opened my mouth. I was interrupted by many doors opening; the seniors being let out of class. God damn it. Nervously, I gestured for Quinn to follow me. I walked at an extraordinarily fast pace, through all the tall guys and girls, hurrying to the safety of the boys’ room.
Quinn, once again, had to jog, “Why are we going so fast? You know, I didn’t really need to go to the bathroom, right? We can go back to class.”
I had no time to explain because in my uncoordinated frenzy, I forgot to look where I was going. I slammed straight into the devil. Inertia caused me to fall backwards onto the floor. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I felt Quinn’s arm on mine, trying to tug me up. Tingles ran through my body, only to be frozen by fear. I scrambled to my feet and took a few steps back, dragging Quinn with me. I already knew there was no use trying to run this time.
“Well, well, well,” Leslie Ackerman smirked, “Look what we have here.”
I was so fucking screwed.
Hey, sorry it took so long to update. Writer's block. Hopefully, this long chapter was worth the wait. I loved writing the part when Bert just randomly hugs Quinn. Otherwise, I thought it was ehhh...ok. Reviews? Rates, maybe?
I must have been granted a magical power by those beautiful angels up above in heaven because I didn’t cry. My mouth was pressed into a straight determined line as I stared blankly at the back of the seat in front of me. One hand held the strap of my backpack, forming a weak fist around it, intended for punching Chase if I ever developed the guts. My other hand remained on my cheek in pursuit of the same hopeless challenge it had been given earlier. While my eyes continued to stay dry, I felt like I was suffering from internal bleeding. I felt like all my bones were being chopped down by some metaphorical lumberjack inside of me. Muscles? They didn’t even exist anymore. If I stood up, I’d probably fall over. The only thing left in me was a mush of organs and all the tears I refused to let out.
I stole a glance at Quinn and his new best friend. The sight sickened me beyond an understandable extent; the talking, the laughing. How could they be when I was dying only a mere foot away? It was not like it bothered me the slightest that Chase didn’t care. It was a given that we were meant to be enemies, ever since I met him back in the fifth grade. But Quinn...he had seemed so... nice. I sighed and leaned over the window, pressing my scorching forehead against the contrastingly cold glass. I should have known the impossibility of somebody being as perfect as I imagined Quinn to be. My obsession with him would have to destroy itself somehow.
When the bus finally came to a screeching halt, I stayed in my seat. Noisily, the other kids filed out of the vehicle. It was only after they all were at least a few yards away that I stood up. I trudged outside with one hand still over my blemish. A light breeze blew at my hair, which I would have regarded as comforting on any other day. Keeping my eyes fixed on the ground, I took slow steps into the school building. Without even looking up, I made my way to the nurse’s office. The nurse was a jolly lady with wispy white hair and rosy cheeks. She reminded me of Santa Clause. I wondered if she would consider that as an insult or not. Either way, I didn’t tell her and instead, politely forced a smile in her direction upon entering her office.
“I need a band-aid,” I told her before she could greet me.
The thing I loved about that lady was that she never asked any questions. Even when I peeled off the plastic and pressed the sticky surface on top of my pimple, she simply raised her eyebrows and smiled. I sincerely wished her a good day before walking to my next destination; the front office. The evil front desk lady had piercing blue eyes which accused me of murder when all I did was smile at her. Stuttering all the while, I explained to her how I was absent yesterday and how I needed my schedule and locker number.
A few more lapses of time later, I found myself weaving through students, on the way to homeroom. I had Mr. Kessler, reputed to be the toughest math teacher in the whole school. Perfect. Not only that, I recalled that I had my first period class with Quinn. I was taking a huge risk by continuing towards the classroom; who knew whether I’d break down into tears right in the middle of class? The last thing I needed was even more shame put to my name. However, I was boldly pushing the door open and stepping inside the classroom. My mind (at least the part of it which existed) was screaming for me to turn around. Mr. Kessler lifted up his large, sharp nose and looked at me through thick framed glasses. I approached his desk and handed him my late pass. He stared at it for a few moments before pointing towards a desk. My breath hitched when I realized each of the desks seated two kids. And out of every kid in the room, guess who I had to sit next to? None other than the already notorious Quinn Allman.
He flaunted his blond hair and grinned at me. I shot him a death glare as I slammed my books down onto the desk. He frowned, apparently confused about my response. His mouth opened, as if he was about to say something but it snapped shut when Mr. Kessler began speaking. This was fine with me; it would probably only upset me further if Quinn said something in that angelic voice of his. I moved to the far edge of the bench on which we both sat. I focused my attention on whatever my math teacher was saying. All I heard was something about a pre-test of some sort. The words he said sort of went in through one ear and came out another. What I really concentrated on was trying not to notice how Quinn was staring at me. I self-consciously worried. Was there another zit there, or did he just find my band-aid weird? As a solution to all my problems, I shook my head so that my hair fell over my cheek. I was using the ostrich principle; I couldn’t see him and thus, he couldn’t see me either.
I gazed at my desk when Mr. Kessler pushed a paper onto it. It contained a whole bunch of formulas and symbols. There was a whole bunch of shit about solving problems using trigonometric ratios. The small, black print made my head spin. Math was not my subject. I glanced around the room and saw that many of the other students looked perplexed as well. At least I wasn’t the only stupid one here.
Mr. Kessler apparently noticed this too, because he said, “Unlike most tests in this classroom, I will allow you to work with the person next to you. Get started.”
I nearly screamed in protest. Why was Mr. Kessler torturing me like this? Was he one of God’s henchmen, just like Leslie? I used my hand to shove back a great deal of black waves from my face. Leaving my fingers to clutch the thick hairs, I rested my elbow on the desk. Once again, I felt Quinn’s eyes on me.
He cleared his throat and scooted closer to me, “Uh...so do you get any of this stuff?”
I pretended not to hear and foraged through my pencil case for a writing utensil.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice laced with obviously fake concern.
I ignored him and filled out the easy no-brainers first; like the date and class period.
“Hello? Earth to Bert?” he waved a hand in front of my face, “Can you hear me? Blink once for yes, twice for no.” When I left my eyes stretched out, being sure not to blink at all, he seemed to finally get it, “Did I do something wrong?”
I snapped my head in his direction, “No.” My voice dripped with sarcasm and hopefully a dash of scorn.
His chocolate brown eyes were wide and sincere, “Well, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to...was it on the bus? Cause Chase made fun of your...” he leaned in close to whisper in my ear, “...zit?”
The softness and closeness of his voice startled me, making my angry mask disappear. His face was literally less than two inches away. I was sure this didn’t strike him as wrong, but my head was shouting, “Kiss him! Kiss him!” Of course, I didn’t, but it was pretty tempting. I backed away nervously.
“That was it, wasn’t it?” he smiled and put a hand on my arm, “Hey, I shouldn’t have laughed. I’m really sorry; I don’t know why the hell I did. And that was genius, getting a band-aid. I never would’ve thought of that,” his fingers left my arm. I was sure I could feel a burning sensation where they used to be. Quinn moved his hand to his blonde bangs and lifted the hair up, revealing more than one mountainous zit, causing me to rudely gasp, “I had to work pretty damn hard to grow all this hair out. If I was as smart as you, my hair wouldn’t be all weird looking.” I felt like telling him how gorgeous I thought his hair was, but I left my mouth at rest, “So is that all, Bert? Are we cool now?”
The question hung in the air between us. My mouth opened slightly, letting out air but no reply. Quinn’s eyes were like wormholes, sucking me into them. As much as I tried, I couldn’t break away from his gaze. I completely lost track of whatever shit was going on in the room. Mr. Kessler may have said something, but I didn’t hear. If you asked me, nobody else was even here; it was just me and Quinn, Quinn and me. My salivary glands threatened to produce an excessive amount of drool. Am I really to blame for that, though? I mean, honestly, he was just so hot! Even the straight guys in this school would have to agree with me on that. Maybe in my lovesick daze, I unintentionally moved closer because Quinn suddenly looked freaked out.
“Bert? Are we cool now?” he repeated.
I could have just forgotten about the whole faggot thing. I could have said yes and grinned and not totally blew it with a potential friend/lover. But I wouldn’t be a freak anymore if I did that now, would I?
“No,” I said, much to my heart’s displeasure, “It’s not about the zit.”
Quinn looked like a tile from the ceiling had just fallen on his head. Chewing his lip, he slowly switched his stare to his test. My stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as punishment for making such a beautiful boy miserable. A bastard like me didn’t deserve to live. He looked so...so sad. But why? Because of me? The corner of my lip twitched. Did he actually like me? I turned my head and shook my hair out again to hide a smile, only for a moment. Then it dawned on me that Quinn was still upset. Thoughtfully, I stared at my test. The numbers all danced together, but never formed a solution to my Quinn problem. I cocked my head in his direction once more to see him raise his hand.
Mr. Kessler noticed this soon after I did, “Yes, Quinn?”
“Uh...can I go to the bathroom?” he asked politely, but not in grammatically correct words.
Mr. Kessler didn’t seem to care, “Go ahead.”
“Thank you, but I’m new so I don’t really know where everything is yet. Could someone maybe help me?” as he said this, he threw me a sideways glance.
I frowned. Didn’t I just show him the boy’s room yesterday?
Mr. Kessler obviously didn’t know this, “Bert,” he barked my name, “Guide Mr. Allman please.”
A quiet word of defiance left my mouth but strangled itself upon seeing Mr. Kessler’s expression. Wordlessly, Quinn and I walked out of the room. The door shut behind us with a loud sound. It echoed throughout the otherwise silent hallway. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my hoodie as I led him through the familiar corridors. If he thought we were going to talk, he was sorely mistaken. The only thing I could hear was the quiet rhythm of our shoes. I hated it. Continuously, I would make sentences in my brain to make the situation better, but they never reached my mouth. Something inside me grabbed the words and shoved them in a box before I could. My throat tightened, giving me an awful sensation. Ohgodohgodohgod. I was going to cry and completely embarrass myself any second now. I would have loved to swallow a couple of my pills right now, but they were so far away in the medicine cabinet at home. I stopped in my tracks and rubbed my currently dry eyes, as if that would help.
It only caused Quinn to slam into me with a noise which resembled, “Oof!”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
My feet suddenly felt like rubber. I couldn’t take a step forward, despite how much I wanted to. What the fuck was happening? Was I cursed or something? Desperately, I thought of something to say.
“It’s because he called me a faggot,” I blurted out.
Quinn stared at me for a long while before asking, “What?”
I sucked in a great deal of air, “On the bus. Chase called me a faggot and you laughed.”
Quinn closed his eyes and said something under his breath that sounded like “Oh God.” I had no way of telling if he meant, “Oh God, what a loser.” Or “Oh God, I’m such a doofus.” Either way, when his eyes flickered open, he appeared to be pissed off, “Bert, it’s just a word. You can’t get insulted when people say shit like that. I didn’t even realize that you...” he paused to sigh exasperatedly, “Why the fuck do you care that he said that?”
I crossed my arms over my chest angrily, “I don’t care what he said. I hear shit like that every fucking day, I’m immune to it. But I care what you didn’t say.” I watched him look down and shuffle his feet before quickly adding an unnecessary closing to my speech, “I know about your parents.”
His head shot up, “You...I...how’d you even...? Never mind, don’t tell me. We’re not even talking about my parents right now. Look, here’s what happened on the bus; I figured you never really acted like you gave a shit what I was saying before, so it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t say anything to Chase. I guess that was stupid since I knew you for what? Five minutes? I’m sorry anyway,” he stopped to scratch his head, “And you seem...way cooler than Chase too...so uh...yeah.”
A small smile played at my lips. I was tempted to wrap my arms around Quinn and squeeze him tightly in a hug. The miniscule bubble of common sense in my brain may have been popped because that’s precisely what I found myself doing. My body filled up with a weird kind of pleasure. I felt like I was high off of nothing. It was just a hug, nothing I should have been this happy about, but I still was. There was something definitely wrong with me. Realizing how awkward this must be for him, I pulled away. Unfortunately, I felt my cheeks burn into a bright shade of red. I forced myself to grin until I remembered how ugly my smile looked. Then, I sort of just waited to see his response.
The only word he said was, “Wow.”
I figured that it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, especially since he laughed while he said it. Clearing my throat, I opened my mouth. I was interrupted by many doors opening; the seniors being let out of class. God damn it. Nervously, I gestured for Quinn to follow me. I walked at an extraordinarily fast pace, through all the tall guys and girls, hurrying to the safety of the boys’ room.
Quinn, once again, had to jog, “Why are we going so fast? You know, I didn’t really need to go to the bathroom, right? We can go back to class.”
I had no time to explain because in my uncoordinated frenzy, I forgot to look where I was going. I slammed straight into the devil. Inertia caused me to fall backwards onto the floor. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I felt Quinn’s arm on mine, trying to tug me up. Tingles ran through my body, only to be frozen by fear. I scrambled to my feet and took a few steps back, dragging Quinn with me. I already knew there was no use trying to run this time.
“Well, well, well,” Leslie Ackerman smirked, “Look what we have here.”
I was so fucking screwed.
Hey, sorry it took so long to update. Writer's block. Hopefully, this long chapter was worth the wait. I loved writing the part when Bert just randomly hugs Quinn. Otherwise, I thought it was ehhh...ok. Reviews? Rates, maybe?
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