19 5

May was lying. I had no evidence, and I sure would never say that to her face, but I couldn't help but feel it. Was I sure? Hell no. If I thought about it too much, I'm sure I would have dismissed the thought. But a little voice was telling me she was lying.

No, May's response to the whole thing was real. Phil was lying. He got off scot-free. It was easy for him to deny it all and play the good guy. He already had issues with consent, and I knew that. Maybe he himself didn't know what he was doing was wrong. Maybe his mind warped the situation and he thinks he's this good guy when in reality…

I shook my head. This situation was going to drive me bananas. Speaking of, I picked up the peel and chucked it away, all done with my lunch. I got up from the table, told Carson goodbye, and started to trek down the hallway.

A familiar camera looped around a familiar neck caught my attention as I approached the main hallway. It was Nicole, but she wasn't alone. She was talking to… someone. I barely recognized him, but I wasn't sure where from. As I got closer and closer, it dawned on me that it was the guy I saw making out with a dude at the party. That said, had I not known that, I would not have guessed in a million years he was gay, aside from his flamboyant posture. His body language was telling me he was flirting with her, and her body language was telling me that he would have had better luck spelunking for a pigeon.

"It was really great to see you again at the party." he told her, smiling, as I got close enough to hear their conversation.

"Yeah." she simply replied, avoiding eye contact and brushing her hair out of her face.

"…Have you been doing well?" he continued, noting his lack of success.

"Sure have. So well. Welly well well." Nicole replied with no emotion. "Put me in the ground and I'll find so much groundwater."

"Ha!" he over-enthusiastically laughed. "I miss your sense of humor."

As I got closer, Nicole made eye contact with me and for a millisecond, I saw the cogs turning in her head. I was on to her.

"Well, it's been great, but I need to jet." Nicole told him. "I need to have a chat with Adam here. It's about yearbook stuff. Super private."

"Ah, right." he replied, trying really hard to hide the dejected tone in his voice. "No problem, I had stuff to do anyway. Catch you later?" He waved to her as he began to walk off.

"Why not?" she replied as he walked away. She turned to me and gave a little smile. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." I replied. "So am I on yearbook team now?"

"You wish." she told me. "I just needed an excuse to get away."

"Yeah, he was coming on to you pretty strong." I noted. "Is he bi or something? Is he single now that the party ended?"

"How should I know?" she shrugged, then snapped her fingers. "Oh, I did have something to tell you. I need to get somewhere right after school. Is it cool if you take the bus tonight?"

"Somehow I��ll manage." I retorted.

"Well," Nicole replied, flipping her hair dramatically, "excuse me for asking."

"Where do you have to go?" I asked.

"If you thought I'd give you the answer, you'd know already." she replied, winking at me.

She had me there. "Fine." I huffed. "Enjoy your super secret whatever."

"And enjoy being on a loser bus. Like a loser. Loser." she replied.

"Good one." I told her, rolling my eyes.

"What class do you have next?" she asked.

I sighed exasperatedly. She always did this, not out of curiosity, but to test me. Today of all days, I was too exhausted from the events that transpired during first period to think straight. "I don't even remember." I answered honestly. "Could you please tell me?"

"Only if you beg." Nicole's smile got larger.

"Grow up." I whined.

"You grow up." she countered. "I'm childish. You're a child. There's a difference."

"Nicole, what's my God damn class today?" I asked, borderline annoyed.

"Well, if you're gonna pout about it…" she commented, smiling in victory. "History with Mr. Anton. If he's sticking to the same schedule of my year, given the date, you should be in your World War Two unit, and today's lesson will be on the difference between concentration camps and internment camps. Spoiler alert, the concentration camps were worse."

George Takei would have some choice words for her. "Alright, thanks." I told her with a smile.

She moved in for a hug. "You're welcome, cutie." she responded, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.

"Hey, not in public." I teased her.

Nicole slowly lowered her eyebrow, gesturing around her. The hallway was, at this point, empty except for us. Lunch period was over.

"You might wanna hurry to class, squirt." Nicole remarked dryly, kicking my behind softly as she sauntered away. "Don't wanna be late."

Shit. "Later!" I tossed behind my shoulder as I ran like an idiot to history.

***

"Thanks for coming to see me." Mr. MacDonald greeted me as I entered the room.

"No worries." I replied less-than-confidently as I took my seat.

"Your bus comes at 3:30, right?" he checked with me. "I'll make this quick. I understand you were visiting Officer Dickson when you were supposed to be in the washroom?"

I was diligent. "I can't say." I replied solemnly.

He chuckled. "Well, first off, if you hadn't, you would have just said 'no.' Second of all, you can drop the act. This 'need to know' crap was for the students. We as teachers have to know about what goes on with our students. You know, in case there's tensions or something."

His raspy voice rang through the room. "Basically, anything that's important enough for one teacher to know about students, every teacher knows. It's for your own safety."

"Mr. Salvador once told me that teachers aren't there to be the student's friend." I replied slowly.

He chuckled again. "First of all, I'm sure you noticed, Mr. Salvador is a bit of his own character. Second of all, though, he's right." He re-adjusted himself in his chair. "We're not here to be your friends. But we are here to be someone to talk to. Friendships can create bias. Remember that assignment where we looked at the bias levels in U.N. decisions?"

I nodded.

"Those countries are friends. I mean, we're not here to get close to you, but we're here to be here for you. Plus, what would it look like if I was showing excess favor to you? 'Nah, it's fine, we're friends.' Except it's not fine. And if I didn't, you might take it personally." He sat back, pointing to me and nodding slowly like he gave the best argument ever.

Every single person in my life was a god damn preacher. "So what's your point?" I asked, eyeing the clock.

He blinked. "Oh, sorry. I got a little off topic there." he told mostly himself. "My point is, I wanted to ask you something. Did you go to the washroom then happen to see it, or did you straight-up lie? I'm okay with either answer as long as it's the truth."

"Second one." I admitted.

"Alright, cool." he nodded, sitting back up. "Given what happened, I understand. I can't tell you what their decision was but your recount helped if you can believe me. In the future though, if this sort of thing happens again, ask to talk to me in the hall or something. I mean, I'm not exactly a stiff." He gestured to his beach-themed t-shirt, covering his paunch. "I can understand stuff. And I would have let you go."

"Really?" I asked a little skeptically.

"Well, I may have asked a few questions then got Dickson to come up here, but then yeah, I would have. Again, we're here for you." He sat back again in his chair and stretched. "That's time, isn't it? Do you have any questions for me?"

I quickly glanced at the clock. "No, I'm good. No offense, but I should really catch the bus."

"None taken." He waved me off. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you." I replied less-than-enthusiastically as I walked out of the room.

It was occurring to me that in my daily life I was seeing some serious shit, and the only way people seemed to know how to respond to that was to lecture me. It was getting annoying.

***

The grinding sound of bus tires on suburban underdeveloped roads filled my ears as a million thoughts of nothing whirled around in my head. The whole thing was so unsatisfying. I didn't know who lied. I may never know. Both were upset. Both were upset at each other, and it looked like neither of them were leaving my life at all. I mean, both of them were my friends… right? May seemed like my friend, although she blackmailed me. But that was in the past. Phil seemed like my friend too… although he threatened me… but that was in the past too…

Nothing. The whole situation was a pudding. And not like those nice puddings made of chocolate and happiness. The lumpy kind that make you question everything and not move from the couch. The kind that taste like their texture but nothing else. I felt like I had a problem, but everything was resolved. Well, 'resolved.'

Luckily for me, I had a long amount of time to think about the nothing. By the time I got home, I had practically become the pudding of bleh. Still, the situation was behind me, for better or for worse. Time would take over from here and things would slowly get back to normal, the normal I missed and craved.

I gave a sideways glance to Nicole's house and smiled to myself. Her car was in the driveway. Her errands were over and she was home. Maybe after unwinding at home I could go over to her place and talk to her about it.

A flash of her expression as she found out what happened played in my mind. Okay, talking to her about Phil's alleged sexual assault was a terrible idea. Still, I could talk to her. I enjoyed talking to her. I liked her. A lot.

"I'm home!" I called out to mom as I shut the door behind me. I kicked off my shoes and wandered into the kitchen, where I could hear a voice.

No. Voices. There were multiple people in the kitchen. As I walked in, I saw Nicole sitting down at the kitchen table, talking to my mom. She turned to face me. "Oh, hey squirt." she said casually.

"Uh…" I managed in response.

She chuckled warmly. "Don't worry. I told your mom everything. Everything." she assured me.

On cue, mom got up from the table and walked over to me, enveloping me in a tight hug. "Oh, sweetie." she assured me in her most motherly voice. "You didn't need to lie to us about that. We're perfectly okay knowing the truth."

Too shocked by everything ever to even hug my mom back, the only response I could manage was "What?" in a stupidly high voice.

"I told Marcia it all." Nicole restated. "About how I borderline forced you into trying weed, how you didn't like it, and how you blamed yourself. I know you already said sorry but I figure your parents deserved to know why you were acting weird for that little bit.

My mom was still hugging me so she couldn't see my face. I took the opportunity to mouth to Nicole, Why would you lie to my parents? Don't you think this will make stuff worse? Given Nicole could do literally everything ever I figured she could read lips.

She could. Without missing a beat, she shrugged and mouthed her response. It was at this point that I clued into the fact that unlike her, my ability to read lips wasn't stellar. I think she may have said 'yellow potatoes' at one point though.

My mom broke off from the hug. "I'm going to call your father and talk it through with him, though I'm sure he'll understand. Both of us know that you try things when you're a teenager. You didn't have to blame yourself for this, honey."

"Well, who else can I blame for this whole situation?" I asked, shooting a lightning-fast look of death at Nicole afterwards.

Mom understood the question was rhetorical and picked up the phone. "Do you want to be down here while we talk about this, or do you want to be away from it?"

Nicole, of fucking course, assumed that she could answer the question as herself. "Well, if you don't mind, I'm going up to Adam's room for now. I can either talk to him about this now while you and – it's Timothy, right? – talk this over. I know he's a bit shy. Or I can wait for him. It's your call, squirt." She waited until I was looking at her dead in the eyes before finishing with a, "Bye!" and starting to bolt up the stairs. She stopped just as mom held the phone up to her ear and added, "Oh, and I'll be true to my word, Mrs. Watson. No more weed or any shenanigans. Thanks for giving me a second chance, it means the world." She smiled warmly at her, then continued her sprint up the stairs.

I whined incoherently, looking from mom back up to the top of the stairs back to mom again, before pointing at the stairs and telling mom, "I think I wanna stay out of this." Mom gave me a sympathetic nod as I could out of that situation as fast as I fucking could.

My confusion turning to anger, I ran up to my door and opened it forcefully. "What the hell we-"

The room, which just this morning was akin to a garbage dump, was now spotless. On my neatly-made bet sat Nicole, reading one of my books, No Coins, Please. It looked like she was near the ending. Her eyes looked more like she was watching a tennis match than reading a book.

"Do you have an ability to warp time or something?!" I asked exasperatedly. "I was a few seconds behind you."

"You were about 12.3." Nicole mumbled, flipping the page for about the second time since I walked in.

I shut the door behind me. "Okay, so what the hell was with the great lie you told mom?"

"You asked for a solution, and I gave you one." Nicole told me, not taking her eyes off the book. "It's clever, if I may say so. It justifies your behavior, can be adequately changed to fit the specifics since it's clear as day your parents know as much about weed as they do tax law, and gives them a reason to confirm their suspicions that I'm shady but not hate me, since they think that getting you to try weed once is a less serious offense than giving you a sexual awakening. Though I bet you were lusting after May before you even met me." She took her eyes off the book, winked at me, then turned back as she flipped the page. "Plus, I've got them sniffing down the wrong trail, literally. They think they know what weed smells like, so I told you that's the indicator if I'm lying. They told me they're going to hide the air fresheners, not like you use them though. It wouldn't kill you to put up a Glade Plug-in or something. Basically they're waiting on a smell that would occur if I lied, and never will because you don't smoke weed and won't this year."

"What if I start?" I asked.

"Weren't you paying attention? You won't." Nicole retorted half-heartedly, nose still in the book.

"Could you at least pay attention to me when talking to me? Reading the book and carrying on a conversation is a little condescending."

"Fair." she replied, turning the page and pausing about seven second before closing the book. "The ending was stupid anyway. Airport security is in no way as simple as that."

I stared incredulously at her. There's no way someone could pick up that detail unless they read the book. "Did you seriously read the whole book while you were here?" I asked her.

"I could have taken my time with it if you hadn't made me put it down." She lazily stretched. "You never thank me for cleaning your room either."

"Well, I can never find anything in my dresser now. You organized it a different way." I defended myself.

Nicole nodded. "And I put labels on all of your drawers. You just never noticed them." she replied. "You're used to opening drawers and finding stuff in that mess you call a 'different way.'"

"I noticed the labels." I huffed. Instantly, my world went black. Nicole covered my eyes.

"Name the top label." she ordered me.

"You're putting me on the spot."

"Okay, name the next one."

"This is a lot of pressure."

"Name any label I put on your dresser, Adam."

"You suck, you know that?"

"Only the lucky ones." she giggled as she lifted her hands away from me.

"Speaking of, if my parents are sniffing around, won't they catch the smell of sex?" I asked her.

"Most likely not." Nicole answered, getting up, wandering to one of my shelves and fiddling with something she found on it. "I'm not exactly pungent down there, and neither are you. Sex smell boils down to the smell of your sex stuff and sweat. With us particularly it's predominantly sweat. Even if there's sex stuff in the air if the mind is trained to look for something, it'll find it."

I scratched my head, looking out the window. "I don't get it."

"I outlined that when we weren't up here trying out pot, we were gaming or hanging out or doing homework or, most importantly, karate. Karate is a physical activity. It makes you sweat. Given no smell of pot will occur if I train your parents to smell for sweat when we're working out, they'll smell it even if they're trying to catch us."

I chuckled. "That sounds like a really weak plan." I said honestly.

"Yeah, it's not my best ever, but I'm working out the details." she agreed.

"So what, if they knock on the door we instantly start making karate shout-y noises?" I asked jokingly.

"They're called kiais, Jackie Chan." Nicole sarcastically retorted. I whipped my head back to her, about to spout some sarcasm of my own, when I noticed she had my model train's engine upside down in her right hand. Her left hand was fiddling with it. She looked up at me with a neutral face. "Also, I just fixed your toy train."

"Nicole, that thing hasn't worked since I was twelve." I skeptically replied.

"Yes, and now it does. Because I fixed it." she forcefully told me. She put the engine on the floor, grabbed some train track parts from the shelf, and quickly attached them. She set them down on the ground, put my engine on top of them, then turned it on. Slowly but surely, the engine started to come to life, traveling along the tracks until they ended and the engine fell off, later to be scooped up by Nicole and turned off.

Part of me was deeply moved. My toy train was an important part of my childhood, of me. Whenever anything was going wrong, whenever I had a bad day or my parents were fighting or something, I would turn on my toy train, tune out the outside world and my troubles would melt away. I can't count the number of hours I played with it. It practically resembled my innocence. And now Nicole just brought it back. But another part of me was kind of scared.

"Nicole, how do you do all this?" I asked her, somewhat fearfully.

"Do what?"

"The impressions, the fast reading, the cleaning. You know more about tax law than Timothy Geithner. You just fixed in a minute something my dad told me was impossible to fix, without any tools. You can drive with your fucking eyes closed. Plus, I heard about that picture of lightning above Hazelwood you took for yearbook last year. According to Eli you only needed to take one picture."

"Jeez, you really won't let this go, will you?" she asked me disappointedly.

"You're like some kind of superhero. Or supervillain." I added.

Her look turned into a grin. "Maybe I am." she told me. The grin faded as I stared expectantly at her. "Someday, okay? Not today, but someday."

"I'll hold you to that." I warned her.

"Deal." She told me, dropping off the engine and coming closer to me. She flopped down on the bed, and I followed suit. In what felt like a few seconds time, we were spooning, and pretty soon, I was kissing her neck.

"Well, hello." Nicole dryly commented. "Looks like someone wants to try that sweat theory on for size."

"Do I really smell like nothing down there?" I asked her.

She laughed. "Let me just put it like this, squirt – personal hygiene goes a long way." She adjusted herself so that she was facing me, then gave me a slow, deep kiss. "This time though, no domination play. I want to enjoy you for you."

"Only if you let me enjoy you for you too." I smiled.

"Deal." she smiled back, and kissed me deeply once again. After the kiss, we kissed once more, and then again. Our mouths opened as her arms became tighter around me, passion building up within her. Her tongue wrestled with mine as our hands explored each other like long-lost lovers, even though it had only been two days.

Eventually, Nicole had enough of the kissing stage and wanted to move on. She broke off the kiss with me, giving me her signature seductive sly smile as she removed her shirt.

No bra today. Nice. Her beautiful breasts, big and beautiful, bounced up to look at me in the face. Either she was easily excited or had been anticipating this, because her nipples were clearly and delightfully erect.

I couldn't resist, nonetheless, making a snarky remark. "So, is today one of those days when me kissing your boobs doesn't feel like much?" I asked sarcastically.

"You're getting better at it, so shut up and lick." Nicole ordered, coaxing me by placing one of her hands on the back of my head, but not pulling me. I liked the way she did that. I moved forward, kissing outside her areolae at first, moving in closer and closer until I got to my target, which I at first kissed agonizingly slowly. Her nipples only got impossibly harder, a fact I enjoyed. After the kissing and teasing had clearly gotten its intended effect, I launched into her boob, hungrily sucking on her beautiful erect nipple. It felt good in my mouth. It felt very right. I couldn't resist running my hands up and down her body as she made me feel good just by allowing her pleasure.

I looked up at her face and her expression mirrored her body language. Her eyes were adorably closed and her mouth was somewhat open, adorably curved into some kind of half-smile. She was making soft noises of approval as I sucked, only to be stopped as I moved breasts, ready to make the other one feel just as good.

As I was doing this, Nicole was working both her pants (and whatever was underneath) and mine off, and because she was freaking Nicole, she somehow succeeded. I pulled my mouth away from her breast to see she had shaved again, and her cute enlarged clit was staring me straight in the face.

I smiled up at her, ready to dive in, when she stopped me, a smile painted on her hormonally charged face. "I don't think so, hotshot. Not today." she told me breathily.

"Don't you want this?" I asked her, half teasing, half concerned.

"Not today. Today, I'm craving your dick in my mouth." she answered with a serious expression.

"Well then, why don't we sixty-nine?" I asked her.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Why don't we." she seductively commented as she pushed me over onto the bed. At this point I was still wearing my shirt so I was feeling a little silly, but I sure as well wasn't going to let that stop me.

Nicole seductively crawled on top of me, practically purring as she approached my dick. She gave it a generous lick. "It looks as fucking good as I remember." she remarked out loud, mostly to herself.

"Well then why aren't you digging in?" I asked her jokingly.

"Because if I don't work out the angle perfectly you're going to suffocate as you eat me out, squirt. That's why." she responded.

"I wouldn't mind dying that way." I replied dryly. She ignored me and placed herself down gently in a way where my tongue has complete access to her gorgeous pussy, but my nose was still above it so I could comfortably breathe.

"You alright?" she asked me.

"I'm in fucking heaven." I replied without thinking, giving my first lick.

She gave a soft chuckle then began to lick me, at first teasingly. However, I couldn't wait and began going at it, my tongue alternating between licking away at her folds and lightly teasing her clit. This began feeding her hormonal frenzy and before long she couldn't take it anymore. At first she accidentally let out a loud moan while licking me, then with a clear passion she took me into her mouth and started sucking me off as she affectionately rubbed my slightly toned side.

Her reactions were feeding my lust, too. I began grabbing her ass with both hands, kneading the handfuls and occasionally giving her ass a spank, which she always rewarded with a slight moan, muffled on my cock. It was like every time her lips made contact with my cock it sent this electric wave through me, ending at my mouth, giving me more energy to lick deeper or hit the right spots, giving her the energy to start the whole process again. We were two very horny teenagers, who were very much entangled with each other.

Eventually, Nicole lifted up her head. "Stuh… stop." she begged breathlessly. I was in some kind of groove, and found it difficult to stop easily, so out of habit I continued. "Oh my god…" she panted. "Oh fuck… A-Adam…" She started grinding her pussy into my face, enjoying this clearly as much as I was. "You're so fuckin' good… Buh… but stop… I want you inside me right now… I need it… please…"

I wanted it too. I stopped for as long as I could, which gave Nicole the opportunity to weakly get off me and position herself on the bed. I got up and looked at her. Eyes glazed over with lust, breathing heavily, nipples erect, a little bit of drool on her chin, legs spread, pussy wet and waiting. She looked so sexy, and yet so beautiful at the same time. She was like a Renaissance painting, but better. Better looking. And she was all mine.

"Adam… I want you in me… Take me." she breathlessly ordered. My dick jumped at the command, and with a confident smile on my face, I got up on top of her and aligned my dick with her.

I nodded at her, and she nodded back, a smile forming on her face. Slowly, my dick snuck into her, filling her and sending a visible shockwave through her. "Yesssssss…" she hissed. "I love this feeling." She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in close, sending the rest of my dick to suddenly fill her and capturing a small gasp from her.

"Go. Please." she begged in that voice I always recognized when her lust took over. Who was I to argue? Slowly and lovingly at first, planting little kisses on her face, I began to pick up speed, going from slow love-making to drilling her, and watching her enjoy every second of it. I had to control myself slightly to avoid the slapping sounds of our bodies coming together, but it was still a fairly fast pace. Nicole, caught up in the sheer pleasure of it all, started lunging forward, kissing then lightly biting my neck, raking her nails down my back, trying to be cautious of the damage that could cause. It all felt amazing. I felt so happy. My body felt like it was moving on its own, and the sight of Nicole bouncing back and forth, her amazing large breasts moving along with her, her flawless skin both lovely to the eye and wonderful to touch, just made me want her more. I wanted to be like this forever with her. I wanted to feel like this always. I wanted more. I wanted to drill farther into her, make her moan my name to the stars, and see nothing but shimmering light as she climaxed, thinking of me.

Sure enough, her breathing got short and shrill after a short enough time, and she was moaning my name in short breaths. I couldn't focus, but I think I was moaning hers too. I was too focused on what we had in this moment, with me buried inside of her, thrusting back and forth, to think of anything else.

In the end, I was the one to cum first. I had collapsed on top of her, but was still pumping away, aware I was starting without her but still wanting her to enjoy this as much as I was. About three spurts into it, my wish came true as her whole body stiffened then was enveloped in light as she accepted my gift of seed in pure bliss. We were entangled in this bliss for about thirty seconds before my collapse was fully evident as I lay on top of her.

"Holy shit," she panted. "That was like our best one yet."

Through my panting I chuckled. "I can't tell. You're getting less vocal."

"I was too fucking enthralled to even speak, stud." she replied, giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek. "You were amazing."

"You were delightful." I warmly responded. We lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the moment, each other's company and the closeness of me being so close to her, until I slowly moved, already ninety percent outside of her, and flopped over beside her. I stared out the window for about ten seconds then whipped my head back to her. She was looking at the ceiling, but then at me in confusion.

"Sorry, I thought you were going to do a fast change again." I remarked.

She chuckled. "Sorry, squirt, I can barely feel my fucking legs. I may have to do it at your speed today."

"Aw, you have to be like the rest of us peasants." I teased.

"I'll manage." she responded in turn. "Actually, I might need to go to the washroom."

"You were holding something in as we did it?!" I asked. "You could have said something."

"No, dummy." she shot back, getting up and putting her underwear back on. "I just meant my mint water is in there."

"You and your traditions." I laughed. She responded by throwing my underwear in my face.

"I'll be in the washroom for a little bit." she told me as she put her pants on.

"Why?" I asked, starting to put my own clothes on reluctantly.

"Nervousness." she simply stated. "I left you something on the computer to read. I recommend you look it over." With that, she put on her shirt and left without another word, without even allowing me to respond.

I blinked twice, then finished getting dressed, the open door unnerving me. I walked over to my computer and shook the mouse to get the screen to turn on. It's impressive that Nicole figured I wouldn't have seen this when I came in, but I guess like Jigsaw, she was good at anticipating the human mind. It was a word document she had typed out for me.

Hey Squirt.

I'm typing this as you're downstairs with your mom. I hope that's cool. You should really make a more obscure password. I'm sorry for lying about the situation to your parents. I hope this makes your home life more bearable. I'm only trying to make you happy. <3

If you're reading this, we just had sex. My guess is good sex, but if it's bad sex that has nothing to do with what I'm going to say. You were right when you said that none of your problems would have happened if I hadn't shown up. I have a tendency to fuck up a lot of stuff, you know. I blame myself for a lot of shit. I let people walk all over me. Yet I'm a stubborn jerk. I sometimes make the wrong decisions. I sometimes even think I was the reason Mitch died.

Enough about that shit though. The point was, yeah you were right. I love the sex life we have but it was stupid to try to force you into a sexual awakening. Without me, you'd be every other teenager, and if you're anything like me, you kind of wish for that. I'm not sure I can forgive myself for taking that away from you. Now you've got drama and it's bleeding into your home life. That's not okay. I want to make sure that this doesn't continue to interfere with your life and your happiness, which is why I made up the weed story. It gives an excuse and makes your folks happy with you again. Hopefully all that other shit with people like Megan can calm down too if you're smart about it. But… there's another part of this plan. Warping your mind with sex got you into all this drama shit, so if I want to make you happy again, I want to take away any chance of anything interfering with it again.

I love having sex with you. It's great, you're great at it, and let's face it, I'm good at it. Plus, I feel something with you. You know this. But, I have to let all that go. Your happiness as a friend means more than this to me. This is why I wanted our time here to be so special, and I'm sure you made this sex the best thing ever, and me the happiest girl in the world. But I need to not be so selfish. I think we should stop having sex from here on in.

Sorry.

Chapter Fourteen

"If you ask me, May did it." I snarled to myself. "That's what I think."

"And do you always have this hunch, or do you go back and forth?" Salvador asked me.

I grunted annoyedly. "Yeah, okay, but I think May did it the most."

"The most?" Salvador asked me. "That creates a bit of a victim-blaming atmosphere, don't you think?"

"How do you figure?" I asked him.

"If May is innocent, she came up to you telling you about a personal violation, that she was sexually assaulted. And you immediately cast doubt on her. It's not very fair to her."

"No shit it's not fair to her, but don't you remember what she did to me at that party?!" I waved my arms around as I asked him. "She was May enough and Phil enough for both of us that day. I think I have a valid enough reason not to trust her."

"Yes, I remember that." Salvador commented, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. "You really need to stop telling me things that can get me fired." He added humorously.

"So what's this week's life lesson then?" I asked. "Do I read people wrong? Am I not patient enough? Or do I just 'not get it' and need to rethink how I approach my own life?"

"You seem tightly wound today." Salvador remarked, putting his glasses back on. "Is it because of the party's fallout?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I feel frustrated."

"Why?"

I sighed. "It's a long story."

Salvador didn't blink. He just stared at me expectantly. "What?" I finally asked, a little weirded out.

"I've never forced you to say anything." Salvador began to explain.

"Except the fight thing." I interrupted. He lowered an eyebrow for a microsecond, indicating to me that I wasn't supposed to bring it up.

"I've never forced you to say anything." he calmly repeated. "It's your choice as to whether you want to tell me or walk out. Either way is fine by me. This is for your benefit."

"Quit being such a… teacher." I jokingly complained. He didn't laugh, giving me the silence I dreaded. "Nicole and I aren't having sex anymore."

"Oh." Salvador simply responded with a moderate amount of happy interest in his voice. "Good."

"Good?" I asked him.

"You're being led down a path I wouldn't recommend for you. Especially if you already feel the need to have these meetings." Salvador explained. "You've broken down twice during these. It's going to get to the point where I ignore your requests and sign you up for a professional counsellor if I don't start seeing improvement."

I chuckled sadly. "The best thing to ever happen to me is coming to an end. I'm not crying. Is that improvement?"

A flare of slight anger flashed over Salvador's face. It wasn't active anger, more like clear disappointment. "Getting to have sex with Nicole was the best thing to happen to you?" he asked, his voice a mix of exasperation and disappointment.

"No, of course not!" I immediately backtracked. "But it was a pretty important thing. It meant a lot to me. I'm trusting my feelings. Didn't you tell me that?"

Salvador waved his hands in front of me, trying to collect his thoughts. "Just a second." he told me forcefully. "Getting to have sex with Nicole was the best thing to happen to you? Getting to have sex with her? Not getting to meet her? Not the endless hours you've spent together? Not her helping you get over your insecurities, helping you up after your fights, caring about you?"

I nervously looked to the floor. "Okay, maybe I worded that wrong." I awkwardly admitted.

Salvador nodded with a serious expression. "Maybe you did. I sure hope you didn't say that because you actually believe it."

"Of course I don't!" I defended myself, rebutted by silence. "What, you think I just see her as, like, a convenience or a walking sex object?

"Don't take it personally but it wouldn't surprise me." Salvador told me with a tired sigh. "I've been a teacher for a good few years now. I'm not stupid. I know teenagers have sex." He paused. "Every teacher does. The trouble is, we need to address that with our students without grossing them out, crossing any boundaries, or making them uncomfortable. I'm sure you understand."

I nodded.

"In your case, I can just tell you though – casual sex is not your friend."

"Yeah, yeah, STDs and all that." I replied for him.

He raised an eyebrow. "No, that wasn't what I was going to say at all." he told me. "Let me tell you first before you think for me. If you could know what I was about to say before I said it, this whole thing would be a waste of time." I, chastised, hung my head as he cleared his throat and continued. "Casual sex is a bad thing. It devalues emotional connection. It warps your mind. It makes you emotionally hardened. Over time, you might completely separate sex and love, or find it more difficult to love. You may experience emotional extremes, like depression. You may lose your motivation."

Still hanging my head, I scoffed.

"Go ahead and laugh but I've seen it happen time and time again." he pointed out.

"Nicole sleeps around and she's still very motivated." I retaliated.

He laughed. "Nicole is also a Gifted Program student." he argued.

"Oh, booga booga. So what if she was a little smarter?" I argued back, jealousy providing some fuel for a slight hint of anger in my tone.

"This isn't just 'a little smarter.'" he informed me. "Dr. Young's Gifted Program isn't just for slightly smarter kids. He hand-picks his students. All of them could show to up to your exams having read over nothing but the course outlines and outperform you."

"So Nicole is super smart." I concluded.

Salvador nodded. "She's super smart and knows it. That drives her forward. She also likes the attention she gets from it."

"Well, she is the youngest child in her family." I remarked, mostly to myself.

Salvador's eyebrows shot up in slight surprise. "Very good." he murmured to me as he pointed at me, then continued. "None of the teachers here could tell you how she does it, but Nicole manages to stay motivated despite knowing more than a lot of her teachers."

"Wouldn't that make her a little egotistical?" I asked him.

He chuckled. "Have you met her?" he asked me. "Well, naturally, we don't tell her that she's smarter than us, at least academically speaking. Like I said, teachers are the authority. She also does a good job of understanding when to not be… bold."

"She's the boldest girl on the fucking planet." I mumbled.

"Easy on the swearing." Salvador ordered, then looked at me for a bit. "She means a lot to you."

I nodded. "I feel guilty as shi- sorry, guilty as sin for saying the sex is what meant something to me."

"Do you feel an emotional connection?" he asked me.

I nodded again. "I think so. I'm pretty sure. We held hands once. She never does that." My tone came across as slightly flustered.

"Remember how I told you that casual sex makes you feel less?" he asked. I nodded. "Then I'll ask you again. Do you feel an emotional connection?"

It must have taken guts for the drama teacher to ask the freshman about his sex life. "I�� think so." I answered slowly. "What, are you gonna condone my sex life as long as it has some kind of connection?"

"Well, I don't need to. It's over." Salvador pointed out. "Plus, it's a good opportunity to see whether your friendship can even still work if you don't have sex. I still believe that casual sex could warp you, Adam. Neither you nor I want that to happen to you."

"We didn't have sex when she was with Phil." I pointed out.

"You were still having sex with Megan." he rebutted. "Most students, to my knowledge, don't have sex until long after you did. Not to mention, Nicole is bold, as you alluded. And she can be a little…" he paused, thinking to himself. "…destructive."

"Destructive?!" I asked incredulously.

"I remember word-for-word your original encounter with her. Did you really think that was normal in high school?" he asked me.

I thought to myself for a minute. "I guess not." I concluded.

"It was a completely untraditional introduction to sex. You've managed to find three rare outliers of sexual encounters. And it's very possible in the case of Megan that you caused one." he explained. "One thing I hope you take from this is that you're a special case. This isn't how sex works in the real world."

"But we are in the real world." I argued. "Yeah, you can say this isn't how sex stuff works, but that's how it's always worked for me. Maybe it will always work this way. What if I marry Nicole or Megan or something?"

Salvador's eyes danced in humorous delight. "Not May?" he asked as if we were sharing a joke.

"I…" I started. I didn't know what to think of her. She was in a limbo state of a bitch and a weird pseudo-friend in my mind at this point. I sighed. "I don't know."

"Do you think you'd still have a crush on her if you hadn't had sex at this point?" he asked calmly.

"Well, probably, but…" I started without thinking, then paused in my tracks. My mouth froze as I looked over at Salvador. He was half-smiling expectantly. This whole conversation was leading up to that. Sex redefined how I saw her. Everything started to click. Sex redefined how May saw me too. How Nicole saw me. How I saw Nicole. How Megan saw me, how Megan saw Carter. I was shocked less and less every day by Carter's actions. This whole thing, which started out as a wholly emotional crush on May, led to sex that delegitimized my feelings for her.

"Am I a bad person?" I asked Salvador in a small voice.

"No." he answered simply. "I'm just glad you have enough self-awareness to realize what you just said."

"Yeah, I get it. I had sex with her and the feelings were cheapened." I looked at him to find that expectant expression, then scoffed. "Because I didn't feel an emotional connection."

"Good." Salvador replied, obviously referring to my understanding and not what I did.

"But wait a sec." I quickly followed up. "I only had a physical crush on Nicole but now I have a full crush on her. Hell, I'm sure of it. There's an emotional connection. What does that mean?"

Salvador shrugged. "I don't know." he said as if it were an important point. "Perhaps it's something significant. Maybe you two connect. Just understand that the sex didn't cause it."

"Well we wouldn't have talked more than once if it weren't for the sex." I pointed out.

"Adam, you yourself told me she has sex with everyone." he retorted. "Does she have a strong connection with everyone?"

"Point taken." I admitted. "So how do I go forward from here?"

"How?" he asked. "You're going to keep on living no matter what happens. I can't tell you how to live."

"I suppose but I come here for your damn advice, not for the rhetorical stuff." I pointed out. "It doesn't help me when you say you don't know."

"You're entitled to think that." Salvador replied. "But you don't have my brain. You're an individual, growing up and becoming an adult. You need to learn to make decisions, and you need to know from experience which ones are the right ones."

"Like going to theatre school in Paris?" I asked dryly.

He chuckled, then thought to himself for a bit. "If you want advice, here's something for you. I want you to challenge yourself. Don't have any sex unless you feel genuine love. Go slow. Be conscious of who you're sharing your sex with. As a teacher I need to ask you to stop having sex altogether but as a person I know you won't, so this is the next best thing. Only have sex if you feel love. Share sex, don't take it. Be honest with me every time it happens, and your life will turn out better, more drama-free and you'll learn to value people better."

"How are you single?" I joked.

With only a slight smile, he shrugged. "These meetings aren't about my personal life, Adam."

"Right." My smile faded as I stood up. Hell of a note to end it on. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome." he replied as he pulled out some papers from his desk, ready to go back to work.

"Oh, wait." I snapped my fingers as I slung my backpack over my shoulder. "Quick question. Nicole's super smart, right?"

"Yes." Salvador agreed, half in confusion as to where this was going.

"Is she like super fast too?" I asked. His look of confusion got bigger. "Like, can she do normal tasks like reading books and cleaning rooms and dressing faster than normal people?"

His look of confusion didn't decay. "Being smart doesn't help with how fast you clean rooms." he concluded as if it were obvious. "I mean maybe you've memorized where everything goes but your actual speed wouldn't increase. It definitely wouldn't impact how quickly you dress. And reading books too quickly, no matter how smart you are, just makes one retain less of the book. The smartest people read the slowest. Why?"

"Nicole is just fast at that." I worded that one awkwardly.

"I see." Salvador replied, somewhere between confused and uninterested.

"I realize it's a weird question out of the blue. I just wanted to know if you could shed any light."

Salvador was already looking down at some assignment he was marking. "I understand." he simply replied.

Well, I wasn't going to get any more out of him at this point. "See you later!" I tossed over my back as I left. In his signature fashion, Salvador didn't respond.

***

"Alright, is there anything else we have to cover today?" Phil's lifeless voice, an unusual change from past months but a fitting change from a few weeks ago, asked the room. No one responded, coating the room in a tense silence. "Great, then that's the meeting." Lazily, Phil extended his arm outwards and made a shooing motion. "Get outta here."

People began to fill out of the room, one by one. I was collecting my things, eyeing Phil as I saw Jeff, his VP, walk up to him and clap a hand on his back.

"You doing alright?" he asked him, trying to play off his concern as coolly as possible.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Phil mumbled back. "Just outta energy."

"Bro, you can't be out of energy forever." Jeff protested. "It's starting to interfere with your job."

Phil shrugged. "Then you take over." he suggested.

"Buddy." Jeff told him in a disappointed tone. "You can't just shut down like this. I get May was a real bitch to ya, but come on."

Phil waved a hand dismissively in his face. "It's all in the past, man. Forget it."

"No, really." Jeff continued, making me give a concerned look Nicole's way. "I think that decision was too rough on ya. If May was lying, they shoulda made an example out of that bitch. Expel her. Maybe threaten her with her own criminal record or some shit. Slander or something."

"Ex-cuse me?" A short squat blonde-haired girl I still didn't know the name of piped up, standing up. "We don't even have any evidence she was guilty. How are you so sure Phil didn't do it?"

"Got something to say, Tina?" Jeff challenged her. "You think your own fucking president would do that?" He hopped over a desk so he could face her without any obstructions in the way.

While this was happening, Phil raked his fingers over his face. "Jesus fuckin…" he trailed off. The duo had devolved into a shouting match as he hopped off the table and started to walk out of the room.

"You can't leave the room before the rest of the council members." Nicole reminded him, still seated, not looking him in the eye.

Phil groaned quietly. "I'm not leaving, I'm just going for a talk with…" His eyes scanned the room. "…Adam."

"Huh?" I snapped to attention.

"I need to talk to you, dude." he replied.

"What about?"

"Council stuff. Now hurry up." he motioned to me with little patience. Wordlessly, I followed him out the door. He waited at the doorframe for me, then shut the door afterwards, following up with a large sigh as he began walking.

We walked for about ten seconds without a word, then he sighed again. "This is exactly what I was talking about man. Exactly what I was fucking talking about." He stopped and turned to face me. "Fuckin' reputation. To them, it doesn't even matter if I did it. You plant the seed, you reap the fuckin' harvest."

I didn't say anything. I felt like I wasn't there to talk. After a few more seconds, we silently decided to keep walking.

"The fuck am I talking about? I didn't plant the seed at all." he complained, really just to himself at this point. "You know, sometimes I get called a dick for being mean, or authoritative, or whatever. But the truth is you gotta be like that. The moment I let my guard down someone fucked me up and suddenly, boom." He motioned outwards with his hands. "Look what happened. Look what fucking happened."

"At least you didn't get expelled." I quietly pointed out.

"Might as well have been." he sadly chuckled. "This isn't even the half of it. You see the meeting and you think, 'Oh, that's Phil's life now.' It's fucking not. This is a taste. You go through classes assuming I go through them the same way, but now teachers talk more slowly when they talk to me, people don't want to sit next to me, and shit, some of these cats don't even think I did it. They just don't want their own reputations to suffer by sitting next to the 'rapist.' They don't want to be me." He gave another sad chuckle. "I don't want to be me either."

I didn't respond as he cleared his throat, trying to cover up any quivering his voice was doing. "Y'know, I wouldn't even be fuckin' surprised if no one actually believes I did it. But they all are so fuckin' worried about losing their own reputations. If life were a shitty little high school movie I wouldn't be worried because some freshman bitty with a crush on me would make a petition or a hashtag or whatever. 'I believe in Phil Love.' It's not gonna fuckin' end that way, man. It's just not. I haven't even gotten like half of my college applications back yet. They're just gonna be fuckin' 'denied' at this point." He was, at this point, struggling to hold back tears, even though he was succeeding.

"Well, hopefully people will forget." I offered in a small voice. "Give them time, and they'll stop treating you this way."

"Time? How much time do you think I have?" he blurted out. "It's spring, dude. People aren't going to forget. Even if I had years it doesn't fucking matter. When people see this face, they'll think of it. I'll still be around, so people are always going to be reminded, my face, of… of what I didn't do. The whole thing is fucked up. If this whole thing was just kept quiet and handled by the police, everything would have been fine. I fucking hate the students here."

He angrily punched a wall weakly at just stood there for a while, drinking in the silence of the hallway. He broke it with his sigh.

"I'm sorry I got the council worked up about your blowjob thing with Megan." he finally said. "It wasn't cool of me."

"It's fine." I said meekly, partially out of intimidation from being around a sadder Phil. "Besides, if you didn't, I'm sure someone else would have."

He looked away from the wall to face me, right in the eyes. Eventually he broke out into a sad smile and gave a low chuckle, the kind of chuckle you give when you can't be bothered to care about the world anymore.

"Ain't that the truth." he replied in a gravelly voice. Slowly, he started to walk back towards the council room. "Come on." he ordered.

We walked back in silence to a council room filled only with Jeff and Nicole, the latter of whom sitting with arms akimbo on a desk. "Where were you two?" she asked.

"In the hallway." Phil answered in a tired voice.

"..Doing what?" Nicole pressured, making the 'go on' gesture with her hands.

Phil looked at her, clearly irritated. "Just talking." he answered annoyedly. "C'mon, everyone. Get the fuck out of here."

Jeff sighed loudly as he packed up his stuff and made his exit. Nicole soon followed, a look of curiosity on her face and a camera around her neck. "Bye, Phil." she said with no emotion as she left, grabbing me by the shirt and tugging me along.

"So what the fuck crawled up Phil's ass, laid eggs and died?" she asked me.

I really didn't want to be directly involved more than I already was. "Don't look at me." I replied.

"Right. You only talked to him." she replied, rolling her eyes. "I'm not stupid, squirt."

"He's just upset with the whole party thing." I admitted in a small voice.

Nicole kept walking, determined not to let anything from her inner reaction show. "Mmm." she lazily replied.

"You okay?" I asked.

She stopped walking to face me with half-closed eyes and one lowered eyebrow. "Not everything I do is melodramatic you big dumbo." she told me.

"At least you admit some of it is." I grinned.

"Nope, never. I'm perfect." she replied nonchalantly, resuming her walking.

"Anyone at school can tell that." I replied sincerely.

"Yeah, and anyone at school could tell you what my vagina looks like. What's your point?" she fired back.

"Anyone except me." I complained.

"Oh, come on." she half-laughed. "Pitying your way to getting sex again won't work. Get Megan to help you out or something."

"It wasn't the fact that it was sex, it was because it was with you." I protested.

"I don't buy that for an instant." she retorted, opening the school doors to the outside. "I know I'm good at it, but sex is sex, even if some is crappier." She paused for a second then saw the look I was giving her out of the corner of her eye. "Don't look at me like that. If you're getting an emotional attachment to me, that's all the more reason it's good that we're not doing it. We're still hanging out, aren't we?"

"Why is an emotional attachment even bad?" I protested. "I can accept if it doesn't go both ways, but it's like I have to feel bad for my own feelings. I don't feel like it's fair."

Nicole gave the horizon ahead her patented 'losing my patience' smile and turned to me. "I'm gonna say this gently because I'm in a good mood, squirt." she told me, taking my hands in hers and turning her body to face me, just two teenagers in the parking lot.

"When you say you have an emotional attraction to me, or an emotional connection to me, I don't like it. I'm not comfortable with it because I feel obligated to do something about it. Even if you don't want me to, I'll still have that obligation. And that will just make me push you away. It's really clear you've never lost your best friend before. I know it's a cliché to say this, but grief sucks. After I lost Mitch, I didn't want a friend ever again. I didn't like feeling any kind of emotional connection. It would only remind me of him, how much I want him back, and how he isn't ever coming back.

"I'm not comfortable being open, and I've had to do it a shit ton this year. Hell, I've even accepted it. But emotional shit is too much. No offense, squirt, but sometimes you're too much." She paused a little to let that sink in. "I'm not mad at all, but I'm not ready to… let my guard down again like that. It's not about you. I'm not ready to be that vulnerable. What if you're stupid and get into an accident or something? I wouldn't be able to take it."

She was smiling at me – oddly calm for someone who was basically admitting she was broken (and kind of implied she didn't want us to be friends). "Okay?" she asked expectantly.

"I think it's stupid." I grumbled. "So what, you're going to live the rest of your life without friends?"

"No, stupid." she replied, a little annoyed at this point. "But… give me time. I can't expect you to understand what I'm going through, but that's okay."

"I could if you explained it!" I argued.

"I just did." she huffed. "Who's your best friend in the whole world?"

"You." I replied without hesitation.

"Really?!" she laughed. "Wow. that's sad. Okay, so if you lost me, how would you feel?"

"I'd feel-"

"Nope." She shook her head.

"What?!"

"You didn't even think about it." she answered simply. "It's so much different than what you think it's like. You can't give me a good answer just like that."

Frankly, I didn't agree with her, but I was willing to let her have her way, because God knows she wasn't going to have it any other way. "Okay, I've got it." I meekly conceded.

She gave me a big smile in thanks. "I appreciate it, squirt." she told me softly, moving her head forward and kissing my forehead gently. "And I don't want it to sound like I don't like being friends with you." she added as we started to walk again. "It's just like�� it's hard for me to want to be friends, just in principle."

"It's hard for me to make friends." I grumbled under my breath as we approached her car.

"Don't give me that. You've got a lot of friends. You're just too much of a dumbo to see how well off you are." she rolled her eyes as she unlocked the car, then stepped inside. As I followed suit, she cleared her throat, then cleared her throat again.

"You okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." she answered as if it were dumb for me to even ask.

"Well, sheesh, I dunno." I replied dryly. "Didn't realize looking out for your well-being was so taboo."

"It's not taboo, but I already have the best girl in the force doing that job." She looked in my direction as she started the car and winked at me. "Besides, I don't get sick."

"I don't feel like that's a thing." I responded. "Everybody gets sick."

"I'm not everybody." she simply replied, smiling at me. "So what're your plans for the night?"

"Nonexistent." I shrugged.

She grinned. "Wrong-o. We're hanging the fuck out."

"More Castle Crashers?" I asked.

"If you want."

I was going to make some petty remark about how the lack of sex would make it less fun, but then I thought of Salvador. I so desperately wanted to prove him wrong, but all I kept doing was proving him right. I shook my head. 'I can do this,' I thought to myself.

"Sounds like a good time." I smiled at her as we drove.