Chapter 14
Greatest Thing

After seeing Lilith and Dale making out, Derek drives me to Dustin's place. I remain silent throughout the journey, and there's a heavy feeling inside my chest. I feel down and sad. Derek keeps giving me worried glances, but I pretend that I don't see it. As much as I want to hide myself, to hide my feelings, I can't. Derek is my best friend, and he has known me since forever and he can see past through me. We're like twins. What I feel, he feels. We have this connection that make us feel each other, not in a sexual way, but more like a connection of a siblings.

"Are you still going to the Halloween party?" my best friend asks me, his voice laced with worry and doubt. I give him a side-glance, nodding slightly and focusing my eyes on the road. "I understand if you're not going to the party. You don't have to. It's not a requirement. If you want, we can both stay in your house or my house, and we'll bitch together."

That makes me chuckle, shaking my head. A small smile plays on my best friend's lips, and then it turns into a full grin as he sees me smiling wide. "I'd prefer the latter, but you have to go to the Halloween party. I'm going to contemplate whether I'd go or not, and I'll text you." I say, pointing my index finger, telling him to park on the side just near the house of Dustin. "Just there. Thanks for driving me here. I appreciate it."

He scoffs, rolling his eyes at me and crossing his arms. "Times like this, we should be having a 2 or 3 liters bucket of ice creams and eat and watch Netflix, not you hanging out with a different person other than your magnificent, Russian best friend. That way, we'll both mope together."

"I don't want us moping together," I say to my best friend, bumping his shoulder with mine as he parks on the side just in front of Dustin's house. As if on cue, Dustin opens the front door of his house wide, revealing himself. He waves at me. I wave back. "I'll see you later, or tomorrow."

My best friend frowns at that, but nods his head anyway. "Yeah, text me." His tone says I better text him things or else he'll have a fit on me once we see each other again. Knowing him, Derek will want to know everything what's going on while I'm here in Dustin's territory. I nod at him, smiling brightly and climbing out of his car.

Once I climb out of the car, my best friends gives me a look (that says be careful, as if Dustin would take advantage of me or kill me in his house and dispose my body in a river) and I roll my eyes at him. He tips his imaginary hat, giving Dustin one wave of a hand, which Dustin returns, and Derek drives away. The cool air of October hits my skin and I shiver despite the scorching sun in the sky. Orange hue of color spreads sky, bursting. Dotted figures of birds fly as they soar high into the sky. The sun cuts through the thin line of the south road, and I feel a presence in front of me.

Dustin is wearing a simple and plain white T-shirt that looks good on him, half of his collarbones are exposed to me, and I flush. A pair of cream-colored cardigan pants, and brown slippers. His outfit is very simple, and I realize that he never wears fancy things. He likes to keep himself simple and plain. And I like that about him. His dirty blonde hair is a bit tousled, and his cute little dimple on his left cheek is so cute on him. He leads me into the house and once we get inside, I still feel the loneliness, but I also feel something that is... positive. I turn around and look at Dustin, and he has this genuine smile tugged on his lips and my breath hitches. I whip around, feeling the embarrassment creeping to my face and I take a deep breath, taking a seat on the couch.

"Do you want anything?" he asks me, his voice soft and alluring.

I want... Dale, no. I want... something worth for myself. "Can I sleepover?" I ask him and he seems shocked at first, but after a few seconds, he breaks into a grin and nods his head, his dirty blonde hair bouncing.

"Sure, that's no problem." He says, smiling.

Dustin is a good company to have. He's like an angel who keeps telling you good things, but he never leaves out the bad stories of his life. He's very open, and I wonder if I could be like him, so open with everything. He's just like an open book, and you can easily read him. And I ask myself: why anyone would break this man's heart? Dustin is really good, cute, handsome, caring, loving, he's anything that you could ask for in a man. His heart is pure, even though we've just met, I already know how great he is as a person. We talk about our past, our favorites, and watch Netflix. I hold back from asking him if we could order an ice cream. I only buy ice cream if I'm down, and I'm not down right now. I don't feel like eating ice cream today, or while I'm with him. He makes me happy. In a friendly way.

Morning is rising, and someone is shaking me frantically. I turn around, squinting my eyes, adjusting to the light pouring into my room through the curtained windows. My eyes focus on Dustin's face; the buttons of his polo is undone, giving me the view of his chest and hard as steel abs and I feel myself flush. Damn it, it's too early to feel the hotness! I turn around, groaning, pretending that I'm a bit annoyed due to him waking me up. I hear him chuckle, but he never stops shaking me. I hear his voice cooing me into waking up and dragging myself out of the room to prepare.

Rolling around to face him, I pretend to be mad at him and he looks at me in amusement. Even though the room is a dimly lit, I can still see how beautiful his eyes are, and that smile of his, his smile is so beautiful. More beautiful than the morning itself and I wonder again: would I ever see Dale smiling up at me in the morning, waking me up? I figure that that will never happen. Never in a million years. Never in my life.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." His soothing voice rings in my ears, so relaxing and peaceful and I keep myself from laying on bed again and ask him to say random things to me. "We still have classes. It's only Tuesday, so you have to wake up, prepare, and we'll eat breakfast."

"I don't want to go to school," I whine like a child, running my fingers across my bed hair. He eyes me in amusement, chuckling and shaking his head. "Plus, I didn't bring my uniform. I must have left it on Derek's car."

"Reasons, reasons," he teases, crossing his arms. "My uniform will fit on you."

The thought of wearing his uniform excites me, but I hide it. I don't want him to see how excited I am to wear one his clothes, even if it's just a uniform. "Okay, okay. I'll wake up. Prepare me some breakfast." He rolls his eyes playfully, turning on his heels and slamming the door shut softly behind him. I bury my face into the pillow and scream like a kid that has got a chance to meet his idol. I unbury my face from the pillow, take a deep breath, and stand up. I swing my feet to the ground, shivering as the cold ground makes contact with my skin and I run immediately to the bathroom. I'm glad that the bathroom has a couple of towels in the towel rack, folded neatly.

Dustin gets back in the room and I look over my shoulder only to see him laying the uniform on the bed. He winks at me and gets out of the room and I feel myself blush. The buttons of his polo are already done, and I feel slightly disappointed. I shut the door of the bathroom and start to strip myself off, then I shower. Once done, I wear the uniform Dustin has lent for me and stalk my way to the kitchen, where I see him putting a buttered (sprinkled with a bit of sugar) toasted bread and I frown slightly. I don't really like breads for breakfast. Dustin sees my expression and I hold up my index finger, stopping him. He shuts his mouth and nods.

Taking a seat on one of the stools, I grab one bread and start to munch on it, tasting the salty and sugary taste of the bread and I nod in my head in approval; the bread tastes good. He sighs in relief, and continues to make more while munching on his bread.

After eating breakfast, Dustin leads me to where his truck is parked and it's just behind house. He says to me that he saved a lot of money just to buy his precious truck; that he had to work for money so he could buy whatever he wants in life. He doesn't want to use his parents' money, and he believes that the money they earn is for their family, but not for him. He really doesn't depend on his parents, which is kind of a good thing. I fish my phone out of my pocket, texting Derek what has happened throughout my stay in Dustin's house.

Dustin and I are at the studio hall of the Sky International School. There are different type of musical instruments gently placed on the instrument racks, ranging from guitars to saxophones. There are three pianos on the stage, in front of the studio hall. This is being used when students want to participate in a musical event the school often has, and I never participate on it.

He makes me listen a song, hiding his phone away from me so I can't see the title of the song. He grins at me as we sit cross-legged on the stage, just in front of the piano. There are a couple of students trying the saxophones, and I chuckle once a student fails at blowing the instrument. Dustin offers me the right headphone, and hits the Play button, and the music begins to play in my ear. I believe I'm hearing the voice of Cher, and the lyrics are so beautiful.

Dustin mounts to me: "That's my favorite song," Last night, he didn't want to tell me his favorite music. I pushed him so he could tell me, but he wouldn't budge. He ignored my pleas. It was a bit unfair to me, I thought, because I told him my favorite song, but he didn't. Now I know why. The song is powerful, and it's very beautiful. I thought he would like rock music, but no, this one is pop, and not the gay-pop kind of pop, but different type of pop. Gay-pop. What hell is that? I grab my phone out of my pocket, and catch a few words from the lyrics and type it into the Google Search. Dustin eyes me in amusement, shaking his head and millions of results of my search pop up.

The Greatest Thing by Cher featuring Lady Gaga.

"It's an unreleased track, by the way," he says, shrugging.

After listening for three times, the song is stuck inside my head and somehow Dustin finds an instrumental version of the song. He plugs his phone into the speaker, and plays the music. He tells me we can do a duet, and I nod, laughing. I hear the door of the studio hall being opened, and a couple of students pour into the room. But I ignore them. I focus on the music.

"I don't know why you hurt inside, or what was said to make you cry," he sings, and his voice is beautiful in my ears. His voice is melodic, soothing, calming, relaxing... I can't even describe it right. I join him, singing the song with him. "I hope that you can see you are the greatest thing to me.

"'Cause when I'm with you, I fall apart. To heal your permanently broken heart," we both sing at the top of our lungs. The students are eyeing us, listening to the song. "Baby you're the greatest to me no matter what, what, what."

When the song is done, I turn into the crown and my smile falters. I see Dale, standing beside Lilith, his arm draped around her girlfriend's shoulder but surprisingly... the pain has lessen, and I just smile at them. Something in Dale's eyes flashes, but it immediately disappears as fast as it appeared. I will never know what that is. I look at Dustin, who's grinning at me and he immediately wraps his arms around me, and I freeze in spot, breath hitching.

"Greatest thing ever," he mutters, grinning up at me.