Stardust: Protostar

 Jake Gallagher

        If the first day of school isn't the most dreadful day of the entire year, other than Thanksgiving where you're forced to have an hour-long dinner with family that you don't even like, then I don't know what is...

"Jacoby, darling!"

A groan scratched at my throat and my palms groggily reached to cover my ears. It was too early to even be alive.

"Honey!"

"Hmm," I grumbled, but my voice was lost in the whooshing of the box fan and the incessant jabbering of the neighbors' whose idle chit-chat trailed in through the open window. Giving my best, feeble attempt at hushing it all, I buried my face into a mound of plush feathers whose stems jabbed at my skin through the pillow case.

"Get your sister, sweetie!"

Just beneath the howling of pet names that made me wish this pillow was soundproof, the faint squall of a child was carried through the fan. It wailed as though the Devil himself was throttling it. Sometimes, I think the voice of that child is possessed by demonic forces. I had never heard a baby cry as deeply and horrendously as my sister.

I sighed, not wanting to leave the comfort of my fourposter, but I knew that I couldn't leave her to cry in her crib. The neighbors would call CPS. Not that that has happened, but I wouldn't put it passed them. They never liked us, so they looked for any reason to get us kicked out.

"Alright, OK," I groaned, though, I'd much rather drown myself in a tide of blankets, sheets, and that pleasant dream that's all forgotten now, rather than coddle the wailing kid.

Did you know that, within five minutes of being awake, fifty percent of your dream is forgotten? Yeah, and after ten minutes, ninety percent of it is totally gone? I found that out yesterday. Pretty interesting, really. I always had an immense fascination with dreams and I think I was dreaming about this exact day, actually; the first day of my sophomore year. All I can remember is seeing the front doors of Pyxis High School and a few unfamiliar faces. I also read something about your memory retaining faces. Like, you could see a face in your dream and never recognize it, but your mind has seen that face at some point in your life, like the face of a stranger walking by you in the hall or someone sitting across from you on the bus. Now that's creepy. But, I digress...

"I'm coming," I grunted.

Functioning on barely three hours of sleep, my limbs refused to comply as my sneakers met the vast sea of dark carpet. My legs wobbled like there were no bones to support my stature. I would have fallen back into the mound of bedding or face-first into the carpet if I hadn't braced myself on the computer desk. The old desk teetered just as badly as my balance.

I tripped over my own two feet across the room, with every detail blurring by from my subsequent tunnel vision of sleeplessness.

Rubbing the last few lingering specks of sleep sand from my eye, my equilibrium tilted suddenly. Just before my hands could reach out to steady myself on the walls, another louder shout reverberated up the stairs, through the halls, and bounced off of my eardrums painfully.

"DON'T TOUCH THE WALLS, SWEETHEART!"

I was far too sleep deprived to notice, but the hall had been bathed in a bright shade of yellow. The walls glimmered in their sunshiny dew of fresh painted, and the actual sunlight pulsing in through the windows was blinding.

The hall was nearly unfamiliar, like walking through a funhouse where every twist and turn was the equivalent of being in a different universe. But it wasn't like I hadn't expected this.

We've lived here for four years, but my mom was constantly repainting. Every couple of months, each room of the house took a drastic leap on the color spectrum. It was like living in a completely different house every eight weeks. When we first moved in, the living room was white. A week later, Mom had drenched the house in black. I guess that's what you have to expect from a artist. As she said, her "artistic vision" was far too "capacious" for the "strangulation of the flat, paper canvas with hermetic dimensions." In other words, she'd rather splash paint all over the house instead of using paper like a normal person. I'm not complaining, though. She could paint the house vomit green and I wouldn't have a care in the world until her "artistic vision" tried to attack my room with noisome acrylics and wiry brushes.

That happened before, actually. In fifth grade, at our old home, my room was a nice shade of sky blue, but when I came back from school one day, my entire room had been doused in a horrible shade of burnt orange. I didn't talk to her for two weeks after that.

Quickly jutting out my right, jean-clad leg, I managed to catch myself before I ruined the walls with hand prints... or ruined my face against the floor.

"Could've told me sooner," I snapped, voice faded out by the screaming of my little sister down the hall.

"Oh, shush," I cooed, entering a room splashed in pastel peach with tiny paintings of ducklings ebbing across the walls. Each duck, no larger than a dollar coin, had been designed with such meticulous detail and symmetry. No wonder my mom sold so many paintings; enough to pay most of the bills each month. I was never an artistic person, more of a self-proclaimed philosopher, so I never really paid that much attention to my mother's artwork. But it is hard to ignore when she upturned the entire house with it.

The little, blonde girl kicked at the bars of her crib and wailed, mouth gaping like a baby bird eager for its mother to feed it. Instead of hunger, she was much more upset about being confined behind the impenetrable crib's bars. She was extremely active. Her first birthday was last month, and since then she'd been walking like a pro. Last week, I found her walking up the stairs all by herself, but she almost slipped when she tried to run after the cat who zoomed passed her.

As soon as her tiny ears found my voice beneath her wails, and her caramel sights latched onto mine, her cries were replaced by a smile of four teeth and the faint head of a fifth coming through.

"Jake," she cooed in her little, adenoidal voice, but her excitement was scratchy and brittle against her throat from her cries.

I smiled. "G'morning, Cassie."

Her tiny, chubby fingers reached up at me. I gladly accepted, snatching up her body clad in a ducky onesie, and coddling her on my hip. She giggled and gurgled as I balanced her there.

Having a sibling that was fifteen years younger than me made me feel as though I had a child. It was hard to look at Cassie as a little sister when I'm mature enough, and somewhat old enough, to be a father to her. Our father traveled a lot, as most salesmen do, so I had to step in as her father figure. Since then, our dad only saw her, maybe, ten times. Usually, when he was not traveling, he was spending time with his new wife and her daughter, but I was never bitter. He called me all the time and he made the extra effort to come see us when he was nearby (which was rare, but he tried). When he heard that Mom was struggling to pay the bills with a minimum wage job and selling her paintings, and when I told him that I was going to get a job to help her, he refused to let me, saying that he wanted me to focus on school, and he started helping Mom with her bills. All in all, he's a good dad, considering the circumstances.

Cassie gripped my t-shirt as I trotted down the steps.

Jolly, our black cat with green moons for eyes, meowed in his deep voice from the bottom of the steps. Cassie giggled, releasing her tiny fists from my shirt to reach for the cat. She and Jolly, of which was named by her (I think because of the Jolly Green Giant), were practically inseparable. I found him in our backyard two months ago. He was old, around ten years, and the vet claimed that he was most likely a stray all of his life. He was pretty transparent when we first took him in. He constantly hid from people, and I always caught him in the basement. The bulbs continually blew out down there, so the only way you could see him was from the glow of his green eyes. He stayed hidden like that for at least a week until I came home from school one day and found him cuddling with Cassie in her crib. Ever since then, you hardly saw one without the other.

He purred and wound his tail around my legs, nudging his head against me. He probably wanted me to put her down. She smiled and continued to reach for him.

My sneakers squeaked against the floorboards of the living room, and Jolly pranced along behind us, the pads of his feet soundless. The room was showered in sunlight from the open curtains. The beams danced off of colorful prisms painted into frames all along the walls, as courtesy of you know who (no, not Voldemort; just my mother). As well, meticulously sculpted vases, designed with various hues of flowers and vines, dotted the open room.

The stillness and the beauty of my mom's artwork was disturbed by shouting in the kitchen. Stepping through the curtain of crystal beads that Mom hung in every open archway, the moppets were at it again, though, I only used that term for the irony to describe the two black-haired boys that pushed and shoved against one another in the middle of the kitchen, grunting and muttering insults all the while.

They were also known as my little brothers; Owen and Levi. It's important for me to stress the fact that the two tyrants are adopted, but that's not hard to tell; afterall, they are full blood American Indians, and I'm the whitest white who ever lived. After I was born, Mom and Dad had an extremely hard time conceiving more children (the doctor said something about my mother's uterus being 'hostile'). When I was eight, they decided to adopt after trying fruitlessly to conceive for years. They only wanted to adopt one at the time, but Owen and Levi came as a set. The adoption agent didn't want to split them up because they were biological brothers, Owen a year older. After long sessions of legal proceedings, my parents adopted them and they are now the most wild ten and nine year olds I could ever have the misfortune of sharing a home with.

Everyone always asked where Cassie came from. I'm not sure how it happened either, since I thought I was the only child that my parents could conceive. They were even more shocked than I was when they were pregnant with her.

"Stop it!" Mom exclaimed, stepping in between the two. Her blonde locks were up-swept into a messy bun, old mascara flaked from the lashes over her viridian irises, and her t-shirt and loose jeans stained with paint barely clung to her thin figure.

I always thought my mom was gorgeous, even if she had bags under her eyes from staying up late to complete her most recent "visions." As a kid, I pointed to a girl in a magazine and told Mom that she could be a model. She said, "Honey, I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of it." That's when I realized how passionate she was about her work.

Her paint-encrusted finger nails pried the interlocked devils apart.

"He started it," pouted Levi.

"Nuh uh," Owen fired, "you pushed me and tried to take my cereal!"

"Both of you are going to be grounded if you keep this up. Be sweeties, and finish your breakfast. I don't want you to be late," Mom sighed.

Looking up from the grimacing boys, a smile stretched her lips to their extremity. She trotted across the kitchen, making odd faces at Cassie the entire way. Cassie wiggled in my arms, until she was plucked by Mom and coddled against her chest.

"Hun," Mom cooed, her adoring gaze turned on me, "I didn't think you'd be ready, yet."

A yawn escaped and I stretched on the spot. Thankfully, I had gotten up early to get ready or I would still have been in bed, not nearly dressed, making everyone, including myself, late. "I woke up about thirty minutes ago and got dressed. Then, I ended up taking a power nap."

"What time did you go to bed last night?" she inquired.

"Not too late," though, it was really late. About two o'clock in the morning. Out of all the school years I had endured, I never got a good rest the night before the first day. I assumed it was just my nerves, but I never had anything to be nervous about. I was never bullied, I always had good grades, and I can't recall ever having a detention or suspension. Maybe it was just the anxiety of a new school year.

"Oh, baby," she said, aiming a spoonful of yogurt at Cassie's lips, which she gladly accepted, "when you get out of school today, could you make a stop at the store for me?"

"Yeah, sure thing," I shrugged. "What do ya' need?"

"I just need you to pick up some money from Western Union. Your dad is paying our rent this month, and he said there's extra in there for you kids."

Leaning against the counter where the boys glared at each other from adjacent stools while steadily shoveling their mouths with Lucky Charms, I snatched a bright banana from the fruit bowl. As quickly as I picked it up, I'd already peeled and eaten half of it.

"Hey," I muttered, words muffled by chunks of yellow, "I thought Dad was coming to see us today? He should've landed already, right?"

"He had a layover in Florida last night. He should be here no later than dinner time."

"Is he bringing his wife?" Owen muttered with a grimace.

Owen and Levi had some sort of vendetta against Anessa, Dad's wife. Ever since he introduced her six months ago, and since they got married two months ago, they didn't even given her a chance. I guess some kids still hang on to hope that their parents might get back together, but I never saw that happening with mine. Mom had been flirting with the mailman lately, and Dad seemed happy with Anessa. I, on the other hand, actually liked Anessa and her four-year-old daughter, Jael, who always called me "pretty." Even though the marriage seemed rushed, considering that she and Dad only knew each other for nine months before their nuptials, they seemed like an ideal match. 

I guess another reason why Owen and Levi were so bitter was because our parents were never married. During their seventeen-year relationship, Dad never proposed. They were extremely offended when Dad proposed to Anessa after being with her for only seven months, when popping the question to our mom never crossed his mind in all those years. But Mom never acted bitter about it. She was the most lively person at the wedding... Then again, it was probably because of the open bar.

Speaking of the wedding, they almost ruined the entire ceremony. Levi took the rings from the bearer, who was Anessa's five-year-old nephew, and tried to bury them behind the church. I caught him and forced him to give the rings back. Then, right before the vows, Owen started screaming that he objected and that Anessa was Satan. Mom had to tackle him in order for the ceremony to continue. I think Cassie was in on it, too. She was the flower girl, but refused to throw the flowers. I ended up hiding my face from embarrassment for the entire wedding, and I'm pretty sure Anessa's family hate us.

Mom frowned. "No, Anessa and Jael are not coming."

A faint snicker was exchanged between the boys.

"All right, lovies," Mom announced, boosting Cassie up on her hip, "get your bags, it's time for school!"

The boys groaned, snatching up their backpacks from the checkered tile and following our humming mother.

Seeing everyone ready to go and heading out of the door made my stomach drop. Rather than this huge, tangled nest of nerves in my gut being for myself, they were more so for the boys. They were nothing but trouble. On the first day of school last year, Owen got suspended (emphasis on the first friggin' day) for throwing the class' pet hamster out the window. The hamster was fine, it just landed in one of the bushes, but Owen was anything but fine when Dad got a hold of him, and Levi didn't help the situation when he high-fived Owen.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, I tossed the banana peel in the trash, shakily grabbed my bag, and locked the front door behind me.

"I call shotgun!"

"No, I'm older than you, so I call it!"

"Jake is older than both of you, so he gets it!" Mom chuckled, packing Cassie into her booster seat in the back of the old Ford Taurus. The blue paint of the car flecked against the breeze of the sunny morning.

"Thanks, Mom," I smiled.

The boys muttered remarks beneath the breeze as they slide in the back on either side of Cassie.

I quietly sighed, plopping in the warm leather of the passenger seat.

Mom cranked the engine as Cassie waved at the living room window where Jolly sat and watched us go.

Turning at the end of our street, Mom teased, "Nervous, honey?"

I parted my lips to answer, but Levi had already beaten me to it.

"He's always nervous," cackled Levi. "The fact that he's not shaking right now is amazing."

I frowned, groaning and sinking into the seat. My hands covered my face, and I was surprised that I hadn't combusted and melted into the seat. If Levi, the most oblivious of the two, had already picked up on my nerves, then I knew everyone at my school would. I've always been easily embarrassed; I tended to think that my social life was over (not that I had much of one) and that I could never show my face again over the slightest things. I knew I'd be as red as a friggin' tomato if I took even the smallest stumble as I get out of the car.

"Oh, calm down, sweetie," Mom cooed, reaching over to pick a piece of lint off of my red, plaid shirt, "while you're at it, button your buttons and roll your sleeves down."

"It's fine," I grumbled, leaving the sleeves rolled up to my elbows. Beneath, my white t-shirt poked out.

"Mom, keep both of your hands on the wheel. You're making me even more nervous," I ordered, plucking her thin wrist from my shirt and placing it back on the wheel. I rued the day that my mother would take me to the DMV. California drivers were insane, and I knew I'd have a heart attack as soon as I got out on the street. Just imagine if I got into an accident my first time behind the well... Jesus, kill me now. The thought of that had me sweating.

Mom glanced at the boys in the rear view mirror. Levi tickled Cassie's belly and her tiny fingers tried to swat him away. Failing to repress it, she giggled and kicked out her feet. Owen frowned, pressed against the door with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"I'm dropping you guys off last," said Mom.

"But," I uttered, brows drawing down to a furrow, "I usually get dropped off last."

Owen and Levi's elementary, Indus, came first en route to schoo. It gave me a few extra minutes to compose myself before I faced the war zone that was known as high school. My nerves were shot since finding out I had to go first.

"Sorry, honey," Mom shrugged. Her tone was snipped as she eyed the duo in the backseat. "The boys' enrollment is still up in the air thanks to their antics from last school year."

"I didn't do anything," Levi shouted. "Owen's the one that tried to commit hamicide!"

"Yes, you did! You pantsed the gym teacher," Owen gasped.

"Nuh uh! I was just there! That doesn't mean I had somethin' to do with it!"

"That's a stupid excuse, Levi! If you didn't do it, why'd the gym teacher say you did and then suspend you?! Plus, you're the one that pulled the fire alarm during the student-teacher meetings!"

"That wasn't my fault! I got pushed into the alarm! And you're the one that started that huge food fight when we came back from Christmas vacation!"

The more the tall, shiny building of my high school came into view, the more adamant Owen and Levi's argument got. Cassie joined in as well, wailing in between the two.

I sunk further into the seat, hoping to just disappear into the creases when Mom's shouts joined the fray. "Stop yelling, you three!"

"Now you're yelling," I groaned.

"I'm going to sell all of you into child slavery if you don't quit it!"

Owen and Levi only continued to argue while Cassie kicked and screamed.

By that point, we reached the parking lot of my school, where everyone, new and old faces, all swarmed about the huge building whose many floors pierced the sky and whose countless windows flooded light inside. It was comprised of beige masonry, and the curving roof and tall archways were bathed in a fresh coat of bright red. Last year, it was green, and the metallic letters that projected off of the building to spell 'Pyxis High School' had more of a rustic look. This year, everything had a novel feeling to it... except the bundle of nerves in my chest. That was not new.

Wary eyes darted to our car as Mom stomped on the brake, nearly hitting the SUV in front of us, as well as a stop sign, because her attention was so enraptured with the screaming children behind us. At the sight of people staring, I shrieked and covered my face.

"Oh, my God," I yipped, snatching up my backpack from the floor and shoving my door open as fast as humanly possible. The hinges creaked horrendously, casting even more eyes in our direction. I was sure my face was as red as that stop sign that Mom nearly plowed over.

"I don't know you people!" I yelped, jumping out of the car and stumbling over the curb. The maddened wails of my family were hushed after I slammed the door behind me.

Leave it to my family to make me wish that I had never born on my first day of school!

I nervously laughed at the people who continued to stare. I could feel a bead of sweat forming over my brow, and I was almost tempted to shout, "Stop staring at me!" until they looked away and continued on with their business. Business that consisted of catching up with friends, being scolded by teachers for inappropriate language and skating on the sidewalks, blasting the stereos in their cars, picking out poor freshmen to torment for the rest of the school year, and circulating summer gossip that was designed to ruin social lives.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I wandered through the crowd of swarming teens and perturbed teachers. A few familiar students waved and smiled at me, helping to ease my nerves. I smiled back, and continued on my way.

Cackles that vaguely reminded me of something I'd hear on Animal Planet broke through the crowd. Everyone's attention, including mine, was whisked away on the opposite side of the court yard. There, a tiny boy, surely a freshman, had had his bag stolen by a senior girl who tossed it in the fountain. The posse behind her all quivered with laughter at the poor, unfortunate freshman. The boy looked like he was on the verge of tears until a teacher stepped in the middle, causing the posse to scatter, and grasped the perpetrator by her arm to drag her to the main office. Another teacher, armed with a thin tree branch, helped the freshman fish his belongings out of the fountain.

I cringed, getting a whiff of secondhand embarrassment. That boy resembled myself when I was a freshman last year, but I kept my head low and avoided the upperclassmen at all costs.

Another series of shouts erupted about ten feet ahead of me.

A crowd had formed where three model-esque girls shouted in one anothers' faces like feral animals. They could easily be identified as the Tetro twins, Brennyn and Shannyn, and Aileah Boone. Everyone knew who they were. Aileah had been said to 'get around' with a lot of guys in our school, and the twins were notorious for rumors, especially the older twin, Brennyn, who constantly found herself in a fight with anyone and everyone.

Class hadn't even started yet, and this had already become one first day to remember.

Aileah laughed at the short twin, Brennyn, who stretched up to the tips of her toes.

Shannyn huffed, stepping to her sister's defence. "Laugh again and watch what happens, Leah!"

That only fueled Aileah's laughter.

"Shut the hell up with your loud mouth," Brennyn snarled. Her glare was enough to pierce through Aileah's skull.

"Get the hell outta my face," Aileah snickered, "and, by the way, you might wanna get some concealer for that pimple in the middle of your forehead, you fuckin' troll!"

"Bitch, please! The only one here with pimples is you! And unlike you, I don't need makeup; I roll outta bed lookin' good!" Brennyn fired back.

I always thought girls were pretty catty with their fights. Instead of actually using intelligence, or just the power of their fists, they would rather insult the others' appearance. Not that I condoned it, but I preferred to see the guys of my school get into fights. It was a lot more entertaining, considering that they actually fought, rather than calling each other ugly.

It was hard to stare at the argument for too long because of how shiny Aileah was. She was wearing body glitter, and the way the sun was glinting off of the little crystals on her brown skin was enough to blind me. Even through the glare on Aileah's skin, no one could miss the push she gave to Brennyn, who stumbled backwards. Before she or her twin could retaliate, the football coach, Mr. Rossi, had stepped in the middle of the fray. The glare on his bald head was even more blinding than Aileah.

"Break it up," Mr. Rossi barked, his voice as deep and threatening as Vincent Price's. Snatching Aileah by her arm, he growled, "You've earned yourself a detention for putting your hands on another student!"

With that, he dragged the disgruntled teen away to the office, just like the girl who threw that freshman's bag in the fountain. The twins laughed, shouting obscenities at Aileah as she disappeared into the building.

The crowd that formed around them began to disperse with only a couple of minutes to spare to get to class.

I picked up the pace, squeezing through the masses to get into school. I heard that they were enforcing a new rule this year: those that were still outside when homeroom began would be locked out. I guessed that there were too many tardy students last year, so the principal, Mrs. Bermudez, was really cracking down with her iron ruler this year.

Not noticing how fast I was walking nor paying attention to the obstacle ahead, I smacked right into a fairly small person. Thankfully it wasn't like the movies, where both of us fell and all of our stuff flew in every direction. Instead, we caught our balance and still managed to hang onto our bags.

"Watch where you're goin'!"

Looking up to catch a glimpse of familiarity in that tone, standing before me, with a haughty hand on her hip, was none other than Brennyn. Standing just beside her was Shannyn, with a less than pleased frown. They were a lot more intimidating up close.

I gulped, prepared to utter an apology, but a devilish grin on Brennyn's part beat me to the punch.

"You're kinda cute," she smirked, flashing a set of blindingly white teeth.

Well... that exceeded every expectation I ever had. I thought she would have hit me, or threatened me with that fact that her dad had connections in the police department and could easily have me arrested for sexual harassment (I heard that's what happened to the last guy that bumped into her).

Standing face-to-face, it was impossible not to notice the distinct differences between them. Like, the evident height difference. Brennyn was the shortest 16-year-old girl that I had ever seen in my life. It was impossible to imagine that she was more than five feet. Shannyn was a good deal taller, a little less than half a foot, I'd say. Then there was the fact that Brennyn's was dark brunette, and  Shannyn was a pin-straight blonde. Further setting them apart was the splashes of freckles on Shannyn's nose. Brennyn had the flawless skin of a model. They were both undeniably gorgeous. I would have been blushing at their attention if it weren't for my imperceptible homosexuality.

Across the world, you could hear closets being thrown open, see rainbow flags flying high, and half-naked parades marching down the street in honor of my gayness. Nah, not really, but it was a funny thought. No one ever found out unless I told them, hence the 'imperceptible' part. My parents were pretty annoyed when I told them. Not mad, just annoyed. They started their family early, both only nineteen when they had me, so they expected me to give them their first grandchild within the next couple of years. But, thankfully, they accepted me. I had heard horror stories of kids getting kicked out and disowned. I was lucky to have such understanding parents, though, my dad had never met a gay person, so he automatically assumed that I was a huge fan of Madonna and vowed to take me to one of her concerts when he visited... Until I told him that I found her music to be quite cringe-worthy, and that I'd much rather go to a hockey game. You couldn't imagine the relief that washed over him when he found out that a gay guy can like sports just as much as any hetero. He had the hugest smile on his face when he took me to my first game after confessing my sexuality. It was baseball; I got really happy just thinking about it. That game was one of my favorite memories. I still have the foam finger.

"What's your name?" Brennyn smiled, stepping closer to me and batting her lashes in a gesture that was supposed to be seductive. Instead, it looked like she had something in her eye. Like a tree branch.

"Jake," I said, tempted to step away from the cloud of overwhelmingly strong mint that radiated from her bubble gum.

"I'm-"

"I know," I cut her off impatiently since I had to get to class. "You're Brennyn."

She smiled in satisfactory.

"You new here?"

My brows furrowed. "No. I've shared a class with you for the last four years."

It wasn't like I expected her to know that. I was never the shy, nerdy kid, but I tended to keep to myself and only had a couple of select friends. Unfortunately, as crappy fate would have it, both of my friends moved over the summer, but they promised to visit. I had a lot of acquaintances that I could keep myself occupied with until then.

Shannyn snapped her fingers abruptly. Brennyn and I both flinched.

"You're that one kid that had the mop-top and coke-bottle glasses, right?" she inquired. Her tone practically screamed 'eureka!'

I slowly nodded. I'd rather not be reminded of how nerdy I used to look two years ago. I'm a new person now, like a protostar. But I guess I owe that to contact lenses and my mom becoming friends with a hairdresser.

"You've gotten cute since then," Shannyn grinned.

"Thanks," I managed a smile.

Brennyn tossed her twin a warning look. Shannyn rolled her eyes.

Drawing her attention back to me, Brennyn purred, "So, can I get your number? I'd love to go on a date with you sometime."

I nearly choke on my own saliva. Had I entered the Twilight Zone? If I was straight, I'm sure I would've fainted as soon as she asked. But I'm not, which made this sufficiently awkward.

"I'm, uh," I stammered, scratching the back of my neck, "I'm not... You're not my type."

Maybe she would have been if she had the proper equipment downstairs, was taller, and had less boobs and more abs. Not that I relied solely on looks in a prospective significant other (even though I never had one), but she just wasn't my type.

Brennyn gasped, her head drawing back to convey her shock.

"Are you gay?! I have a perfect record of never being rejected before, so you have to be gay," she snapped. "Please be gay, or I will be forced string you up by your ballsack for ruining my record."

I cringed, using my hands as a shield for my crotch. That was probably the most uncomfortable threat I'd ever heard in my life. "Actually, I am gay."

Her brows practically hitched into her hairline. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," I shrugged.

I had lost count of how many times she gave me that look, but once again, that wicked smile curled her lips to Grinch proportions. I didn't know if it was twin telepathy or not, but Shannyn rolled her eyes again, seeming to know exactly what her sister had in store.

"I have the perfect guy for you!"

"Wait, no," I stammered, my face contorting in horror. The last time I had someone "hook me up" with a guy, I was nearly raped... Well, not really, but it was a close enough call to mentally scar me for life. I'd rather have her "string me up by my ballsack" than send me on a blind date.

"Trust me, Bree," Shannyn drawled, "Matt would not appreciate you setting him up with someone."

"Matt Tremaine?" I inquired. There were a lot of guys named Matt in our school, but he was the only one of the Matts that was gay, or at least the only one that was open about it. He was a pretty cool guy. He was my chemistry partner last year, but I could never see myself dating him. He was just an acquaintance; an almost friend.

They spouted in unison, "You know Matt?"

"We had chemistry together."

The girls bit back childish giggles.

I sighed. "Chemistry class!"

They rolled their hazel eyes in perfect synchrony.

"Anyway," Brennyn said, "lemme see your schedule."

Before I could even grab the slip of white hanging out of my back pack, she had already snatched and scanned it as if she was interrogating it.

"We have every class together except fifth and sixth period," she noted.

The final bell squalled behind us, and the last lingering students hustled to get into the building before the doors were locked.

"Gotta go," said Shannyn, "See ya', Jake."

I smiled and waved at her fleeting figure.

"Well, Jake, you're gonna be my pocket gay," Brennyn sneered.

Oh, god, she was one of those girls. Ya' know, the ones that have always wanted a "gay best friend" to go shopping with, gossip with, and such. I hope she wasn't under the impression it was acceptable to get naked or change her clothes in front of me. That was definitely not okay.

Looping her arm with mine, she dragged me along with her. She whisked me down a series of turns and tiled halls lined with lockers, making idle chit-chat about how much 'fun' she was going to have with me this year. All I could think was, "Hopefully she's dragging me to homeroom..."

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