- Friday, April 29th, 2016 -

– 3 months after the disappearance –

I guess it takes about four weeks to completely lose yourself, depending on what happens around you and how quick people are there to take advantage of your instability. It's been a month since I came out. It's also been a month since I last received a note from Finnley.

Never have I felt this lost in my life. The radio silence coming from Finnley put me in a state of despair. What if something happened since he last send me a note? I'm simply a wreck, living from day to day on autopilot.

I'm happy to have Felix, Julia and Stan to support me or else I wouldn't be standing here in school right now, watching Jaimie getting yelled at by our gym teacher for hitting Jasper with a basketball in the face. Which he did deliberately.

Since I'm no longer part of his group of friends I've been observing them from a distance and I came to the conclusion Jaimie is a dick and so is Tom. Evan is ok, since he isn't doing any bad stuff. But he's just as bad for standing there, laughing about it.

I was a part of that not too long ago. Have I been a bully for years without realizing it? Is this how Jaimie always acted?

I feel terrible ever since I noticed just how bad they really are. I'm actually really glad I'm no longer part of that. Not that I've ever been in the midst of it. I mostly hung out with Finnley or Emma, or both. But I was there on the side-line, hanging out with them during classes or after school.

And now I'm part of a small group of social outcasts, with less friends than countable on one hand.

I don't miss them as I watch Jaimie leave the gym, or watching Tom and Evan in their fit of laughter. But I do miss having people to hang out with each and every day. I do miss it to be looked up to. For people to admire me for being great at soccer. I hate feeling so alone and I keep wondering; if Finnley was still here, would I feel as lonely as I do right now? Or would he be enough?

I slump down on a bench after walking to it, feeling shitty and depressed.

"You okay?" Felix jogs up to me, kneeling in front of me. "Your head again?"

"No..." I sigh. "I just feel shitty, you know..."

Felix follows my glance towards Jasper and nods. "Jaimie's lost it." He responds. "Don't pay attention to them." He takes a seat beside me on the bench. "His parents are divorcing and he's acting out ever since they told him."

"It doesn't give him the right to treat people this way." I mutter, leaning my head on the palm of my hands.

"Evans, Jackson, 10 laps, no exception." Mr. Jankowski yells at us.

"Let's lie okay?" I mutter, leaning my head further down, grabbing it with both my hands.

Felix smirks carefully, nodding, putting his hand on my back and leaning forward to look at me. "Bad headache, huh?" He sounds amused.

"I'm not gonna run laps because that douche is acting out." I grin, before I pretend to have a growing headache.

"Evans." Mr. Jankowski is walking up to us, placing Jasper on the bench beside me, handing him something in the process. I sneak a glance, noticing the poor guy has a bad nose bleed. "Your head, again?"

"Uhu." I mutter, like I'm in a hell of a lot of pain. Sue me, I'm not going to be punished with 10 laps for Jaimie's wrong-doing.

"Do you have your painkillers with you?" Felix asks in perfect made up worry.

"No..."

"He's faking it!" Tom's voice calls out. "Sir, he was fine a minute ago!" He passes us while running his laps.

"It's probably the echoing in here." Felix sits up. "And he was complaining about a small headache before class."

"Take him to the nurse." Mr. Jankowski sounds like he doesn't fully believe me. But who is he to force me to run laps? If I really was in pain, it wouldn't do him any good to let me go on. "Get him some painkillers. Take Jasper with you."

"Yes sir." Felix pretends to help me up, Jasper shuffling behind us.

We leave the gym and make our way towards the nurse's office.

"So, wanna hang out at my place tonight? Got a new game on Xbox."

"You and Xbox." I chuckle. "I'm more a PS4 kinda guy."

"You brat." He mumbles.

"No headache?" Jasper is still pressing a wet cloth to his nose, which is by now mostly red because of the blood.

"Nah, I'm not gonna run for something Jaimie did." I chuckle, getting a grin in return.

"Hang out, or not?" Felix asks like Jasper never interrupted us.

"Yeah, fine, but next time you're coming to my place to play on a real game console."

Felix shrugs and laughs softly. "Fine, spoiled little kid. But tonight, we're gonna play a real game."

"Always the gaming wars." Jasper shakes his head carefully. "Can't it be both? I have both."

"That's like fire and water." I laugh out loud. "Not a good combo, dude."

"Well, shut up." Felix nudges me. "You still need to get the nurse to tell coach you're really not fit for gym, or we'll have to run the laps anyway."

"Ai ai sir."

* * * * *

"Cutie, I heard you had a headache during PE?" Stan appears beside me while I'm putting some books in my locker.

"Jaimie threw a basketball in Jasper's face and since everybody was misbehaving in some way anyway, Jankowski made us run laps." I tell him truthfully. "I'm not gonna run laps because of something Jaimie did."

Stan laughs gently and I melt at the sound of his amusement. "So, you're okay? Because I was worried."

"Sweet." I murmur, leaning in closer to receive a gently kiss.

"Ugh, fags." Tom and Evan pass by, the former sending us a disgusted look, Evan looks the other way in discomfort. "Get a room."

"Ignore them." Stan forces me to look back at him again. "Start focussing on the fact there's more people not giving us bullshit about this."

"But everybody is staring and judging and..."

"No, they're not. Just because all of your so-called friends left you, doesn't mean the whole school is against you."

"Yeah, well. I went from popular with tons of superficial friends to a social outcast with four."

"Four?" Stan pulls up an eyebrow. "Someone beside Julia and Felix sticking up for you?"

"Eeh... Emma..."

Stan snorts, shaking his head. "That bitch betrayed you and have you seen her around ever since you got dragged out of Narnia?"

"I guess not..."

"Stop focussing on the wrong friends, okay? You've got me, screw the rest." He pulls me in his arms, placing a kiss on top of my head. "Wanna come to my place tonight? I'm home alone and I hate it, you know I do."

"I already agreed on gaming at Felix' place." I mutter, leaning my head against his chest. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"But I'm alone tonight." He sounds annoyed. "All you do is hang out with Felix lately."

"Yeah, well... he is one of the only people who isn't treating me like I've got the plague."

"Neither am I." He cups my face. "And you're healed pretty good. I thought we could spend the night together. I want to take you on another date."

"But I already agreed to hang out with Felix."

"Well, tell him you'll hang out tomorrow. I'm hanging out with James tomorrow."

"Why don't you hang out with him today?"

"Okay, fine." He lets go of me, stepping away with a frustrated look on his face. "You just go to Felix. I guess no date. I'll cancel reservations and tell them you'd rather go gaming with Felix, rather than going out with your boyfriend." He starts walking away, giving me a shitty feeling for turning him down.

"You have a reservation already?"

"Yeah, I wanted to surprise my boyfriend, but I guess he's too busy with other people." He waves me off dismissively. "Let me know when you've got some time in that busy schedule of yours."

"Stan... don't be like that." I groan, slamming my locker shut to follow after him. "I didn't know, okay? How could I know?"

"Well, maybe you couldn't know. But you could put in a little more effort. Do you even like me? I mean, you go behind my back and talk with my biggest enemy. You rather hang out with Felix instead of me..."

"I came out for you," I deadpan. "You think you'd believe I really like you, after I got smashed to pulp for you."

"Yeah, but since then..." he shrugs. "Like you regret it and don't want to be alone with me."

"That's not true..." I grab his arm. "I do want to be alone with you."

"So, you'll go on a date with me tonight?"

"Fine, I'll cancel plans with Felix." I groan, giving into him. I do want to spend some time with Stan, but he's always busy. And now he's blaming me for hanging out with Felix in the meantime. Somehow that doesn't seem fair, but I don't want to start another fight with Stan, since he is one of the only people who is still talking to me. If he leaves me because we're fighting too much, I'll be close to having nobody left.

* * * * *

The date is pretty casual, but nice. He took me to the city again. We hung out at the mall and dressed up as funny as possible. We eventually got kicked out of two stores for being too loud and obnoxious. Then we went to the arcade to play some games, do a cheesy photo session in one of them booths and currently we're in a mirror maze, trying to find either the exit, or each other. I lost him right after the beginning and I'm starting to feel a little annoyed because I can see myself in every direction and I can't seem to find the fucking exit. My head started to throb painfully in the process, probably due to the loud noises in the arcade and the reflecting lights in all these damned mirrors. My eyes hurt the most right now and I just want to lay down and close my eyes. But I need to get out of here first. I scoot my way from mirror to mirror, squinting my eyes to block out as much light as possible, orienting with my hands. I bumped my head twice already, maybe that's another reason to have a growing headache.

"Stan, where are you?" I groan, slumping down against a mirror after I walked into another dead end.

"Cris?" His voice sounds worried. "I think I'm close." He sounds pretty close.

"I need my painkillers and they're in your car."

"Wait, what? Your head again?" Now he sounds really worried. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It just started..." I take in a couple of deep breaths, closing my eyes and covering my ears. I think I might black out if I don't get my painkillers any time soon.

"Cris?" His voice sounds muffled, but I can feel the familiar hold of his hands on my shoulder. "Let's go." He pulled me up from the ground, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind him. He leads me through the maze, one hand holding mine, the other in front of him whenever he thinks he's being fooled by the mirrors. It takes what feels like hours for him to get us out and we end up at the entrance instead of the exit. Which isn't all that weird since we never found the stairs leading to the second floor.

Stan ignores the protests coming from one of the employees that we got the wrong route.

"Where did you put that bottle?"

"My backpack," I mutter, while he's still pulling me along towards the car. The dizziness is the worst. I don't even mind the headache all that bad. It's the fact I feel like I'm going to collapse any second.

And obviously Stan noticed that fact too, because he scooped me up bridal-style, carrying me towards the car. He's struggling to open the car and put me in the passenger's seat, but eventually I'm in the comfy chair, leaning my head backwards.

"Do you have some water or anything?" Stan's voice even sounds funny because I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.

"I'm going to be sick..." I push him out of the way, nearly tumbling out of the car. He prevents me from face planting to the floor by catching me. I throw up in the bushes beside the car, before he helps me to lay down in the backseat of the car. He helps me to take some painkillers, gently pushing back my hair while looking at me. I want to keep staring at him, but the lights are too bright, so I decide on closing them and waiting for the painkillers to help me to fall asleep.

Talk about ruining a date.