Ashton rolled their eyes and looked over at Ethan. “I’d have to actually be male to be gay, but whatever.”
“If you’re not a dude, then how come you used the same locker room as me last year?” he taunted.
Ashton groaned and looked back at him. “Because of small-minded conservative parents like yours. Physical hardware dictates where I have to get changed for P.E., but that doesn’t mean it’s how I feel.”
“If you’ve got a dick, then you’re a dude,” Ethan’s friend, whose name I didn’t know – or really care about, since he was a douchebag – said.
“Oh, I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be, but I’m also more of a woman than you’ll ever get,” Ashton scoffed, flipping their hair over their shoulder and turning back to me and Kate.
“Oh, my God, Ash. That was priceless,” Kate giggled.
Okay, now I was more lost than before. Did that mean Ashton was transsexual? Not that I really cared, because Ashton and Kate were the only people other than Heather who had actually been nice to me since I got here, but I just wanted to know. I didn’t want to offend either of them, but I also didn’t want to be the idiot who just blurted the indelicate question out.
“You’re confused,” Ashton said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.
“Yeah, I am,” I admitted.
“My birth certificate says ‘male’ on it, but I don’t identify as male or female. I’m sort of neither, but both. I prefer to go by ‘they,’ not ‘he.’ And I’m bi and still wondering when Kate’s going to come to her senses and realize she’s madly in love with me.”
Kate turned bright red and buried her head in her hands, groaning. “Remind me why I’m friends with you again?”
“Because you love me,” he – I mean they – teased, winking at her and blowing her a kiss.
Okay, so this “they” thing was going to take some getting used to. But I liked these two already. They were sweet, funny, and had made the effort to reach out to me when I was being harassed, even though they didn’t even know me.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” Ashton raised an eyebrow. “You mean that, preacher’s kid?”
“Yeah, I do. The Bible says not to judge. You both made the effort to reach out to me and defend me when you didn’t have to. That’s what matters to me.”
“Would you look at that? A Christian who actually acts Christian. It’s a miracle!”
Kate peeked out from behind her hands. “Some welcome to public school you’ve gotten, Darla.”
I snorted. “It’s definitely not like St. Bishop’s. I’m sorry. For what Ethan said. I go to church with him. We’ve never gotten along, but I never thought he was that much of a jerk.”
“Eh, I’m used to it,” Ashton said with a sad smile. “It stings, but when you’re as fabulous as I am, there’s bound to be a few jerks who don’t get it.”
The second bell rang, and we all turned toward the front of the classroom as the teacher started to take attendance.
How was it that the people my dad had “warned” me about, the ones he was always saying were evil sinners who were headed straight to Hell, were the nicest kids in this classroom, and the guy I went to church with was the biggest jerk? Was it opposites day and I hadn’t been informed? Or was the world not as black and white as my dad – and my teachers St. Bishop’s – had always said it was?
Chapter 2
Brendan
She’s So High
I huffed out a sigh as I pulled my car – er, my parents’ old car, which was now my car – into the student parking lot. I found a parking space at the very back of the lot and pulled in, putting the car in park and taking the key out of the ignition before I grabbed my backpack off the front passenger seat and got out, hitting the button to lock the door and shoving it closed behind me.
“Yo, Carter!” I heard my friend Alex from youth group call.
I turned in the direction of his voice to find him walking toward me. I swore I could physically see the ego boost that being a senior this year gave him. Lucky him. I still had another two years at this cesspool until I was free.
“’Sup, Gleason?” I asked.
“You finally got some wheels this summer! You’re guaranteed to get laid now,” he chuckled, clapping me on the shoulder as he came to stand next to me. “That thing’s going to be a chick magnet!”
I rolled my eyes as I started to walk toward the building. “That would imply that I’m interested in getting laid, and I’m not.”
“You’re seriously still following that shit Pastor Jones is preaching?” he scoffed. “I lost it when I was fifteen, man.”
Yeah, I knew that. He’d barely been able to shut up about it since it happened two years ago, which I’d always thought was a dumb move. I didn’t know who he’d slept with, but I did know that she was a couple of years older than him, which meant she could have gone to jail for statutory rape if anyone found out. The age of consent in South Carolina was sixteen, so legally, he hadn’t been able to consent to that encounter at all.
That was never going to be me. I was never going to give any part of myself to a girl like that just to say I’d done it. When I did make the choice to be intimate with someone, it was going to be because I cared enough about her to take that step, not just because everyone else was doing it. And I hadn’t even found a girl I cared enough about to date here, let alone one I cared enough about to have sex with.
“As you keep reminding me. But it’s my business, not yours,” I snapped.
“Whoa, dude, chill. I was just saying. And speaking of, I know Heather’s had a thing for you forever. You should ask her out.”
“Yeah, not interested,” I chuckled weakly.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Heather, because I did. She was a sweet girl. Even my parents had commented on that and tried to encourage me to date her. But I just didn’t see her as anything more than a friend, and I highly doubted that’d suddenly change this year.
“Why not? She’s hot,” Alex insisted.
I snorted. “That’s your entire criteria for why I should date her? Because she’s hot?”
“I mean…she’s a nice girl too. But seriously, have you seen her rack?”
I rolled my eyes. “Real Christian of you to talk about her like that.”
“Just because I go to church doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes. So, you going to ask her out?”
The obnoxiously loud bell sounded, telling me it was time to head to homeroom.
Thank you, Jesus, I thought.
“Saved by the bell,” I snickered. “And no. See you around, man.”
I turned and power-walked in the direction of my homeroom class, beyond grateful for the escape from that conversation.
Seriously, though. Why did society put such an emphasis on coupling? Why was I considered a freak or a weirdo because I’d never been on a date or kissed a girl? Weren’t the real weirdos the ones who dated people they barely even liked just because everyone else was doing it? The ones who kissed people they didn’t care about just to see what they were missing out on?
That wasn’t going to be me. When I kissed a girl for the first time, it was going to be because I actually felt something for her that went beyond casual friendship. Not just because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
“Hey, Brendan!” I heard Heather call as I was opening the door to my new homeroom class.
I turned to look at her, and she had a mischievous glint in her eye as she approached me. Great. Because letting her down gently was definitely something I wanted to do on my first day of school…not.
“Hey, Heather,” I said with a friendly smile, holding the door open for her. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” she said as we took seats close to the front of the room. “Ran into Darla on my way in today. Poor girl was hopelessly lost and people were shoving her all over the place as she was trying to look at her map. I totally forgot Pastor Jones couldn’t afford her tuiti
on at St. Bishop’s anymore until I saw her standing at the gate.”
It felt like the entire world stopped spinning for a moment as I processed that information.
I didn’t know why it came as such a shock to me that Darla was going to school here now. I knew it was happening because she’d mentioned it at church, and we’d gone to the same school before and it wasn’t a huge deal then. But now? Now, it felt like everything had just changed. Hearing that she was a high school student too, something shifted inside me, and I didn’t know what it was or what it meant.
I did know that I wanted to find every single person who’d shoved her this morning and shove them back. Against a wall. Very forcefully. See how they liked it.
Damn it, I needed to get myself together. Darla was still younger than me. And she was my friend, nothing more.
“Hello? Earth to Brendan?” Heather chuckled. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry,” I sighed, shaking the thoughts out of my head. “No, I didn’t.”
“I said it looked like Darla could use a friend. She was pretty overwhelmed,” she said.
“Yeah, I remember going from private school to public school a couple of years ago,” I told her. “I felt like a fish out of water.”
“Well, she has third lunch too if you want to try to find her. I think she’d like it if you said hi.” She flashed another impish smile.
Whoa, what?! How the hell did Heather know what lunch period I had? I didn’t remember talking to her about that. And what was with that smile she kept giving me today?
“How did you know what lunch period I have?” I asked.
“Um, remember comparing schedules at church?”
Right. Now I remembered.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot.”
Why had I needed a reminder of something that I’d literally talked to Heather about yesterday? Why had the news that Darla Jones was in the same building right now – you know, along with three thousand other kids – gotten me this flustered?
“Dude, you realize you’re going to want to pull yourself together before you talk to the girl, right?” she snickered.
I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to respond, but the second bell rang, and we both looked at the front of the classroom at Mr. Herx.
Saved by the bell once again.
The smell of greasy, mass-produced food invaded my nostrils and turned my stomach as I walked into the cafeteria. Yeah, I definitely hadn’t missed the food here, that was for sure. I headed to the line and got my overcooked spaghetti and meat sauce, rock-hard garlic bread, and scoop of peas and carrots – because nutrition, that’s why – along with the oh-so-nutritious cardboard box of chocolate milk.
As I left the line and looked around for a place to sit, I absolutely was not looking for Darla. Not at all.
Okay, yes, I was. And it didn’t take me long to locate her. She was sitting with two kids I’d never met before…and who her father would have a heart attack if he’d found her talking to. Well, at least one of them. I was about ninety-five percent sure this person was a guy in drag, but honestly, the makeup job made me second-guess myself, because it was so subtle that it actually looked like a girl had done it. If that made any sort of sense.
I walked over to their table and set my tray down next to Darla, which made her look up at me. And I swear, the smile she flashed at me made my heart do a somersault in my chest.
“Hey, Dar. This seat taken?” I asked.
Her cheeks darkened several shades, which made me chuckle. Was it wrong that I kind of liked that it was so easy to embarrass her just because I liked seeing her blush?
And why did I like seeing her blush so much?
“It is now,” she mumbled.
“Going to introduce us, Dar?” the kid who may or may not have been in drag asked her. And their voice didn’t help me at all, because it was right in that range where it could have belonged to a guy or a girl.
“If you never call me that again,” Darla chuckled uncomfortably. “I’ve known Brendan forever, and he’s literally the only person I let get away with calling me Dar.”
Yeah, I knew that. A couple of other kids in the youth group had tried to call her that, and she’d shut it down immediately. But for some reason, she still let me get away with it.
“Brendan, this is Ashton and Kate,” she continued, pointing first at the kid whose gender I was having a hard time figuring out, and then at a girl with dark, wavy hair and fair skin.
“Hey, Brendan.” Kate gave me a shy smile.
“Hi,” Ashton said.
“Hey. Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling at them. “How’d you guys meet?”
“Homeroom,” Darla told me. “Um, Ethan’s in the same homeroom as us and he started being a jerk to me the second I walked into the room. Ash and Kate invited me to sit with them.”
I smiled. I liked these two already just for looking out for my girl when I couldn’t.
Wait. Why was I calling Darla my girl? She wasn’t my girl. She was my friend, who happened to be a girl.
Right?
“Ethan Smith?” I asked, trying to distract myself. “From church?”
“Yep,” she clipped out, sounding somewhere between annoyed and pissed off.
“Heard him making a bet with his dipshit friend Tommy about who was going to nail her first this year,” Ashton muttered. “Figured we had to save her from the uncivilized pigs.”
Note to self: make sure that little punk knew that he’d have me to answer to if he tried anything with Darla or her friends.
“Yeah, and then Ethan started giving her a hard time for sitting with us. Ash had a little bit of a reputation at our last school,” Kate sighed.
“But his reaction was hilarious,” Darla said, and then she gasped and covered her mouth like she was mortified at what she’d just uttered. “Oh, my gosh, Ash. I’m so sorry.”
Huh? What was she apologizing for?
Ashton chuckled and reached across the table to squeeze her arm. “It’s okay, honey. I know it takes some getting used to. You weren’t trying to be mean.”
“And we’ve lost Brendan,” Kate said.
Darn it. Was my confusion showing on my face? I didn’t care if Ashton was a guy, a girl, or a Martian. What mattered was that this person was being a good friend to someone I cared about when they’d only just met her. But yeah, I was lost.
“Ash prefers to be called ‘they,’ not ‘he,’” Darla explained.
Yep, her dad would have had a coronary if he walked into this cafeteria right now. So would my parents, for that matter. And I would have paid good money to see it. Maybe the doctors could pull the sticks out of their asses at the hospital while they were at it. One thing I’d learned being at public school for the past couple of years was that the world wasn’t nearly as black and white as everyone we went to church with said it was.
“Got it,” I said. “It might take some getting used to, but I’ll do my best.”
“Wait. Another church person who’s not an asshole?” Ashton gasped.
“I mean, I like to think I’m not an asshole,” I chuckled. “Though Ethan might say differently after the next time I cross paths with him.”
Darla averted her eyes. “Don’t worry about it. He was just being a jerk. I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle it, but you don’t have to. It’ll mean more if a junior tells him to back off. He won’t want to get on an upperclassman’s bad side. It’s just how things work here.” I looked across the table. “Same goes for you two. He gives you any problems, tell me and I’ll make sure he gets the message loud and clear.”
“Okay, I like him. He can stay,” Kate giggled.
“Glad I passed the test,” I said with a smile. “I don’t like anyone being jerks to people I care about. And if Darla cares about you, then so do I.”
Darla looked back at me with a smile that could have lit up a concert hall. And, out of nowhere, the urge to kiss her came over me, so strong that it took
every ounce of my willpower not to act on it.
Just like that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd never wanted to date anyone at this school because I'd already met someone I cared enough about to date. Except that she was two years younger than me.
Now that I looked back on it, I realized that what I felt for Darla had always gone way deeper than friendship. The way my feelings had manifested themselves had changed over the years, but they’d only grown stronger over time. What used to be almost brotherly affection for a girl I’d grown up with had morphed into something else altogether.
And, for some reason I couldn’t explain, that scared the hell out of me.
Thank God this day was almost over. I’d always hated the first day of school, and this was no exception. The only bright point in my whole day had been lunch, because I’d gotten to see Darla for a few minutes and meet Kate and Ashton. I’d never met anyone quite like Ashton, and the more I talked to them, the more I liked them. They were kind and genuine, and they were unapologetically themself, which wasn’t easy in this school, where everyone tried to pressure everyone else to fit whatever mold they thought that person should fit into.
“Hello, Mr. Carter,” I heard someone say as I walked into my final class of the day, Team Sports.
I turned around to find Mr. Lively, the teacher of this class and the varsity football coach – who also attended our church – walking toward me.
“Hi, Mr. Lively,” I said.
“Ready for football practice to start?” he asked me.
“Yep,” I chuckled. “Between training camp and wrangling Nate in my spare time, I got plenty of workouts in this summer.”
He smiled. “How old is he again? Four?”
“Yeah. He started pre-K this year.”
“He’s a cute little guy.”
“Yeah, he is,” I agreed. “I think we’ll keep him around.”
He chuckled. “Anyway, you coming or going?”
“Coming,” I said, opening the door and holding it for him. “After you.”
My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss) Page 3