Woodbridge Academy Ch. 07

Josh wasn't in the room when I got home, so I plopped down on my bed and did some studying for finals while I waited for Matt to get back. I only had a few more days before exams, and I had to finish strong to keep my valedictorian position.

By the time Matt got back, I was already in bed, so we just called it a night and agreed to hang out the next day after classes. I was happy with the fact that we were able to separate from each other once in a while without any jealousy or issues.

My peaceful slumber was disrupted when Josh came barreling into the room like a bat out of hell and flipped the light on, blinding me with the bright light. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He yelled at me as he slammed the door shut and faced me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. My silence only irritated him further, and his face turned a shade of Crimson I had never witnessed before.

"What are you talking about?" I finally asked him, using as cautious of a tone as I could muster.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Jason!" He yelled back. "How could you? What the hell kind of friend are you?"

"Josh, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about." I told him, swinging my legs around so I could climb out of bed. "What's wrong? If I did something to upset you, I'm sorry, but I don't know what it was."

He shoved me away from him, nearly knocking me to the floor. I had never once witnessed Josh get so angry, at anyone. "You tried to hook up with Adam!" He yelled. "What, having Matt wasn't enough? You had to go for Adam too? You could t handle the fact that I had something, you had to go after it and take it from me?"

I scoffed, which only made him more mad. "Josh, I swear I didn't make a move on Adam. I would never do that to you." His nostrils flared, but he didn't answer. "Seriously." I continued. "You know I'm happy with Matt. I don't know what you heard, but it wasn't true, I promise."

"You know what, Jay? I'm not even mad. I'm disappointed." He shook his head and let out a dark chuckle. "You have everything. You couldn't let me have just one thing?"

"Josh..."

"No." He snapped, holding up a hand to stop me. "I'm done, Jason. I'm done sitting here and being your little bitch while you run around here like you own the world."

"I don't." I argued back. "I have no clue what you're even talking about. You're my best friend, Josh. Why would I ever do anything to jeopardize that?"

"Because you're just a whore desperate to get fucked." He yelled. His tone made me cringe, but there was no stopping it. "You know what? Fuck this, and fuck you too. I'm done with all of it. You crossed the line and I'm not going to let you do it to me anymore."

He shoved by me and left the room, slamming the door behind him. I stared at the dark wood for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. It was pretty obvious it had to do with Adam lying, but why this time? Why did he tell the truth last time but not this time? I had never done anything to screw over Josh, and I certainly my wouldn't start now. In a huff, I left the room and headed downstairs straight to Adams room. I banged on the door a few times, but no one answered. Frazzled, I went back to my room, unable to focus on anything anymore.

The next few days were terrible. I didn't see Josh at all, not even in the cafeteria. He never slept in the room, but I had no idea where he went. I could assume he was with Adam, but he had a roommate, so it didn't make sense. Every day, a few more of Josh's things disappeared from the room, until it was down to the bare minimum. It looked like I lived alone. He even took down all of his pictures of the two of us.

It hurt. It really hurt.

It especially hurt knowing hat I hadn't actually done anything wrong. He was so blinded by his love for Adam that he didn't even want to acknowledge that it might have been him lying. He couldn't even see that we had been friends for years and I would never do that to him.

By the time The Sunday before finals rolled around, I was devastated. I knew I had lost my best friend, even though the fact gutted me. He wouldn't listen to anything I said, and had blocked my phone number and email address. I never saw him at school, and when I did catch a glimpse of him, he did his best to get away from me.

I decided that it was best to just get through the rest of the school year and try to communicate with him after. Failing finals wouldn't do me any good.

During a much needed study break in the pool, I was finally able to clear my mind. It still amazes me how much swimming had a calming effect on me and I could just be free for a while. With a renewed sense of calm, I climbed out of the water and made my way to the locker room.

I had just stepped into the warm water of the shower when I felt a hand touch me from behind. I spun around and was expecting to find Adam, but was relieved when I saw it was Matt. "Hey, you." I whispered to him as I tugged him into the spray with me. He was al sweaty, so I imagined he had just had a tough workout. The season was over, but Matt had been recruited to play football at Brown, so he needed to stay fit. It was a good look for him. "Just workout?"

"Yeah." He returned just as softly. "How was your swim?"

"It was awesome." I said with a sigh as he rubbed my sides.

"Feel better about everything?"

"Yeah. I'm just hopeful that Josh will eventually come around and listen to me, or see that Adam is the shmuck here, not me."

"He will." Matt told me in the most convincing tone he could muster. "You guys are friends. Once the dust settles, he'll realize he was wrong and you guys can all move on."

"I hope so." I sighed.

Matt turned me and pushed me against the wall. I let out a gasp as the cool tile hit my back, but sighed as Matt's hands stroked up and down my sides and he pressed his naked groin against mine. The feeling of his erection never tired me. In fact, it made me proud I could turn him on like that. This incredible guy wanted me, of all people. "I wish I could make you feel better." He mumbled against my neck as he nuzzled me. "I hate that my friend is the one making you feel like this."

"It's okay." I gasped as his erection grazed against mine. "You're good at making me forget things."

He gave me a kiss that made me want to melt into a puddle on the tile floor beneath the spray of the shower. I don't know what had come over Matt that would make him risk joining me in such a public area, but I wasn't about to complain. "I can do that." He murmured against my mouth. "I think we could all use a little stress release."

I had no argument for that, and just wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me, our bare chests pressed together as the warm water washed over us. I moved us around so that we had switched positions before moving my mouth down over his chest, one inch at a time, savoring the taste of his skin. I lowered myself to my knees on the tile floor, making sure we were completely protected by the curtain. I glanced up at Matt, finding that he was gazing down at me. With a smirk, I held my finger to my lips to remind him to be quiet before I wrapped my lips around his head and sucked him down into my mouth. Matt's hands instantly found my head and held me in place as I bobbed up and down, blowing him exactly how I knew he would love it.

Matt barely stood a chance, not even lasting five minutes before he blew his load into my throat. I swallowed down as much as I could before standing up again. Matt was panting as he leaned against the wall, eyes closed. I snuggled up against him and kissed his neck. "Love you." I murmured against his skin. He just grinned and pulled me closer to him. All the stress from the week faded away, and I was blue to just relax as long as Matt was there for me.

After we silently scrubbed each other down, we peeked out to make sure no one was around before climbing out of the shower. The coast was clear so we split up to go to our lockers to get dressed. As we left the locker room, we crashed straight into Josh, who was apparently on his way in. "Josh!" I exclaimed, so happy to finally see him. He looked awful. His eyes were dull and lifeless, and it looked like he was drowning in his uniform.

Josh just glared at me and shoved past us, slamming the locker room door behind him. I went to go follow him, but Matt grabbed my arm and stopped me. "He'll come around." He told me gently. "You're his best friend. He won't be mad forever."

Matt tried his best to cheer me up, but it just wasn't working. We ended up going our separate ways for the night, since we both had exams the next day. I thought the end of high school would be better than this.

My Irish lit class was the first exam I had to take, which we had to do in one of the computer labs because of all the essays we had to write. The professor was a real jerk, and decided that three 500-100 word essays was a reasonable exam. I think every student was in agreement that it was not.

We had been working hard for about an hour and a half when my computer started going a little bonkers. The colors were all over the place, but it finally settled down. I had already finished the first two essays and was just planning the third, so I panicked and saved my work then, just in case. I was not going to risk blowing my valedictorian spot for a computer malfunction.

Immediately after I had saved and had written three sentences of the new essay, a screen popped up on my computer. I glanced around and saw that all of us had the same thing happening, and everyone looked just as confused.

And that's when the video started to play.

I wasn't sure what it was at first, but as I watched, I figured it out pretty quickly. It was a compilation of me and Matt together, except Matt's face was replaced with a clown, and in the generic uniform, you couldn't tell who it was. You could certainly tell it was me though.

Everyone around me started snickering, and I could feel my face grow hot. I guess I was being forced out of the closet after all. I urgently tried to get rid of the video, but it wouldn't let me close it. And that's when the final image came on: me on my knees in the shower the night before, my mouth firmly wrapped around Matt. I have no idea how anyone even got that image without me knowing. I mean, we were in a shower, but surely I would have heard someone in there with us.

Everyone was staring at me and laughing. I knew it without even looking up. All the blood had rushed to my face, and I was freaking out. Who would do such a thing? Clearly they knew it was Matt, but why would they block out his face? Why ME? I was nice to everyone, I didn't cause any waves, and I just did my thing. Why would anyone want to mess with me.

The final image was frozen in place, me staring happily up at mast in the shower. There were some pretty offensive words written across the screen, and I couldn't make it go away.

"Fag." The guy next to me snickered, and I just lost it. I shoved my seat back, grabbed my bag, and ran out of the room. I hated running away from my problems, but this was all I could manage right now.

"Mr. Evans?" The professor called after me as I ran out, but I couldn't bear to stop. I had to get out of there immediately.

I made my way back to the dorm, but only after every single person I passed looked at me and laughed. I hated being the center of attention, yet that's exactly what had happened. Everyone was staring, and I knew that everyone knew. So I did the first thing I could think of: I ran straight to Matt's room. He would make it better. He made everything better.

"Matt." I exclaimed as I burst into his room, but froze in place when I saw him, shirtless, standing in the middle of the room with Adam. Also shirtless. "What's going on here?"

Matt at least had the nerve to look ashamed. "It's not what it looks like."

"Did you do this?" I asked, looking directly at Adam. "Was this your doing?"

"Do what, Jay?" Matt asked, stepping up to me, but I jerked away.

"You did, didn't you? You put that video out and blocked out Matt so that you could get with him yourself."

"What video?" Matt asked, looking back and forth between us.

Adam walked over and draped his arm over Matt's shoulder. They looked so good next to each other, it made me sick to my stomach. "I told you not to mess with me." He grinned. "And you were crazy to think Matt would want to stay with you."

I turned to face Matt, who didn't say anything about what Adam had to say, but instead seemed like he was mad at me. "What video?" He asked again.

"Jason made a video that showed everyone tht he was with you. The whole school got an email with it today." Adam told him.

"What? That's not what happened!" I argued back. "Matt was blocked out of the images. It was me you outed, Adam."

Matt pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced up at me. "I have an email from you." He said quietly, and turned his phone to show me an image of the two of us together. "You promised you wouldn't tell anyone. His is what you wanted all along, isn't it?" He was quiet, but his tone meant no nonsense. "How could you?"

"I didn't!" I argued. "I had nothing to do with it!"

"It's from you, Jason!" He yelled back. "I should have known you were a mistake. I should have known better. Fuck!" He threw his phone across the room, and I winced as it slammed into the wall and fell to the floor. "Get out." He snarled at me.

"Matt." I tried to defend myself, but he wanted nothing to do with it.

"Get out!" He yelled again. "I told you I didn't want people to know yet, and now you sent this to the whole fucking school? Are you kidding me? You couldn't give me one more week?"

"I didn't do it." I tried again. "It was obviously Adam. Come on, you have to know this wasn't me."

He shook his head. "Just go, Jason." He repeated. "I never want to see you again."

"Matt."

"Go!" He yelled before grabbing my arm and dragging me to the door. He opened it and shoved me outside, before slamming it in my face. The sound of the lock clicking into place resonated through my brain and it made my stomach lurch.

Everyone was staring at me in the hallway, judging eyes witnessing the most embarrassing moments of my life. I turned and ran for the stairs, anxious to get to the sanctuary of my room. As soon as I got in, I shut the door and realized all of Josh's stuff was totally gone, including his sheets and everything from his closet. I had no best friend, I had no boyfriend, I probably just failed that exam. I slid to the ground and shoved my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over. How did everything fall apart so rapidly?

Taking a deep breath, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I pulled out my phone and dialed my father's number.

"Hey, Dad? It's me. I changed my mind." I took a deep breath. "I want to go see Mom in Italy after all."