Chapter One

Devon stood frozen with the note in his hand. It was morning, but early morning, and Franky was still laying in his bed, dead asleep. A single beam of sunlight fell through the otherwise blocked window and rested neatly on Franky's peacefully unconscious face. Devon watched him silently for a short time, completely in disbelief that this was actually happening.

Every ten seconds a nurse would pester Devon to hurry, because his father was waiting for him outside. The last reminder he received was the most urgent, almost to a frightening point, and so he took one more look at the note. He didn't have time to write another one, especially not with the impatient nurse on his back. Nearly absentmindedly, Devon slipped the paper under Franky's pillow.

“See you later, man,” Devon whispered before he left. But he looked back before he was totally gone, and he knew that would be the last time he ever saw Franky.

Devon's father was indeed waiting for him outside, though he didn't seem bothered by the length of time his son had taken to meet him. Devon slid into the car, his bags already packed in the trunk, and just stared at his father. His father stared back, too, and it was almost as if he they were finally reuniting through silence. Devon could tell by the harsh line his father's drawn eyebrows created that his father wasn't all too sure what to make of Devon's new personality. It even seemed as though he thought Devon hadn't changed at all.

Nevertheless, he wasn't in any mood to argue with medical professionals, so after his evaluation of Devon he started up the car and drove off from the hospital. Neither man said a word the entire trip home. The silence was awkward at some points; for Devon it was the most awkward, though for his father it was more displeasing than anything else.

Three hours later, the sun was much higher in the sky- though not quite halfway just yet- as the car slowly pulled into the driveway of a big, blue house. Sitting on the porch was a dark-haired girl, who Devon immediately identified as Kirsten. She was holding a baby in her arms, and Devon guessed that it was probably his nephew. He had heard through letters received from his family and friends that Kirsten had delivered without any severe problems, and that she had also decided to keep the baby and raise it herself, with the help of her parents, of course. Devon hadn't been informed of much else, not even the gender of the baby, but its all-blue wardrobe basically confirmed it to be a boy.

“Hey, look, Ty,” Devon heard Kirsten whisper as he walked up the stairs. “It's your Uncle Devon.”

“Please, don't start calling me that,” Devon groaned. Kirsten looked up and laughed, and it was then that Devon noticed how much she had changed in a year. She looked so much older, and he suspected that it could have been because she was a mother now, though he didn't really know if that meant anything at all.

“Fine, I won't. Don't you want to see your nephew?” She held out her arms and carefully transferred the baby over to Devon. He was oddly surprised at how light the baby was, even though it wasn't surprising considering the baby was only a few months old. “His name is Ty.”

“Like Tyler?”

Kirsten shook her head a little, and in a diffident voice said, “Like Tyrone.” Devon's face immediately cleared of any and all expressions as he tried to process this information. It took a while, but eventually he returned with a slightly dissatisfied look.

“Oh. Well, at least Ty's not so bad.” He looked down at the cute little baby resting in his arms. Ty had a tiny, round nose, big, blue eyes, and jet black curls. Though his analysis was hardly worth anything, Devon guessed that the nose and black hair were Kirsten's, and the eyes and curls were Chris's. Though he wholeheartedly disapproved of Chris's involvement in the creation of the human in his arms, Devon had to admit that the combination of Chris and Kirsten seemed to produce a rather adorable little creature.

As soon as Ty started crying, Devon gave him back to Kirsten, then finally walked inside his house. For the first time in a whole year- a little over a year, technically- he was finally coming home. Once he was standing in front of the doorway, he stopped to breathe in everything that he'd been missing. Every single thing about the place seemed so different and distant to him, and he reasoned that it was probably because he was looking at everything as a different person. He really had changed in the past year, and he sincerely believed it was for the better.

His room was much cleaner than he remembered it being. He suspected that his mother might have one day cleaned it, probably for no real reason other than maybe out of boredom. But he was certainly glad.

It was at this time that Devon felt he was much too excited to be back to even try to get some rest, as he had planned to do, and instead decided that he would go visit Jonathan. He had promised to meet up with Jonathan as soon as he got home, anyway. And he was even more enthusiastic, as Jonathan had informed Devon of some sort of surprise that he had.

When Devon knocked on the door, he didn't really expect Jonathan to answer so quickly. But he did, and for a while they were both speechless. So many memories passed of the last time they had seen each other, the last time they had talked in person, and once the recollections began to die down, Devon and Jonathan shared the hug of old wartime buddies.

“What's the surprise?” Devon asked in his straight-forward manner after he and Jonathan had finished with their big reuniting. Jonathan's face lit up at this, almost as if he had forgotten about it until just now.

“Just a minute, you'll see.” It was actually a bit longer than a minute, but as neither of the boys were wearing a watch and they both new it was just a figure of speech, the reality of the amount of time passed was relative.

The door opened, and Devon honestly expected that it would be Penny. But he was deeply let down to find that it wasn't Penny at all. Not even close. It was Chris.

“Hi, Devon,” he nervously said. He watched Devon for just a second, then gave a fake smile. “Good to see you're doing well.”

“This is the surprise?” Devon asked, unmoved by Chris's appearance. Jonathan nodded.

“Chris lives with us now.”

“He lives with you?”

Chris held up his hand to interrupt. “My parents don't like me anymore,” he said. “They kicked me out.” Devon didn't really care, but he was confused by the smile plastered on Chris's face. Generally, people aren't happy about things like that.

“...Why?” Chris opened his mouth in surprise- actually, like he'd forgotten something, and then he looked to Jonathan, cleared his throat, and puffed up his chest. Devon was growing a little impatient, as he just wanted a plain answer.

“Devon,” Chris started, still smiling and sounding rather excited, “I'm gay.”

Devon's eyebrows raised further than he thought they ever could, almost buried in his hair, and his eyes widened a lot. Sure, he had known about Chris and Jonathan's past, but he had always sort of thought- or hoped- that they had just been lying or yanking his chain.

“Chris likes coming out to people,” Jonathan said. Chris nodded his head in agreement.

“It's fun to see their reactions. Like, I get this,” he pointed his finger in Devon's face, “a lot. Actually, most people respond that way. But some people laugh.” His mouth twitched a little as he continued, “My parents laughed.”

“Are you two still...” Devon trailed off, as he figured they would know what he was talking about. Jonathan shook his head. “So, you have, like, some other... boyfriend or something.”

“Uh, not at the moment,” Chris said, slightly disappointed. Then there was a short silence, which Jonathan decided to fill in.

“You're not gonna get much else out of him,” he said. “He won't even tell me who he likes.”

“Because I don't want to jinx it!” Chris exclaimed.

“Yeah, whatever. It's not like I don't already know who.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris raised his eyebrows, expecting a lame answer, and Jonathan mocked him.

“James.”

Chris bugged his eyes out and shrieked, “Shut up!” His face was turning a bit red, which Devon could see when Chris looked back at him. “Anyway, Jonathan has a girlfriend now.”

There was something remarkably similar to relief in Devon's voice as he asked, “Really?”

“Yeah, her name's Angelica,” Jonathan replied.

“Is she hot?” Jonathan laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess.” Devon felt it only fair that he should laugh now.

“What do you mean, 'I guess?' Either she's hot or she's not,” he said. “Do you think she's hot?”

“I think she's pretty,” Jonathan answered. “What does it matter, anyway? It's her personality that I like.”

“If you ask me,” Chris, who had been practically daydreaming, discreetly said, “she looks quite a bit like Kirsten.”

“Chris,” Jonathan snapped, as if to say that Chris was being ridiculous. Chris just shrugged and mumbled something about truth.

“Speaking of Kirsten, I assume you saw her at some point?” Chris asked, and Devon nodded. “How's Ty doing?”

“Fine, I guess... why do you care, again?”

“Oh, well, when Kirsten decided she wanted to keep the baby, she also decided that she wanted him to know his dad, so... yeah,” Chris replied. “Is she coming over, do you know?”

“No, I don't know.”

Suddenly, the door opened, and Penny quickly said, “Chris,” and held her hand out, which was holding onto a phone. “It's for you.”

Chris grabbed the phone, held it up to his ear, and answered, “Hello?” Then he smiled like mad and chirped, “Hi, James!... No, why?... Yeah, of course... OK, I'll just be waiting outside...Bye!” He turned off the phone, and Jonathan and Devon looked at him expectantly. “James is picking me up and we're going to the mall,” he coolly said.

“So, James is gay, too?” Devon asked. Chris nodded. “Interesting.”

“Listen, Devon, I know you don't approve,” he honestly said. “But I don't care what you think, because this is who I am. Besides, I get teased enough, anyway. I've kinda become immune to it.”

“Oh, yeah, a lot of people know about you, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. Oh, but we,” he motioned to Jonny, “don't go to ECS anymore. We're going to public school now.” He leaned forward a bit and whispered, “It's got a lot better looking guys.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know,” Devon sarcastically replied. “I was worried.”

Chris narrowed his eyes at Devon and Jonathan asked, “Are you going back to ECS?”

Devon gave a dry laugh and said, “I don't think they'll want me back there.”

“Good point,” Jonathan laughed. “You could come to our school, then.”

“Ha! Yeah, and walk around seeing pretty boy here making out with that James kid all the time?” Jonathan twisted up his mouth and Devon's offensiveness. Devon didn't think he was being offensive, though, at least not to Jonathan. He was merely trying to insult Chris. “It'll probably happen, though.”

Chris, who'd been staring at the ground, shot his head up. “What, you coming to school with us? Or-” Chris soon realized how embarrassingly dumb he sounded, and his face turned red as he went back to watching his shoes. “I should go get ready.”

He abruptly spun around and marched back inside. A silence was left to hang in the air between Devon and Jonathan, but there was nothing weird or awkward about it. In fact, they had encountered many of these types of silences during their friendship, so it was more than normal to both of them.

Instead, Devon silently vented to Jonathan, who seemed to nod every now and then. It was possible that Devon was just imagining this, but it made him feel better, like Jonathan was actually listening.

“So, why don't you two go to ECS anymore?” Devon asked to break the silence.

“Well, my mum can't afford to send me now that my father's gone. She got a job, but it doesn't pay nearly enough,” he replied, sighing a bit. “And Chris's parents are off pretending he doesn't exist, so.”

Much to his dismay, Devon felt a little bad hearing Jonathan talk about Chris, and he even considered referring to his emotion as sympathy. “It's tough for him?”

“Yeah. He doesn't like to show it, but I know he doesn't have it easy, and he takes a lot of crap for being so open about it.”

“Then why is he? So open about it, I mean. He doesn't have to tell people.”

Jonathan shrugged. “But he hates hiding it. More than he hates people disliking him.”

The door opened again, and Chris returned his presence to the other two boys. In the amount of time that he had been missing, he'd managed to change his outfit into something he found more suitable- a nice, plain black shirt that was skin-tight. Devon cringed a little at the sight of it.

“So,” Chris said. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

“Yeah,” Devon sneered, “Jon decided that he was going to convert to Hinduism, and then a giant meteor fell from the sky and killed us all.”

Chris didn't say anything to Devon, but he turned to Jonathan and said, “Jay, you killed us with your religion.”

“I'm sorry,” Jonathan laughed. There was suddenly an engine sounding behind the boys, and Chris craned his neck to see past Devon.

“Bye, guys!” he spewed before sprinting to the car that was in the driveway. Along the way, he nearly lost his balance and tripped over one of the loose rocks lining the grass, but was luckily spared of any physically damaging embarrassment.

He was in the car so quickly that it almost looked like he slid right through the door. James blinked at the solid phantom, who was beaming and spilling enthusiasm all over the interior of the car. Then he flashed a smile of his own, and casually said, “Hey.”

“Hey!” Chris excitedly repeated. He quickly looked around, searching for the perfect thing to say out of a long list of potential candidates. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Well, thank you for coming along.” Chris nodded happily, and within seconds they were bustling down the road in James's dirty old car. It was a hand-me-down from his parents, but it still worked fine, even if it didn't look so appealing on the outside.

The mall was filled with people, as expected, but not filled to the point of suffocation. There were enough people in there that it was certainly not empty, but also enough that Chris was able to skip and spin around without hitting anyone. James walked behind him, laughing at Chris's ridiculous bubbliness, all the while being thoroughly entertained.

They stopped in one of the stores nearby, a clothes store meant specifically for teens who tried to look much cooler than they actually were. They mostly went in there to ridicule the place.

“Wait,” James said, raising his hand to stop Chris from taking off the hat he was wearing. “That actually doesn't look half-bad.”

“Seriously?” Chris laughed, blushing a little.

“Yeah...” James turned to his side, where a rack of scarves was resting. He picked out a long, black one and carefully examined it. Chris watched him, and was somehow surprised when James moved forward and wrapped the scarf around Chris's neck. He tried to control his breathing while James was so close, but he was having immense difficulty doing so.

Once the scarf was securely around Chris, James moved and steered Chris over to the nearest mirror. “What do you think?” he quietly asked.

Chris tried his hardest to focus on his own reflection and not James's. “Ehh, I don't know,” he indecisively replied. He turned his head to the side, as if that would better his view of the hat, and couldn't help noticing that his cheeks were rather red.

“You should get 'em,” James said. Chris made an uninterested noise, and James tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “I'll buy them for you.”

“No, you don't have to do that.” Chris turned and realized just how close James was standing. “Really, I'm just not sure that I like it.”

“Nonsense.” James yanked the hat off Chris's head, and in one swift motion took the scarf, too. Chris protested frantically as James made his way to the back, where the checkout counter was, but to no avail. In a matter of minutes they were standing outside the store again, James shoving a plastic bag into Chris's hands.

“I can't believe you did that,” Chris said as he reluctantly grabbed the handles of the bag. The two boys began walking down towards some of the other stores. “I didn't even really want them.”

“Shut up! They looked good on you.” Chris sighed hopelessly and shook his head a little, his heart already pounding in his chest.

“I have to repay you, I hope you know that,” he said.

“You wanna repay me? Fine...” James paused for a moment to think. “OK. Friday night, go out with me.”

Chris nearly stopped walking; he could hardly believe what he was hearing. His eyes widened and he stuttered a bit as he replied, “Go out- like a date?”

James laughed and gave a tiny smile. “Yeah.”

“OK!” Chris grinned breathlessly. “Wow, I've never actually been on a real date before... uh, with a guy.”

“You've been on dates with girls?” James asked with no other reply to use.

“Yeah... too many. Of course, my parents forced me to,” Chris added. “They didn't know... Well, I mean, I didn't even know then.”

“My mum still doesn't know. I feel like I should tell her.” James narrowed his eyes for a bit, then shrugged. “I guess she'll find out eventually.”

“Do you want her to know?” Chris politely asked. He started to absentmindedly twirl around the bag in his hand.

“Well... yeah.”

“Then maybe you should tell her.”

James waited for quite a while before speaking again. When he finally did, he started off by heaving a great sigh and decisively saying, “I will.” Then he looked at Chris and his face lit up. “I'll tell her, and I'll tell her about you.”

“Good luck,” Chris said, trying so hard to hide his overwhelming flush. He took a look down at the bag swinging from his arm and thought that maybe he would wear the hat and scarf every once in a while. And Friday night seemed like a great opportunity to do so.