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On Monday, Jeremy and Ella’s cousin Darcy ended up in their first class, which was English. The students seemed quite surprised at Darcy’s bold appearance — it was hard to miss their vivid red-dyed hair and dark makeup — and confused when Darcy mentioned that they would prefer if people used gender-neutral pronouns to refer to them. But Ashad was glad for Darcy’s sake that the class was confused and not hateful and aggressive, as they had been in the past. Only a few weeks ago he’d been involved in a fight when he tried to protect Jeremy from the class bullies. The teachers were keeping their ringleader, Jay, in check for now, but the mean kids at school always gravitated towards the vulnerable ones who were different in any way.
In art class they were given a new assignment for this term’s subject, which was portraiture, and they were asked to team up in groups of three to four people. Ashad immediately counted Jeremy and Toby into his group. “You’ll need to take photos of each other,” instructed Mr Wilkinson, “and then construct a photo collage. Take as many as possible so that you have lots of different images and ideas to work with on this project.”
“No—o,” Toby groaned. “We have to have our faces in it? This assignment sucks.”
“Well at least we can choose whose face we make a collage of,” Ashad said. “You don’t have to do your own.”
“Hell no, I’m not doing my own,” Jeremy said with a shudder.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys, your faces are perfectly fine,” Ashad assured them. They just looked at him and sighed without responding.
“Why don’t we go to my house after school and get it over and done with?” Jeremy suggested.
Ashad and Toby nodded. “Sounds good,” they said.
. . .
A couple of hours later, Jeremy got a text from Toby.
2:57pm
sorry man, cant go. i forgot i have an appointment this arvo. you and ashad go on ahead, ill take photos another time
“Looks like it’s just us,” Jeremy told Ashad, leading him towards the bus. “Toby has an appointment he forgot about.”
“Typical,” Ashad smirked.
The bus was packed as usual, filled with people from three schools in the area. There was hardly anywhere to stand, let alone sit. “I hope Ella doesn’t have Cassidy over this afternoon,” Jeremy said. “God, they’re annoying together.”
“Well she’s not on the bus,” Ashad said.
Jeremy perked up, hopeful that he could have a nice, quiet guitar-free afternoon with his friend. “Thank the Lord Almighty,” he praised, even though he wasn’t religious. “Like, they’re fine on their own, but once they see each other they just turn into total idiots.”
“And won’t stop pashing all the time,” Ashad reminded him.
Jeremy shivered in revulsion. He’d seen more than enough of his sister engaging in PDA in the last week than he needed in his entire lifetime.
They reached his house. Both of his parents were out — his father at work, his mother presumably shopping — and even Darcy seemed to be missing in action. “Wow, we have the house to ourselves,” Jeremy told Ashad, leading him upstairs. “I’ll just go get the camera.”
He was sort of embarrassed to let Ashad into his room. He hadn’t had a friend over in years (because he hadn’t had any) so he wasn’t sure whether his space would make him seem immature. He still had a number of sci-fi movie posters on the walls, which were painted the same bright blue they’d been since his childhood. He had superhero figurines lining the few spaces in his packed bookshelf, and a pair of bonsai trees sat on his windowsill.
“Whoah. I love your room,” said Ashad, raking his eyes over the posters. “I didn’t know you were interested in bonsai.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s not a huge talking topic,” Jeremy said awkwardly, scratching his head nervously. He grabbed his camera bag with a certain degree of urgency. “Let’s go to the backyard,” he said, tugging on Ashad’s sleeve and dragging him back downstairs. He was glad the other boy followed obediently.
At least the light wasn’t too strong at this time of year, so Jeremy hoped they would be able to get a few decent shots. “So what should we start with?” asked Jeremy, hoping Ashad would have some ideas for the project.
“Well first I need to know how to use the camera.” Ashad opened the camera bag. “What are all of these buttons for?”
“You mean you’ve never used a DSLR before?” Jeremy was surprised. He would’ve thought Ashad had a little experience with photography.
“Nope. I didn’t pick photography as an elective back in Year 9.” Jeremy thought Ashad’s eyes seemed a little regretful. “So, can you teach me?”
“Sure.” Jeremy smiled, showing him the ISO settings and how to change the aperture. Jeremy let him do a few test photos before they started the portraits. When he took the camera off of Ashad, he flicked through the previous photos. “What the hell is this?” he snickered, finding a picture taken from below Ashad’s chin, giving the viewer a perfect view of his Adam’s apple and his nostrils.
“Oh, shut up.” Ashad was grinning though. Jeremy was fairly sure he’d taken the stupid photo on purpose. They ended up taking a few silly shots of each other before they finally got down to business. Jeremy wasn’t able to stop laughing even when Ashad was taking the serious photos. He was nervous, unaccustomed to being photographed, unaccustomed to Ashad’s intent gaze from behind his thick glasses. But Jeremy also found the exercise fascinating. When it was his turn to be the photographer, he noticed a lot of details about Ashad’s face. The way that, when he was close enough, he could see the way his crinkling, smiling eyes were framed by long dark lashes, and in the afternoon sun his brown irises turned gold in the light.
“You have a mole here,” Jeremy noticed, gently tapping Ashad’s left cheek with his fingertip. “Funny how I never realised till now.” He looked up and became conscious of the fact that he was very close to Ashad’s face. A blush rose in his cheeks for some reason. All of a sudden, Ashad closed the gap between them and their lips met.
Jeremy was torn between disbelief and horror. What the hell is he doing? He was frozen, unable to pull away, and his mouth automatically moved against Ashad’s. It felt so strange, so alien. The softness of Ashad’s lips contrasted with the slight scrape of the shadow on his chin. Ashad’s eyes were half-closed, but Jeremy’s were wide open. He finally gathered the strength to push the other boy away, and Ashad didn’t resist. His body seemed to have gone limp. They stood silently for a moment, Jeremy’s hands still pressed against Ashad’s shoulders. He realised what he was doing and quickly released his grip.
“W—why.” Jeremy’s voice emerged in monotone. He couldn’t even manage making the inflection to turn the word into a question, and his thoughts were racing so quickly that he couldn’t catch a single one.
Ashad remained silent until Jeremy looked up with a glare. “I’m not sure you really want an answer to that question,” Ashad said, eyes downcast. He turned away, and Jeremy grasped his chin, forcing Ashad to look at his face. He hated that Ashad was taller than him by a couple of inches. He felt so small.
“I asked why.” Jeremy’s voice was firm this time, with a hard edge to it.
Ashad blinked and fidgeted with his hands. Jeremy was glad he looked agitated, he should feel guilty. He eventually met Jeremy’s eyes. “I thought I liked Ella,” he blurted out, “but it turns out that the part of her I liked was the part that was like you.” He hung his head again. “I’m sorry I ki—”
“Don’t say it,” Jeremy hissed. He was shocked to see that Ashad looked terrified, but he hardened his heart against any sense of empathy that tried to creep in. “Don’t come near me again.”
Ashad looked like he was about to say something, but his mouth remained shut. A single tear fell down his cheek and he turned to leave. Jeremy grabbed his shoulder.
“And not a word of this to anyone.”
A/N: Sad chapter, I’m so sorry! I promise it’ll get better… eventually.
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