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The next morning Tan sits in the car with his mother avoiding eye contact. “Your father and I love each other” Shiela starts talking as she drives “I know you told the therapist you want us to get a divorce-“
“I’ve also told you guys a thousand times”
“But that’s not what we want, Tan”
“That makes no sense to me!” he yells turning to her “all you ever do is fight! Every single day, no matter what time or where we are you guys find a reason to fight. Don’t you hate each other-“
“We don’t hate each other Tanner your father and I love each other”
“Then you have a funny fucking way of showing it”
“Watch your language.”
“Yep,” he leans back in his seat crossing his arms.
“We’re going to learn how to be good parents, Tanner” his mom’s voice gets softer.
“Do you understand how sad it is to hear you say that? I’m 17 mom, you guys had 17 years to be good parents but weren’t and you want to try now? Kinda too late”
“We were young when we had you Tan” she gets into the drop off lane “Scott was struggling in law school and I got pregnant. Even though none of us had a clue of what we were doing he still never left me. We raised a child and got everything we’ve ever wanted, but along the way something happened and I don’t know what, but the fighting just feels natural now.”
She stops for him to get out, disregarding what his mom said Tan replies “correction you practically abandoned a child to chase your wants and needs instead” then gets out of the car without saying bye. Walking into school Tan heads to his locker, as he’s walking he sees Lin at her locker next to his, he’s already halfway there so it’s too late to turn back now.
He stands in front of his locker avoiding eye contact and Lin looks over at him then back in her locker “so you’re dating Sven now?” She asks
“You care?” neither look at the other
“No, but it’s kind of annoying having to skip through a thousand pictures and videos of you two on your story.”
“Then don’t look at my story” Tan retorts.
“I wonder what Harris thinks” she smirks
“That’s not funny!” Tan barks at her and she shuts her locker walking away.
Pissed Tan slams his locker and walks the opposite direction, as he’s walking Tan hears his name being called “hey Tan wait up!” Erin runs towards him “so glad I caught you” she catches up to him “are you free tomorrow at lunch? I could really use some help with prom.”
“I’d love to help Erin but I just went through so much with the yearbook and-“
“No you don’t have to join I just need some help choosing between 3 themes, I love my team but they aren’t helping. So can you please come to our meeting at lunch tomorrow and help us pick?” She grins
“Yeah sure I can do that” he agrees even though he doesn’t really want to
“Awesome thanks, Tan!” Erin leaves.
Getting out of class ready to rip his hair out Tan walks to the lunch room to find his friends at a table talking to Lin.
“Fucking great” he groans as he stops walking. Leaving the cafeteria he takes out his phone texting Sven ‘Help’
Sven never makes him wait for a text back ‘What’s up?’
‘Being ditched for Lin can I hang out with you?’
‘Yeah I’m in the gym about to shoot some hoops with the guys… meet in the equipment room?”
Replying as he walks ‘omw.’
Getting to the equipment room Tan drops his bag hugging the boy waiting, without waiting they start to kiss each other Sven bringing Tan to the nearest wall. “How are you?” He asks after they kiss
“Great” Tan gives Sven a blank stare as they stroke each other’s face and hair
“What’s wrong?” Tan doesn’t even have to reply “therapy?”
“Yes, is it bad that I don’t want this? A divorce makes sense but I’m the monster because that’s what I want”
“You’re not a monster”
Tan looks in Sven’s eyes and at his smile and the way he’s holding the boy, gently kissing him “thank you” Tan tries to smile back but fails, “but no matter what I say or do I’m still in the wrong.”
Sven realizes how sad he is “hang out with me later I want to show you something”
Tan smiles “what is it?”
“It’s a surprise” they kiss “meet me by my car after school, ok?”
Tan nods “sure”
“I have to go back my friends are waiting” Sven kisses him one last time and tries to move away
But Tan holds him “no just for a little longer, please?” Sven grins bringing his head to Tan and they start to make out. Getting hot and heavy in the equipment room Sven picks the boy up still holding him against the wall
“I have to go” he breathes out as Tan kisses his neck “we’ll continue this later ok, I promise.” He kisses Tan putting him down “bye”
“Okay” Tan frowns “later” Sven leaves and he’s all alone in the room.
Walking into class after lunch Tan takes his seat next to Sven who welcomes him with a smile. Tan needs to focus but he never could in math class, especially when he has that beautiful being next to him to distract him.
“I can feel you staring at me” Sven whispers as he tries to take down notes
Tan quickly looks down at his notebook “sorry.” Sven always knew Tan stared at him when they were in class together, but he never said anything because he never knew he could. “So… what’s my surprise?” Tan asks after some time passes
“You’ll have to wait till we get to my house later” Tan smiles at the thought of going back to Sven’s house, the thought of being in his room with him alone turns Tan on. “You’re still staring” his dimple shows as he faces the board and smiles.
“No, you cannot go to a boy’s house!” Tan walks down the hall alone after class talking to his mom on the phone
“Mom I’m asking for one thing! He is my friend and we never get to hang out. All we’re going to do is play video games then he’ll drive me home.” Shiela doesn’t say anything “I asked mom I could’ve gone behind your back but I did the right thing”
Shiela sighs feeling guilty “be home by 8 Tanner”
“Done thank you.”
“And I want to meet this friend”
“What? No” Tan stops walking
“Invite him to dinner sometime soon or you can’t go”
Rolling his eyes “fine I’ll invite him”
“Thank you I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Bye.”
Walking to class Tan is joined by Erica and Ronnie “hey Boobs” Ronnie greets and they grin at him
“Hey traitors”
“Huh?”
“I saw you guys having lunch with Lin” he confronts them
“Yeah because she’s our friend too” Erica starts, “we said we weren’t picking sides remember? And she just gave us an earful for going to yoga without her on Saturday. Can you guys hurry up and make up already?”
“Not until Linda apologizes”
“That’s exactly what she said”
Turning the hall to get to his class Tan says as he walks away “I have nothing to apologize for Lin’s just being a sensitive little baby she’ll get over it.”
Later after class Tan bolts out of school getting to Sven’s car before he does, he cleans himself up and checks his hair and breath while he waits. Being alone with Sven still makes him nervous sometimes, Sven gives him butterflies and it’s hard for Tan not to blush around him.
Walking to his car Sven sees Tan waiting there and they smile when they see each other “ready to go?” Sven asks standing on the driver side before they get in
“Yeah”
They get in the car and he drives away. “Spill it”
“What?”
“You’re fidgeting with your fingers and you keep turning to me then turning back, do you want to tell me something?”
“Maybe… yes, my mom wants me to invite you to dinner at our house sometime soon”
“And you don’t want to?”
“For your own good you’ve witnessed how they are, do you really want to sit at a table with them?”
“You’ll be there so it’s worth it”
“Just say no”
“No, I want to”
“There was a no there so I’ll take that as a no”
Sven laughs “you really don’t want me to?”
Tan’s scared that if Sven gets the full look of what it’s like with his parents it’ll push him away, he doesn’t want to scare Sven off and his parents tend to come off strong around guys he likes. “Trust me I’m helping you”
“Ok then tell them I couldn’t but thanks for the invite”
“I will.”
As he drives Sven moves his right hand to Tan’s hand wrapping his fingers between Tan’s, Tan looks down at their hands and smiles. They hold hands the whole drive, Sven parks behind his mom’s car “my mom will be happy to see you again” he says as they get out of the car. They walk into his house “hey mom!”
“Hey, honey!” She calls out and they follow her voice to the living room
“Mom remember my friend Tan?” Sven asks as they enter the living room
“Yeah! Pink hair used to give me redecorating advice” she smiles seeing Tan “how are you, Tan?”
“Good nice to see you again” he smiles
“You too”
“Mom Tan and I are gonna hang out in my room for a little bit, that all right?”
“Yeah Dinner will be ready when your father gets home”
“Ok.” They walk into Sven’s room and as soon as he shuts the door Sven pulls Tan to him kissing him, “I’ve been waiting all day to finish this” he whispers trying to stay quiet. They kiss their way to Sven’s desk Tan leans against it and Sven leans his front against Tan
“Wait wait wait” Tan pushes Sven away “you’re trying to distract me”
“From what?”
“From why I’m truly here, my surprise!” Tan grins “where is it?”
Sven laughs crossing the room back to where he dropped his backpack “I was looking at their website and found this” he takes a brochure out of his bag handing it to Tan. “There’s an open house tomorrow during lunch I was thinking we could skip and check it out.”
“Where’d you get a brochure of Northwestern?” Tan looks at him asking
“Printed it out” He admits smiling “I know even though you don’t talk about it Northwestern is a big deal for you, so I thought maybe getting a look around the campus might excite you a little more.”
“I haven’t even told my friends” he sighs “and I’d love to go this is an amazing surprise” it is even if his face doesn’t show it. Sven walks to him kissing him “but I can’t” Tan says when Sven pulls away
“Why not?”
“I promised Erin McCarthy I’d join her prom committee meeting to help them pick a theme, they don’t even have a theme yet, Sven.”
“Not everyone can lead a committee like you can”
“True.”
“They have other open houses, and I’m pretty sure we can show up at any time and ask for a tour you got in!”
“Wait you pulled this out of your bag does that mean you had it all day?” Sven grins ignoring the question “you just needed a reason to get me in your bedroom”
“It worked didn’t it?”
Tan laughs “you sneaky devil” they laugh together. Getting comfortable Sven plays video games on his tv from his bed as Tan looks at the pictures around his room. Seeing a picture of Sven from the ninth grade Tan gasps, “I remember glasses Sven” he smiles “you were so cute.”
“No, I was a loser” Sven corrects him “those glasses had to go”
“Yeah thanks to your stupid Lasik surgery”
“Stupid?” He pauses the game looking over at Tan who’s still staring at the dorky picture of 14-year-old Sven with glasses.
“Yeah before it we were friends and we were so close, then you got it and somehow magically grew muscles-“
“Or I spent summers at the gym and playing basketball”
“Still, girls started falling all over you and you became too good for little ol’ Tan”
Climbing off his bed Sven stands in front of Tan very very close “is that really what you think?” He asks seriously
Gulping Tan looks in Sven’s serious eyes “I mean I watched it happen so yeah I kinda do.”
“You know that’s not true right? We both started to grow apart I watched you get closer to your friends, so I started focusing on other things.”
Reaching his hand behind Sven’s head Tan pulls his face to him and slowly kisses Sven “it’s no one’s fault” Tan says against Sven’s lips.
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