Far From Home - Chapter 10: Chapter 10

The First Day of September
Death, Jake thought. Death would be kinder than this.
Aaron and Andre were awake and laughing. Jake had been able to tune them out to the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears, but when a chair was sent clattering to the floor, his eyes jolted open to assess which dumbass needed medical assistance. The room was brighter than Jake could handle, but noticing the blinds were still drawn over the window, he figured he was lucky it wasn't brighter than this. To no surprise, Aaron was on the floor by the door, clutching the back of his head while Jake's desk chair remained sideways on the ground beside him. He was outwardly cringing with his wrinkled nose and eyes squeezed shut, a look Jake knew too well enough to go back to sleep like nothing had happened.
"Dumb fuck." He grumbled out, loathing the sound of his own voice. "You okay?"
Aaron gave him a thumbs up, but didn't say a word. Andre stifled a laugh from the bed beside his.
Jake closed his eyes and fought back the sudden urge to vomit, so strong and so uncomfortable that he regretted his decision to open his eyes in the first place. His head spun from the weak sunlight that shone onto his face from the window, and whatever semblance of consciousness he had tried to muster to address Aaron's fall was automatically reverted back into a will to fall into nothingness.
Everything hurt. He couldn't identify a part of his body that didn't ache, and even then, nothing came close to the pounding headache in his skull. Oh God, help me. I'm so sorry. I won't do it again, I promise. Of course, he had been hungover before. It was kind of hard not to when his choice of friends were Aaron Keller—son of the town's resident drunk-fuck; Hunter Anderson—party animal and liquor connoisseur; and Katherine Breyer—hostess of any event worth going to. Jake had always resented their parties, but nearly every time, he found himself amongst the crowd. It was how he had ended up getting dragged into New Year's... the same New Year's he first saw Connor at.
Why does everything come back to fucking Connor?
Jake winced as he curled his fingers into the gray sheets on his bed, hoping the not-so-soft fabric might help him feel anything but the overwhelming fear that he might have called Connor last night. He couldn't remember if he did, but he also couldn't remember where he put his phone to begin with. If he was honest with himself, he didn't remember much.
He remembered the Fireball. Fucking Fireball. Never again. He remembered Ricky faintly, but he didn't remember when he saw him or what they said. He remembered puking on Aaron on the walk home—that thought collaborated by the fact that Aaron was now laying shirtless on his floor. He remembered missing Connor so much he thought it might have killed him, and he remembered that the only reason he felt that way was because he had made out with a girl that looked a little too much like him.
Fuck me.
He groaned into his pillow to hide his voice, but it didn't work because it still echoed in his ears to taunt him and his stupidity. I'm the world's biggest dumbass.
"Jesus..." He whispered to no one but himself.
"That bad, huh?" Andre tried to lighten the mood, but it just pissed Jake off even more.
He forced himself off of his stomach so he could see the room instead of burying his face back into his pillow, but the motion itself sent his head reeling even more. Andre watched him blankly from where he sat leaning into the wall on top of his bed, and Aaron glanced over to him from the floor, rolling his head over to see his best friend in all his hangover glory.
Jake scrubbed his fingers over his face. "Damnit... Aaron."
"Knew this was comin'." He mumbled under his breath.
"Why'd you let me do that?"
Aaron shuffled on the floor. "Hey man, it was your birthday. We all get hungover sometimes it's not a big deal–"
Jake sighed as he scanned the ceiling for a comprehensive summary of the night's event, but he couldn't find one. All he had was bits and pieces and no one to fill in the blanks.
"I made out with a fucking girl."
"Congrats." Andre nodded like it was an accomplishment, but all it did was make Jake feel like more of a piece of shit.
Aaron scrambled on the floor to sit up, pushing himself up with his hands to lean against their door instead of laying in front of it. Surprised wasn't enough of a word to describe the look on Aaron's face. It was somewhere lost between bewilderment and worry. Jake couldn't say he felt any different about the situation either.
"Fuck." He pushed his hands back through his hair.
Aaron took a deep breath, trying to settle his mood. "Well hey, sexuality is a liquid, right?"
"What?" Andre looked more puzzled by Aaron's phrasing than what the line itself suggested.
"Ain't that how that goes?"
"Fluid, Aaron." Jake sighed. "Sexuality is fluid."
"That's the same damn word."
Andre's lips curled in question. "No, it's not."
"You get what I'm fuckin' sayin', you prick." Aaron waved his hand out disgruntled.
Aaron's voice had gotten progressively louder and now all Jake wanted to do was slam his head against the wall to make the pain it left behind stop. I am never doing this again. He wanted to tell Aaron he finally said something that wasn't that stupid—that the sentiment itself was rather valid, but rather his execution was off—but Jake was almost certain that his sexuality wasn't that fluid. That was just about the only thing he reserved no doubts about this morning.
"I think I thought she looked like Connor."
"I don't know if that's a compliment to Connor for being pretty, or if you're straight up callin' this girl ugly because she looks like a dude."
"Oh, fuck off." Jake rolled his eyes.
In reality, he didn't know the answer.
"Do you think I called him last night?"
Aaron shrugged. "I don't know man. Your phone's over here on the floor though."
"What?" Jake forced his head off the pillow to look at him.
"Yeah, someone slipped it under the door earlier with a note."
"Give it to me."
He opened his hand out over the side of the bed and waited for Aaron to slide over. When his phone met his hand, it was cold against his flushed skin, sending goosebumps over his arm as he curled it back in towards himself. Secured with a rubber band overtop was a white index card with messy handwriting Jake had never seen before. He had to squint to make it out.
Don't text him either!
-Ricky
Jake flipped it over in his fingers, finding the other side empty. Who is him, and why am I not texting him? He shrugged it off and found his way to unlocking it.
"Who's Connor?" Andre mumbled.
Aaron was quick to pipe in. "His ex-boyfriend."
Jake quickly turned the brightness all the way down and checked the battery on the screen. At least it's not dead yet.
"He wasn't my boyfriend." He grumbled, squinting at the screen.
"He's in denial."
"I'm not in denial. We didn't label it."
Aaron snapped his fingers out towards Jake. "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it."
"Shut the fuck up, Beyoncé."
"I'm surprised you know who Beyoncé is." Andre smiled down to Aaron in ridicule.
"I have a girlboss girlfriend, thank you very much."
"A girlboss?" Jake nearly dropped his phone down on his face. "You're spending too much time with my sister."
"Won't deny that." He grumbled under his breath.
Jake immediately went to the call log. There were only three calls from the past twenty-four hours. One was a telemarketer from yesterday morning, the other was a missed call from his sister in the afternoon, and the last was an unknown number before dinner. Connor's name was nowhere to be found. It would have been easy to spot—Connor was the only one in his phone labeled by his first name instead of his last. Jake scrolled to make sure he hadn't missed something, but lo and behold, there was nothing to miss. Jake had not called Connor Morgan last night.
"Didn't call him."
"Hey!" Aaron called out in celebration. "Fantastic self-control dude. If that was Kath, I would've."
Jake scoffed. "Yeah, I know."
Andre cleared his throat, interrupting them. "So, you like gay or what?"
A month ago, that question might have spiked his adrenaline quicker than jumping off of a bridge, but now it just made his heart beat in his chest a little faster—not fast enough to notice as an inconvenience. He was proud of himself for that much. It was nice knowing he could be himself here, and somehow he was convinced enough with the image of safety that he hadn't second guessed telling anyone that had asked so far. Granted, it had only come down to Andre and the girl at the party, but Jake was content knowing the words fell from his mouth so freely without biting down the urge to take them back.
"Something like that."
Aaron shot him a look of apprehension before training his eyes back to Andre. He was worried for him, Jake could tell that much, but Jake wasn't worried as much as he should have been. If Andre didn't like him... fine. He could move. There were options. Jake didn't have to run and hide like a scared little boy with nowhere to go, he could choose his own life now and how he wanted to live it. Out or not. It was the part of 'new Jake' that he loved the most. Lying wasn't a survival mechanism now, it was a choice.
A choice that would take a lot of getting used to, but still a choice.
Andre nodded. He didn't voice loud support, but he didn't have anything unkind to say either. It seemed to satisfy Aaron enough to drop his gaze back down to the floor, but Jake knew Aaron's docile front was just that—a front. Even if Andre couldn't tell, Jake could. One wrong move and Aaron would be itching to tear him down... verbally, of course. Aaron wasn't exactly known for being able to hold his own in a fight, but he could fire off insults quicker than the time it took the other person to open their mouth. Half the reason Jake was always dragging him out of fights was because he couldn't back up what he was saying with his hands. Always the lover, not the fighter. How he ended up playing football, Jake could never figure out.
Taking a watchful eye from Aaron, Jake turned his attention back to his phone, clicking over to his messaging app instead of his call log. He was going to look for any sign of reaching out to Connor, but not only was Connor's name not on his screen at all, two unfamiliar text strings sat at the top.
The first he clicked on was a string labeled 'Ricky Cobella.' It was a single message lit up in blue on the top right of the page, sent from Jake's phone.
Jake's number.
Somewhere along the line, Ricky must have sent that to himself. It was evident he saved his own number into Jake's phone not only because he had used his full name, but because up until this point, Jake had figured out Ricky must've had his phone since the party. Why? He didn't know, but any natural urge to question it was thrown out the window by the fact that he gave it back in one piece.
Jake changed his contact name to 'Cobella.'
The second message looked unfamiliar from the excerpt Jake could see printed underneath 'Johnson.' He clicked on his roommate's feed.
Hey, this is Ricky. You guys might want to come get Jake, he's down BAD. We're on the front porch.
Jake noticed Ricky texted just like he would have, but it wasn't like he was trying to impersonate him because he signed his name to it anyways. It did leave Jake wondering why he had ended up on a porch with Ricky, and what the context of their conversation was. He could only pray it wasn't something embarrassing, but it was obviously enough to warrant him to get his friends involved with getting his drunk ass somewhere safe.
What the fuck happened last night?
Jake dropped his phone onto the bed beside him with a sigh that felt too shaky to offer any comfort. His hand fell back on top of his chest, tracing over the outline of the cross necklace underneath the black t-shirt he had worn to the party last night. He tapped his fingers atop the charm and thought for once, maybe there was a reason he didn't remember it. Maybe it's best I don't. Closing his eyes back into dark tranquility, Jake tried his best not to think about it, and eventually drifted back to sleep.