“Brian….would you go to my senior prom with me?”

The words were out of my mouth before my brain could stop them. Brian stopped his sensuous assault on my body and took a tentative step back and eyed me curiously, gauging the seriousness of my request as we stood in the suddenly awkward quietness of the foyer.

“Justin you can’t be serious about this? Even if I wanted to go, you know it would never be allowed.”

He cupped my cheek; stroking it softly as he spoke. I must have been wearing my disappointment like a scarlet letter, because in the next moment he was pulling me back into a tight embrace and whispering calmly in my ear.

“They’re just not ready for something like this Sunshine. Why don’t you ask your friend Daphne to be your date?”

Was he really suggesting that I pretend to be something I’m not just to appease the bigoted fuckwads at Eisenhower High? Maybe it would have been the easier, more accepted road to travel, but the word easy wasn’t in my vocabulary.

I  promised myself that I would keep my temper in check and tried desperately to fight back the tears that threatened to spill as I buried my face in his chest. I closed my eyes and inwardly cursed myself for my momentary stupidity. I’d known even expected, that he would turn down my invitation, but what I didn’t expect was how completely gutted I would feel hearing the words spoken aloud. I felt dismissed, tossed aside and thrown away like useless trash. Something inside me snapped, and suddenly I couldn’t bear to have him touching me. I was no longer ensconced in warm comforting arms; no these arms were cold, unforgiving and reeked with the putrid smell of rejection.

“I don’t want Daphne to be my date, or any other girl for that matter,” I spat as I futilely struggled to free myself from his hold. “I want to go with someone I care about, and if that happens to be a guy….then who cares?” Even to my own ears I sounded weak and pathetic, but at the moment I didn’t give a fuck. I’d laid all my cards out on the table so to speak, and there was no turning back; I only hoped that I hadn’t lost a friend in the process.

“Fuck! Justin what do you want from me? We’re not boyfriends, we’re not some straight couple, hell we’re not even lovers,” He’d pushed me away a bit roughly putting some much needed distance between us. Turning his back to me, he ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“What are we then Brian? Surely you don’t think that we’re just ‘friends’.  Friends don’t hold each other the way we do. Friends don’t touch the way we do, and friends damn sure don’t kiss the way we do.”

I cautiously stepped into his personal space and turned him around to face me. His eyes were wild and angry and laced with a hint of confusion when they met mine. He held my gaze for a long moment before he finally spoke.

“You’re not anything to me,” he said angrily as he stepped even closer; our faces only millimeters apart.

“Fuck you asshole, that’s bullshit and you know it Brian. You know fucking well that’s not true only you’re too chicken shit, piss in your pants afraid to admit it!”

The promise to control myself was long forgotten by this time. I’d allowed my anger and utter embarrassment to get the better of me. This verbal war had left me raw and exposed and feeling quite vulnerable and I hated feeling this way, like some emotionally insecure little sissy boy begging the playground bully to spare him an ass kicking.

“What in hell is going on here!?”

Brian and I were so caught up in the heat of our little battle of wills that neither of us noticed that Grandma Annie was standing there watching us from just inside the living room. She moved slowly into the foyer cinching the belt of her silk robe tighter around her waist as she closed the space between us.

“Young man you’d better have a damn good explanation as to why you’re standing in my home screaming like a wounded banshee at 3 in the morning,” she pointedly glared at Brian “As for you Justin…I think it would be best if you went back to bed, I’ll deal with you later.”

Any protest I even thought about broaching, quickly died on my lips as I blanched at the look on Grandma’s face.  As if I hadn’t been humiliated enough; now I was being sent to bed like a petulant child while Brian smirked at me in amusement over Grandma’s shoulder.  Shit how did it always end up that Brian was the victor in these tongue wrestling matches we were so prone to have?

Reluctantly, I offered Grandma a curt nod before making my way back to bed. As I slipped between the covers I could hear the distinct sound of Grandma Annie dressing Brian down and it caused a small smile to form on my lips. Immediately the thought crossed my mind that maybe Brian hadn’t won the battle after all.

The next day at school, Daphne stood at my locker waiting to meet me as usual but I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see her there.  Don’t get me wrong I still love my best friend , but at the moment I was more than a little pissed about the fact that it was her wonderful advice that had me in this fucked up mess in the first place. Maybe I could just casually stroll past my locker and pretend I didn’t see her...on second thought that would never work. That girl wouldn’t let me get two feet away before she would start running down the hall after me trying to drag me back. So instead I decided to square my shoulders and prepare for the maylay of fireworks that were about to ensue. The closer I got the more I tried to stay calm and remind myself that what happened wasn’t her fault really,  I’m the one who decided to take her advice knowing what the potential outcome would be.

“Morning Justin. You look all bright eyed and bushy tailed today.”

If she only knew how way off base she truly was about my seemingly bright eyed appearance.

“Well I wouldn’t exactly say I'm either of those things this morning Daph. In fact, I got very little sleep last night due to an unscheduled visitor. Brian came by last night and I asked him if he would go with me to the prom.”

*chuckle* The way she beamed you would have thought that she won the lottery or the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes or some shit. Daphne was so excited and genuinely happy for me that I almost hated to kill her dream.

“So, you crazy princess don’t keep me in suspense, how did it go?”

“He turned me down Daph. After giving me all the plausible, understandable reasons that it wouldn’t be wise for him to be my date, he turned right around and told me I was nothing to him. It took all my willpower not to knock him on his ass.”

Daphne’s face went from a beautiful mocha to beet red in the span of a nano second. I slowly counted backward from five waiting for her to completely lose her shit.

“What the hell did he mean by that! He’s been basically dry humping you and pissing on your leg for months now. Okay so I guess nobody went to the movies with him or made out with him in the fucking balcony. Furthermore, nobody let his ass come over in the middle of the night...I could just punch his ass in the face right now.”

I tried my best not to laugh at how worked up Daphne was getting over this whole situation...but I just couldn’t resist.

“Calm down Cleopatra Jones. Grandma Annie more than kicked his ass verbally for the both of us. After I went to bed I could hear them talking and Grandma kindly told him that if he so much as pulled something like that ever again, she would kick his uppity lilly white ass til hell wouldn’t have it again.”

With that image in mind, we both fell against my locker in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Only the sound of the bell ringing signaling the beginning of homeroom brought us back to reality. I quickly gathered the books I needed for the first part of the day and took Daphne’s hand and started off to class. As we turned the corner barely a few feet away from the classroom, Daphne came to an abrupt stop and turned to face me; all traces of our jovial exchange were gone “I really will go kick his ass for you, if you want me to, Jus,” Daphne offered in all seriousness. “That’s okay Daph, it wouldn’t have been much fun going with him anyway, especially if he felt like he was forced to do it. I love you for offering though.”

After sharing a quick hug and a promise to buy Daphne lunch for being such a good friend, the rest of the day went by rather smoothly...that is until I stepped outside the building doors. I was beginning to think I was cursed or something, because one of the last people on earth I wanted to see was standing there waiting for me to make my afterschool appearance.