One Kiss

Chapter 8

Josh tossed his bat aside in disgust. "I missed nearly every fucking pitch."

West slapped him on the back. "Hey, you had an off day no big deal."

He snorted. "Man, I've had an off week."

West shrugged. "It happens."

Josh dropped onto the bench with a sigh. Practice had been over for an hour, West had stayed behind to help him work on his hitting. He'd failed as badly as he had during practice. "Yeah, I guess it does."

"Give it time, it will pass."

"Not any time soon."

"You stressing about college applications and shit? My mom has been riding my ass for the last couple of months to get them done," West told him.

He grunted. "I wish that was all."

West shrugged. "Whatever it is I'm sure it will all work out."

He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not so certain it will. At least not anytime soon."

"Josh, come on, what's up?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, forget it."

"Josh, how long have we been friends?"

He sighed. "Since fourth grade."

"Right, so why can't you talk to me?" West asked.

"Because it has to do with Zayden."

"Ah, I see. And you think you can't trust me to keep it to myself. Come on, I'm not going to blab to the entire school," West assured him.

"That isn't what I was worried about."

West sighed and sat beside him. "Then what are you worried about?"

"You and Zay had a thing, no matter how brief, and I don't think it's my place to trot his problems out to you."

"We didn't have anything. It was one kiss and then he told me to get out of his life," West replied. "Come on, Josh, if Zay's problems are big enough to affect you then I think you need to talk about them."

"He told his parents and it went worse than I'd expect WWIII would go."

"Told his parents?"

"That he's gay," Josh replied.

"Ahh, I see. Wanna tell me what happened?"

"His parents flipped out," Josh said with a shrug.

"I got that from the WWIII reference. How exactly did they flip out?"

"You have to understand a bit about his parents, they belong to some church from what Lyssa has told me it's more of a cult than an actual church. Anything they deem unnatural or outside their religious teachings they condemn. Homosexuality is at the top of their list. Anyone admits to that and they ship them off to some camp to be brainwashed into admitting they aren't gay."

West released a low whistle. "Now I understand why he was so afraid of telling them. I thought it was normal paranoia of parental disapproval. I can't believe they'd want to do that to their kid."

Josh shrugged. "Yeah, well they were pissed. They had expectations and Zay being gay wasn't one of them."

"I feel awful," West said quietly.

"Why? It was his parents that did the condemning, you had nothing to do with it," Josh assured him.

"I pushed him and called him a wimp for not standing up and living his life on his terms. I had no idea about his parents. Shit." West put his head in his hands. "I'm such an asshole."