Hanging by a Moment [Completed]

Fall for You

** One thing I get a lot of comments about and I think I need to clarify here rather than wherever it was that I did it is that sometimes you'll notice the tense shift from first person to third person and the font becomes itallic.

I did that deliberately.

It's for the times where I want to give a flashback or when there's something happening and it's not possible for me to narrate it from a single person's point of view. So, for instance, if there's a time I want to tell you what Peyton is thinking, the text goes into third person - Jayden wouldn't know, and I refuse to do the whole POV of X or POV of Y switching within the same chapter.

Edit: Now that the story's complete - I don't care if you've picked this up three years from that date. Please leave your comments anyway!

TwinPeacock stole Rodney and Ryan from me so I returned the favor - the characters were originally from a story called Searching For Promise, and I tried to make them like I think she'd imagined them....not that I consider this to be even half as good as the originals. I try though. 

Hanging by a Moment

The 'how' aspect of it all wasn't as obscure as it would have been had I tried to imagine any of it six months ago. I couldn't place my finger on when exactly it had happened, though. It felt as if it had happened overnight, that that conversation was responsible, but I knew that it wasn't possible. The intensity of my feelings, the vengeance with which the thoughts were attacking me, were too great for them to have formed in the span of the few minutes when we'd talked.

"It isn't funny!" Jayden knew why Sarah was smiling, and he wasn't amused.

"It was!"

"No, it wasn't! I mean, why would they even think that?"

She looked at him in disbelief. "Are you seriously asking?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, yeah. Why would anybody think that Peyton and I are gay?"

"Oh, I don't know. The random hugging? Biting each other's ears and calling each other 'baby'?"

He waved his hand dismissively in response. "Please, that means nothing. We do it for the heck of it, people know that."

"Freshmen don't. And it sure as hell doesn't look like nothing."

They were eating lunch by the steps that led to the main building. Peyton had had to stay behind and finish the homework he'd made an airplane out of, and Jayden had been warned that he wasn't allowed to stay behind. He wouldn't have minded visiting the principal's office – he'd come to like the plush leather seats and revolving chairs, even if he was told to stand – but his mother had warned him that there would be consequences if she were called from work again. Those too, he wouldn't have minded, but there was the possibility that he'd be sent to live with his cousin....the thought made him shudder. But that was a different story.

"Mmm," he took another bite of his wrap.

"No, really! The way you two behave, sometimes I question whether or not you're together."

"Wha-" unsurprisingly, he had choked on the food. Three minutes of coughing and Sarah patting him on the back later he regained control. "Dude! Peyton and I don't roll that way." He paused. "I mean, it's not like I'm a homophobe or anything, and I might even experiment with a guy, but not Peyton!"

"Why not?"

He looked at her as though she were crazy. "Are you seriously asking that? He's my best friend is why. You don't do that with your best friend."