Passion

Chapter 13

--(Alex)

     I groaned loudly, sagging onto Landon in my misery, and I heard the slap of a sandwich hit the ground. It was lunchtime, and today I had decided to sit with the group. Lately I'd been balancing out my workload throughout the day instead of doing it all in one sitting, and it had helped. A lot.

     Slowly, I'd started feeling much less drained than I did in those two weeks, and even though I still only got 4 hours of sleep a night at most, it usually lasted me throughout the day without too much trouble. Because of all that, I started hanging out with the group every once and a while; everyone seemed surprisingly happy about that, really. Apparently Ben really wasn't joking when he said the entire group missed me, which, honestly, made me feel guilty. All this time I'd only cared about my progress; I hadn't stopped to realize how it would affect my friends.

     Now I could only make it up to them in any way I could.

     "You good, bro?"

     "No."

     "Pray tell, then, oh Wise One."

     The others snickered at Sam's comment, but stayed silent as they stared at me humorously. Most of them knew by now that if I was ever complaining, it usually wasn't all that important, so they didn't act too concerned.

     Apparently Charlie still hadn't gotten with the program on that, bless his heart. "What's up, Alex?" He looked around at all our friends with disappointment for not consoling me. I glared slightly at no one in particular, drawing a few chuckles from the others.

     "I have to kiss Ally today is what's up!"

     Granted, it wasn't the best reason to be actually upset, but it made sense to me.

     The thing was that I didn't like Ally, nor had I had my first kiss yet. Adding to that the fact that I liked someone else, I really didn't want to follow through with this. I wanted my first kiss to be alone with someone I liked, not with my best friend on a stage with people watching.

     I heard Ben mumble something, but I couldn't quite catch what exactly he said; it was probably some snarky remark, knowing him. Landon stared at me, clearly not amused.

     "That's why you killed my shoulder? Really man? I thought you didn't care about the whole 'first kiss' bullshit. Besides, it's for a play--not like you're actually into each other."

     Of course they wouldn't understand. They've never had to kiss their best friend in a play when they have a gay crush on two guys.

     "Ugh, I don't care about the 'first kiss' bullshit, I just don't wanna kiss her. You feel me?"

     Sam slapped his hand on my cheek, face void of emotion.

     "I feel ya, bro." Everyone followed suit, and soon, four idiots had their hands slapped onto my face, muffling my laughter. I quickly forced myself to stop, tagging along with the joke.

     "Why are there so many people feeling me, I only asked one bro to feel me." Landon snickered, "We all feel ya, bro. Accept the feelings."

     I rolled my eyes, gently pushing their hands off my face. I remembered Landon's sandwich that he had dropped on the ground when I slammed my head into his shoulder, and leaned down, picking up the bread and ham off the chilled cement and offering it to Landon. "Ew, no, that's disgusting, Alex, what the hell," he shouted in response, slapping the sandwich away from himself.