There is a general stunned nodding of heads, and a few blank looks. Silence descends again, but I can feel Madison's bright eyes upon me, so I look up into them. She offers me a smile, and a sympathetic sigh. And then --
"Relax, Mad."
I blink, we all look over at the doorway again. Josh is back, leaning against the wall, composed but wan. We glance at each other. Did any of them hear him come down? He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at us, his gaze level, challenging no-one, simply grave and frank. No-one says a word, but a few fold under his attention, their gazes dropping away. Madison nods slowly, and is about to maneuver around him, when he reaches out with an arm to bar her way. She reluctantly halts and slowly turns to face him, anxiety in her features.
"Look," he says quietly after a while. "I didn't say anything to any of you because I didn't want you to judge me for something as small as this. You might say that you wouldn't think anything of it, but I have seen it cloud the most open person's perspective when dealing with gay people. And honestly, I didn't think it really mattered. Wasn't really anyone's business. A few of my close friends know...but know that you all do..."
He pauses to sigh slightly, and shrug.
"I guess I just have to hope that you'll be mature about it, because I really don't want to have to deal with homophobic stupidity."
He gazes around as he says this, and, incredibly, I hear a few soft chuckles, and I know some smile at him, for he smiles in return.
"Josh.."
I look over my shoulder to a prep-ish looking guy with delicate features and a wide, honest smile.
"I guess I can't speak for the rest of them, but I don't really give a shit. As long as you're still willing to give me rides to school in the morning..."
Laughter, and Josh winks. And with that, he walks directly in front of me and stops, his fingers reaching out to grasp mine. Then, before I can even think about feeling embarassed, his lips are upon mine in a quick, poignant kiss, and his hand running lightly through my hair. Even in the face of all this stress and self-consciousness, I am still knocked away by his touch and the erotic feel of his kiss. My eyes close for an instant, and my fingers squeeze his hard before he pulls away again. Then, with a secret smile, he is out the door again, and I am left standing there in the semi-circle of his friends, my lips burning and my cheeks raging redly.
Again, the slightly stunned silence, and I manage to look over my shoulder warily at the people behind me, wanting to gain some idea of how that just registered. Gazes meet mine for sudden, honest seconds before shifting away again, and smiles briefly touch lips before conversation restarts and normalacy reigns. I watch them quietly, Madison beside me, as they file out into the living room again, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary happened.
I stare at the brightly gleaming floor silently, trying to process everything that had just happened, zoning out in the glare of the reflected overhead light and in my memory's insistance to dwell upon Josh's kiss. What does this mean now? Is his mother going to go insane and end up ruining his life? She didn't sound like the extremely...stable type. And what about Josh? That couldn't have been easy for him... I had no idea he was on such tumultuous ground with his parents. A soft sigh drifts from my lips and my shoulders sag unconsciously along with it, my eyes closing.
"I think I'm going to go now, Silver... see about breakfast. Okay?"
I jump slightly, having forgotten Madison was still there. I look up and meet her concerned gaze and flash her what I hope is a carefree smile. I can feel my eyes darkening, though, like an onslaught of thunderclouds on an already overcast day.
"Sure," I tell her, and before she can ask me any uncomfortable or thought-requiring questions, I slip out of the kitchen and start to head to the back door, needing to get out of the house for the moment, to get out of the constricting walls which seemed to hold in nothing but confusion at the moment. But as I put my hand on the doorknob, clutching its promising coldness longingly, the stairs off to the right seem to suddenly loom out at me. I glance over and stare up their shadowed length contemplatively, feeling with complete unhappiness Josh's presence up there. Would he want me up there, after what just happened? It would take a heart of stone not to be affected by what he'd just had confirmed for him, not to mention the other revelations. Probably wants to be alone...
But even as I think these debilitating, very Silver-ish thoughts, I begin to climb the stairs slowly, my hand gripping the railing reluctantly, my feet seeming to have aquired intelligence of their own. Then I find myself at his door, and without even knocking, I open the door and slip in, to find Josh sitting on the edge of his bed. He does not move as I come in, the expression on his face non-existant and blank. In his hands I can see the shirt that I'd worn yesterday, his fingers moving absently over the material, caressing it slowly. Watching him with an increasing sense of loss, I fight the urge to cry; the look on his face and the pure solemness of his gaze makes my heart hurt. My fingers flinch as they long to reach out and smoothe those cares away, wanting to create that beautiful smile upon his lips again, the laughter in his eyes.
"Oh, baby," I whisper silently, my fingers clutching each other painfully. My chest feels like it is about to explode - my heart pounds with worry and strange fear. He looks up suddenly, his gaze at once becoming guarded and his fingers to drop my shirt instinctively. But once he realizes it is me, he sighs shakily and shakes his head at me, his eyebrows raised and his eyes glittering crazily with unshed tears.
"Jesus, Silver!" He stammers quickly, reaching over to pick up my shirt again and dropping it back onto the bed. I bite my lip and mumble half-assed apologies, which he dismisses with a shake of his head.
"No, it's okay," he says quietly, and the ghost of a smile stretches wanly across his face. "You just...scared me. Didn't know you were there. You... you're good at that."
The look on my face must have been as chagrined as I felt, for when he looks back at me again, a true smile infiltrates the gloom on his features, and the tears in his eyes seem to subside for a moment. Picking up my shirt, he starts to fold it, and then drops it again, plucking at it anxiously while I ransack my suddenly useless brain for something to say. As I watch his shaking fingers, I run through all the plastic words in my head, feeling incompetent and stupid in the face of this eerie pain. As I open my mouth in the hopes that something halfway intelligent will come out of it, he suddenly picks up the shirt and bunches it up with white fists and slams it against the faraway wall.
I gasp softly, helplessly, as I see him do this, and step timidly towards him as he tosses himself down onto the bed, shoving his head under his pillow and gripping it tightly around him with his hands. I stand there stupidly, hovering at the foot of his bed, staring blankly at him until I notice that his shoulders are shaking and that he is drawing his body up into the fetal postion. I clamber onto the bed worriedly, come to an ungraceful stop beside him and lay a hesitant hand on his shoulder.
I let it rest there lightly, half expecting him to shrug it off. But he doesn't. He stops shaking after a moment, and his fingers start to slowly relax, blood rushing back into the skin again. He doesn't remove the pillow, though, and I stare at it sorrowfully, wondering what he is hiding from me, if sparkling tears are soaking into the material, if blood is being drawn from a lip clenched relentlessly between grinding teeth.
"Josh?" I whisper as quietly as I can, and my hand tightens its grip questioningly. The pillow doesn't move, but his body straightens out and he shifts closer to me slowly. I lie down next to him and put my arms around him as best I can, willing him to talk to me, wanting more than anything to help, to make it all leave. I hear nothing but silence and heavy breathing that is scented with salt, and then a muffled voice.
"You should go," I hear, and I frown. What? Go?
"What the hell for?" I ask, the tone coming out a lot more cold than I'd intended. But it doesn't rile or upset him, he merely repeats himself in the same deadpan, calm voice. I sigh and shake my head firmly, even though he can't see it.
"No, Josh."
Silence again. Staring at the pillow, I'm about to speak again when when the fingers tighten again, and his body starts shivering. And then the pillow is ripped away, knocking things over in its furious flight, and Josh buries his face in the blankets, trembling.
"I hate that bitch!! I HATE her!" he half screams this, and claws uselessly at the bed. "All she's ever done is try to make me miserable! Miserable like she is! Because I have better luck with guys than she does! All her friends think she's so perfect... she goddamned well pretty much disowns me when she finds out I'm gay, and now only treats me like a guest that's overstayed. And now she's cheating on my dad because nothing is ever good enough, and she has the gall to accuse ME of whoring myself! Of staying up all night fucking every single guy I see! 'Get AIDS,' she told me! It would teach me to be a goddamned CHRISTIAN!"
He yells that last word, and then rolls over onto his back, staring at the ceiling, tears slipping down his cheeks, his jaw clenched in fury, his eyes red and green iris' smouldering blackly. I stare at him silently, not knowing what to say or how to say it, my hand still on his shoulder but trembling with the force of frustration and anger. Suddenly I wished his mother was here. The fact that she is a woman would never even cross my mind. She would be an unrecognisable mess within five seconds flat. I gaze into his eyes helplessly, and when he moves them to find me, my vision blurs and I start to see double. Josh's alarmed face swims in and out of my feild of vision, and I can feel the tears overspilling onto my cheeks, burning hotly.
"Oh... oh, Silver... Jeez... Silver..." I hear him say with aching tenderness, and suddenly his arms are around me, drawing me close to him, his scent and warmth covering me. His hair drapes across my cheeks, mingling with my tears, and I feel his tears falling onto my skin and his trembling kisses being presses to my forehead. I can't stop crying, as much as I want to, and as much as I realize how silly and thoughtless it is to be crying now of all times. I try to move out of his embrace, try to pull myself together.
"No..." I say mutedly, the tears making my voice thick. "No.. I'm supposed to be the one comforting you... not the other way around..."
Josh doesn't relent, however, simply gripping me tighter, his voice soft and worried.
"Why are you crying...?"
I'm quiet for a moment, and then I manage to pull away, running my hands through my messed up hair, fingers trying to tear the tears off my face. I shrug and struggle for breath.
"Because. Because I don't... no-one should ever treat you like that, Josh... I hate her for it already, and I've never even met her. I hate to see you cry, it scares me more than anything... and to know that she was the one who made you do that..."
Josh regards me silently as my voice trails off, and then I feel a finger sliding down my face, and I look up to meet his green gaze.
"Silver... I-"
He is interupted by a slamming door downstairs. We both blink and look over to his door, as if being able to see through it to the source of the sound. My hand finds his as an unnamed fear hits me, and my fingers grip his tightly as his name is screamed. It echoes through the walls painfully, and I see Josh wince as it peirces into the room.
"JOSHUA! Get your ass down here NOW!"
I look over at him, frozen, and watch as he slowly gets up, a set, determined expression on his face. "My mother," he explains needlessly to me, his voice hollow and eerily expectant. "I wonder how she got home so fast..."
"YOU LITTLE FAGGOT! Get down here NOW!"
I flinch as I hear this, and can feel the rage slowly drawing the blood out of my cheeks. Without thinking, I am on feet and almost yanking on the door when Josh spins me back and grabs my face with his hands. Dragging me close so that my eyes are mere inches away from his, he speaks quietly, dangerously.
"Stay. Here."
I shake my head furiously and wrench out of his grasp, reaching for the door again. But he stops me once more, yanks me back.
"SILVER. Stay here. There isn't anything you can do to make this any better. You'll just make it worse. Hurting her won't get you anywhere except in jail, and I refuse to have my boyfriend in jail because of my homophobic mother! So STAY HERE."
And with that, he pushes me back onto the bed, holds me down for a moment to make sure I'm not going anywhere, and then leaps off the bed, tears open the door, slams it, and runs down the stairs. My fingernails dig into my plams; I can feel blood trickling down my wrists, but the only thing I can really register is the ceiling and I use it to calm myself down. 'Okay, Silver... relax... relax... don't spaz... not going to get him anywhere good...' I murmur this to myself, not moving, listening to the indistinct yelling match downstairs.