I Always Choose You

Chapter 2

Chapter 2The next morning I woke up and realized my hair reeked of weed. I grabbed fresh clothes and rushed to the bathroom before anyone could see me and jumped in the shower. I’d have to do my laundry soon so my smelly clothes wouldn’t be discovered, but not yet.

I walked into the kitchen, where my sixteen-year-old brother Jacob was eating a bowl of cereal. His eyes were bloodshot, his red-gold hair mussed. I’d been suspecting him of partying for a while. He’d been making new friends where he worked, at the Jamestown diner.

“Morning. Where’s Mom?” I asked, sitting down and pouring a bowl of cereal.

He shrugged. “She said she had to go into work.”

“Do you have to work today?”

“Yeah, at three. What about you?”

“Two.”

“You wanna walk to the gas station and get a drink?”

I nodded. For us, it was still a novelty to just walk around town and go wherever we wanted and buy things. We’d lived out in the country our whole lives, but still went to the same school we’d always gone to. Jamestown was small, but diverse, and both our parents worked here, too.

It was only ten A.M., so we still had plenty of time to hang out before we had to go to our respective jobs.

I wanted to tell Jacob about last night so much, but I wasn’t sure if I should. Yeah, it seemed like he would be on my side, but what if he wasn’t? What if he told our parents? I had to keep it a secret.

We spent the rest of the morning playing video games until I finally had to put on some jeans and a plain shirt, groaning as I put on my maroon vest. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and walked the four blocks to work.

Morgan wasn’t there today. On my first break I looked at my phone. I had a text from my dad asking if I would go to church with him on Sunday and I sighed.

We had always gone to a church here in Jamestown. Mom hadn’t gone since the separation, but when Jacob and I spent every other weekend with Dad, we went too. But we’d both become rather cynical towards the whole religion. Plus, no one at the church could find out about my secret.

Not a single person in any of my groups of friends knew I was gay. Only Jacob knew. And I was the only person who knew he lost his virginity when he was fourteen at church camp. You couldn’t just go around telling everybody everything.

After work I didn’t have anything to do, so I sat in my room listening to music and playing games on my phone until I heard some strange thumping sounds around one A.M.

I crept out of my room, phone in hand. Our mom slept at the back end of the house, and these sounds were coming near the front door. I bit my lip and raised my phone to call the cops, but then I heard Jacob curse.

I let out a huge breath of relief and opened the front door. He was leaned against the frame, key in hand, clearly too intoxicated to unlock the door.

“Shh,” I said. “It’s all right, Mom’s still asleep.”

“Rae,” Jacob said, his breath reeking of alcohol. “Rae, it’s you. Thank you so, so much. I love you.”

I had never seen him like this. “Okay, okay, I love you too. Let’s get you to your room.”

Even though he was a foot taller than I was, I guided him inside, silently closed the door, and helped him into his room, where he collapsed on his bed. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, so I opened the window. He pulled an ashtray out from under his bed and I smirked.

“So, did you at least have a good time?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yeah, it was worth it.”

“All right, see you tomorrow.”

I closed his door and walked to my room across the hall and for some reason had a hard time not laughing. Things were definitely changing for us, and I wondered what would happen next.

* * * *

Monday at school was interesting. I’d hung out with weed-smoking friends, and now it was time for my school friends. We were in honors classes together and all wanted to attend colleges far away from Jamestown. None of us were part of the elite “popular” crowd, but we were great friends who had each other’s backs if any of us were messed with.

“I studied all weekend,” Eva groaned, running her hand through her long, dark hair as we sat down in first period Calculus. She was white, a little taller than me, with freckles and glasses.

“Studied for what?” I asked.

“Our test today! In this class!” Damon said with a laugh. He was a stocky black guy with a shaved head.

“We have a test in here? Today? On a Monday? That’s ridiculous!”

I hadn’t studied at all. But I didn’t think I did too badly on the test. After Economics, American Literature, and Physics I was more than ready to meet up with my group at lunch. Besides Eva and Damon, there were Jasmine, Grayson, and Jessie.

“What did you all do this weekend?” asked Jessie, brushing her thin braids behind her ear.

I grinned and decided to at least tell half of the truth. “I worked, and it was boring as hell.”

Besides Eva, who had studied, the others mostly worked their part time jobs or hung out with family.

“This weekend we definitely have to hang out,” Grayson said, putting an arm around Jasmine. They had been dating for two months. Grayson was tall and white with medium-length brown hair. Jasmine was biracial with extremely thick curly hair. They’d been flirting with each other for two years before finally getting together.

“Yeah, we’ll definitely do something,” I said.

The rest of the week went by pretty fast. I worked with Morgan a couple times and we relived the past weekend on our breaks. My crush on her had intensified since we’d smoked weed together, but she seemed completely straight, and I had never acted on my feelings for another girl before, so I contented myself with being her friend.

“Is it something you want to try again?” she asked on Thursday, running her hands through her curly hair.

“Hell yeah.”

“How about tonight? I’ve got some at my house. I don’t like to smoke alone.”

“Yeah!”

Back at Morgan’s, she rolled a joint in a paper wrapper, not a blunt. She opened her window and we sat beside it on the hardwood floor, smoking and looking out at the night sky. The moon and stars had never shone so bright.

“Do you ever think of what you want to be….” I stopped. I was going to say “when you grow up,” but technically Morgan was already grown up, and so was I.

Morgan didn’t seem to notice my trailing off. “I don’t want to work at J.C.’s forever, no. But college isn’t for me. Four more years of school for no reason? f**k that.”

“You could go to a community college for two years,” I said, then forced my mouth shut. I didn’t need to preach to someone older than me about their life.

“I kind of want to do just what I’m doing right now for a while and enjoy my freedom,” Morgan said. “Work, smoke, party. Maybe after a year I’ll find me a real good job, settle down, and get my own place.”

“Do you want a boyfriend?” I asked, and then felt stupid once again.

“My last relationship ended pretty bad. Eventually I will, though. What about you?”

This caught me completely off guard. If I answered that I didn’t want a boyfriend, she might think I was weird, or guess the truth. I tried to clear my head. What should I say?

“I know you, you’re going to college,” Morgan said, and inwardly I sighed in relief. “What do you want to be?”

This was much better territory. “I want to be a pediatrician. I just think I’d like working with kids and helping them out. I’ve already got a scholarship to Indiana University, but I might want to go someplace further away. I haven’t decided yet.”

“A doctor; damn,” Morgan said. “You must be so smart.” She sighed, and stared off into the night. I joined her. A few clouds floated across the sky, but for the most part the night was clear.

The music Morgan played was hypnotizing. After a while we were both just leaning against her wall with eyes closed, and then my stomach growled.

“Ooohh, munchies,” Morgan laughed. “Come on, let’s find some stuff.”

I looked at my phone and gasped as I realized it was already eleven P.M. I never stayed out this late on a school night. And I had homework! Oh, well.

We crept downstairs in the dark into Morgan’s kitchen. She opened the fridge and pulled out some strawberries, and then grabbed a bag of chips from a cabinet and we went back upstairs.

“Interesting combination,” I said. But it was good.

After eating a little bit, Morgan rubbed her eyes.

“You can crash here tonight if you want,” she said.

“I’d better go, I have school tomorrow.”

She laughed, “Oh yeah, I forgot. Want me to drive you?”

“Nah, I can walk.”

“See you later.”

Morgan walked me to her door, and then I walked the short blocks home, the March air chilling my bones. As I got closer to my house, I put my hand to my mouth.

Walking down the sidewalk towards me was my brother.

“Hey, Jacob!” I said happily. He waved and laughed.

We unlocked the front door, and I could smell that he’d been smoking weed too.

“Good night,” we said as we went to our separate rooms, holding back our laughter. Maybe it would be okay if I told my brother the things I was doing, but I knew I could never tell my other friends. I thought about my new friendship with Morgan, and hoped she never found out how cute I thought she was. I didn’t want to ruin what we had. But a part of me that had never longed for a relationship before had started to awaken, and I wondered if I would ever find anyone who was like me.