It was safe to say that Jared was officially ignoring him. That was a good thing, really. It made it easier for Travis, who had no experience ignoring people himself. Let Jared to the hard part. 

It was good. Great actually, the way that Jared pretended he was invisible. It was a good thing that he could sit next to Travis in class with no problem, finishing all of his work and taking notes and seemingly deaf to the way that Travis would clear his throat, attempting to get Jared's attention. 

It wasn't really that he wanted Jared's attention but whenever Jared was like this over the years, it was all Travis could do to try to bother him. It was like an itch that he had to scratch and every time Jared managed so easily to ignore him it got harder to reach.

And more annoying.

For a few days he managed to brush it off. Even did his best to ignore Jared back, like he had been trying to do from the start. And then, suddenly it was all a little too annoying to accept.

 In English, Travis took his usual seat next to Jared and blatantly ignored their teacher, swiveling in his seat to face Jared, glaring daggers into the side of his face.

Jared knew he was doing it. His cheeks slowly flushed that rosy pink. Eventually, his neck began to match the color too and before Travis knew it, he was trailing his gaze over the splotchy shapes that decorated Jared's collar and hid under his shirt.

"Travis, eyes to the front please," Mrs. McAllen said, making him jump, his attention sharply drawn to the front of the room.

His heart was racing as she gave him an annoyed frown and turned back to the board.

Travis watched her for a minute while his heart rate slowed back down to normal and then scribbled an angry note onto a scrap of paper.

We were never even dating. Why do you fucking care if I go out with Lana? 

He scrunched up the note and slid it onto Jared's desk. He watched Jared out the corner of his eye, aware of every shift and move and breath his neighbor took.

He hoped Jared got mad. He wanted to get in a fight. At least then, Jared wouldn't be ignoring him anymore.

But then, Jared moved his hand out, swiftly, like he was swatting away a fly and knocked the note easily onto the floor.

Travis was so mad that his whole body was trembling by the time the bell rang. 

At lunch Lana came over to sit with him and his friends and Travis, pulled her onto his lap the second she arrived, laughing loudly at every stupid joke that was said and hoping that Jared was watching.

When Travis did chance a glance in Jared's direction, he was buried in his calculus book, studying. Like Travis wasn't even there. 

When the bell rang, he felt weirdly wired. Like he'd drank a whole jug of coffee and hadn't slept in days. He wanted to do something. 

He found Jared by his locker and without thinking, slammed the door shut, nearly taking Jared's hand with it.

Jared gasped and his gaze shot to Travis', shocked and all Travis could think when their eyes met was finally.

The hall had gone silent and only when Jared darted a glance passed him, did Travis remember that his friends were there. They had followed him out of the cafeteria. 

Jared swallowed and turned back to his locker, face flushed again. He pulled the door open, dismissing Travis and Travis wanted to shout.

Instead, he pushed Jared.

Jared hit the lockers behind him hard, caught off guard.

This time, he didn't look at Travis, just kept his gaze trained on the floor, somewhere near Travis' shoes. The whole sad act just made Travis even more angry.

He didn't realize that he was moving forward to do--what, he wasn't sure--until hands were suddenly pulling him back.

Cal was on one side, tugging him back, Brad on the other. Lana was watching him with wide eyes while the others watched on in amusement.

Reality came crashing back, just like that and dread filling him, Travis looked back at Jared. 

His friend pushed himself slowly back up and took a slow, purposeful breath before looking at Travis, his wide green eyes glassy and filled with so much hurt that Travis shrank back.

"Haven't you done enough?" he asked. His voice broke the smallest bit at the end and he swallowed. "Just leave me alone."

He turned on his heel and walked away as the bell rang.

"I thought you two were friends?" Lana asked. 

"Yeah, what the hell happened?" Cal asked.

Travis just shook his head, unable to find words. He left without saying anything else, following Jared to class.

His usual seat, next to Jared, was the only one free so he took it, feeling deflated and dazed. Why had he done that? He didn't want to hurt Jared. Why didn't he ever, ever, ever think things through? If he had thought things through from the start, then they never would have even got into this mess.

The second he'd realized that Jared had a thing for him, he should have dropped it all. He shouldn't have pushed it the way he did... What the hell was wrong with him?

A paper was placed on his desk, breaking momentarily into his thoughts. Right. He'd forgotten about the unit test.

Travis didn't panic though. He was going to fail anyway, so why bother?

For the rest of class, the interaction in the hall replayed over and over in his mind like a horror movie on loop. The more he saw it the more ridiculous it seemed.

When the bell rang, he stood up and handed in his blank test managing to completely ignore Jared. If only he had done that from the start.

***

Music was vibrating through the house when Travis arrived, the windows rattled with every beat of the base and Travis grinned as he approached.

Jeff was having a real party this time. An end of year celebration and after the day that he'd had, Travis was ready to offer up his body in exchange for booze.

He'd barely drank at all since Cuba and he missed the numbing feeling.

In fact, he was so eager for it that he entered the house, passing a couple making out on the front porch and let himself in, more eager to get to the kitchen than to see his friends.

He spotted Cal right away but luckily, he was distracted by a petite brunette who was hanging on the edge of his chair talking to him and he didn't see Travis.

Travis B-lined to the kitchen, pleased to find his prediction to be correct. Booze of every kind littered the table, plastic cups and pop bottles. Beers were in the fridge but Travis took one of the little cups and filled it most of the way with Vodka. He topped it up with sprite and took a sip.

The taste made him choke a little, but he swallowed it down and took another sip.

"Hey! There you are!"

Brad pounced him with a happy grin.

"Was lookin for you," he said. "You haven't been around much lately."

His words slurred the slightest bit at the edges and Travis grinned.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Bout an hour," Brad said smiling.

He still had his arm draped around Travis' shoulder, his face way too close, the stench of beer hitting Travis' nostrils straight on as his smile morphed into a pout.

"What the fuck happened today?" he asked. "I thought Jared was like your little pet or something. Get it? the way he's always following you around and looking at you fr approval."

He laughed at his own joke and Travis' mood took a sharp down turn.

He took a deep swig of his drink, nearly choking when it wouldn't go down. Finally, the alcohol burned its way down his esophagus.

"Did he cheat on you or something?" Brad asked.

Travis looked at him sharply but Brad just had that drunken dazed look on his face, like he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary.

"What do you mean?" Travis asked slowly.

"I don't know."

Sighing, Travis gently pulled his friend's arm off of him and pushed him against the table for support.

"I'm gonna go find Lana," he said, searching for an excuse.

Brad pouted.

"You never wanna hang out with me anymore," he muttered. Then when Travis was nearly gone he shouted after him. "I saw her downstairs!"

Back in the living room, Travis took a breath, trying to push Brad's words out of his mind along with the long list of things he was trying not to think about. He looked around at the crowd. A small group was dancing, the rest were watching and talking, shouting over the music to be heard. Travis realized just how much he didn't want to be here. He just wanted to sit in a corner and drink and not talk to anyone. Ugh. When had Jared's annoying, antisocial moodiness rubbed off on him?

Unsure what else to do, Travis walked down the stairs, disappointed when he heard cheering. There was a crowd down here too. Teams playing pool and others playing Mario Cart on the TV.

Jeff saw him right away, throwing him a salute with his drink. Lana was next, grinning at him from the bean bag chair that she was sharing with a friend.

Travis waved at her half-heartedly and then pretended to watch the pool game until he felt two small hands wrapping around his forearm.

He expected to be swarmed with a kiss but the telltale sight of her strawberry flavored lips were pulled down into a shiny pout.

Lana frowned up at him, her eyes searching his.

"Wanna go upstairs?" she asked.

Well that was fast.

Travis swallowed and nodded mutely. Truthfully, he didn't feel ready. He didn't feel drunk enough. He didn't know if he could get in the mood right now at all.

Dammit. What was happening to him. First all these stupid feelings and now Travis didn't even think he could get it up? Had being with Jared turned him fully gay?

He rolled his eyes at his train of thought. That wasn't how sexuality worked, he knew that. But still. He didn't think he really wanted to have sex with anyone else...

The thought made Travis' mood plummet even more. Jared was off limits now. He'd made sure of it.

Suddenly, Travis was pushed back against a closed door. 

It took him a minute to realize that he'd followed Lana all the way upstairs to one of the bedrooms. Okay, maybe the vodka was hitting him a little bit now. For a full minute, he stared at her, unsure what to do. 

She stared up at him expectantly. 

Okay. Time to get it together. Not sure how else to make that happen, Travis leaned forward, catching her soft full lips with his own and using the hand not holding his drink to grab onto her hip and pull her closer.

Lana let him but she didn't participate as much as he'd been expecting considering that she was horny enough to drag him up here.

Finally, he pulled back and blinked at her. She just arched a brow and crossed her arms in the small space between them.

"That's not why I brought you up here," she said.

"It's not?"

Lana smiled playfully. 

"Not yet anyway," she said. Then the smile melted off her face and Travis realized with a growing sense of dread that she looked concerned.

"Are you okay?" Lana asked. "I've never seen you like that before."

"Like what?" Travis asked blankly.

"At school... I've never seen you bully anyone, let alone Jared... I thought he was your friend."

Her voice tilted up at the end and Travis found himself itching to answer the question.

"He is," he said. "He's my best--only--friend. Or, wait. Was."

His shoulders drooped as was dropped from his lips. Dammit. Would he really be okay without Jared in his life anymore?

"Wow, okay. I'll make sure not to tell the other boys that," Lana said.

"Huh? Oh. You know what I mean though, right?" Lana just watched him. "Like they're my friends too but Jared is more."

Lana's brows slowly began to rise, higher and higher as her eyes widened.

"No," he stuttered. "I didn't mean to say that. I mean, I didn't mean it like that."

Lana's jaw dropped with a gasp.

"The hickeys!" she hissed. "Jared's the only other person I've ever seen you hanging out with. Oh my god!"

She spun around in a circle as though the information was too much and Travis found himself following her in a panic.

"It's not like that!" 

"Like what?" she demanded, plopping onto the bed to look up at him. "Like you two fool around?"

Travis' mouth went dry. A million images shot into his head of exactly that and he stood there stuttering, his entire face getting hot.

Lana burst into laughter.

"Oh my god!" she shouted. 

"It's not like that!" Travis found himself repeating. "We don't fool around!"

"Oh, so what, you're in love?" she laughed.

The word caught Travis so off guard that he just stood there, staring at Lana, his eyes wide. 

The laughter died on her lips and she stared up at Travis with wide eyes.

"I have to ask," she said after a moment. "What the hell are you doing here, with me?"

Travis swallowed.

"It--it wasn't going to work," Travis said, dropping the act.

Lana, for her part, didn't bother pointing that out.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did you get in a fight? Or did he do something to you? Why were you so mad today?"

Travis bit his lip, overwhelmed. He hadn't spoken about this with anyone. No one knew it was even happening and only now he realized how anxious he felt. How much he wanted support, because, quite frankly, he had no idea how to act.

"He was ignoring me," Travis said feebly.

Lana's frown deepened.

"That's it?" she asked. "Do you know why he was ignoring you at least?"

Travis mumbled the answer under his breath and Lana reached out, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him to sit down on the bed next to her.

"What was that?" she asked gently.

"You," Travis said a little bit louder.

Lana stared at him for a moment and then burst into laughter.

"Right," she said. "That makes sense."

She took Travis' hand again, making him look at her.

"Don't you think you should probably tell him that their's nothing going on between us?" she asked. "And, wait a minute, why did you even let it go this far?"

Travis stared at her.

"What? Are you dumping me?"

A smile tugged at her lips. 

"You're so cute when you're tipsy," she said, confusing him even more. "Seriously, that pout..."

She stared at his lips, her eyes glazing over for a moment before she blinked back to the moment.

"But seriously," she said. "I don't like taking second place. You just told me that you were in love with someone else."

Travis flushed.

"No I didn't," he said.

She gave Travis a pointed look. 

"It still counts by omission," she said. "And you never answered my second question. What were you doing even starting something with me?"

Travis shrugged awkwardly.

"It seemed like a good thing... to push him away with," he admitted.

Lana frowned.

"Why would you do that?" she asked.

Travis swallowed. Why was he telling Lana all of this? 

"He's leaving." The pain was evident in his voice and Travis suddenly knew why he found it all so hard to say. He didn't want to break down and be all emotional. Not in front of Lana or anyone else. Especially not in front of Jared.

Lana's frown deepened.

"Does Jared know any of this?" she asked slowly. When Travis mutely shook his head, she sighed. "Typical guy," she said.

Neither of them had ever even spoken about feelings really, let alone love. They just pushed everything down--Travis did, he realized. At the start, Jared had wanted to talk about everything, but Travis, as usual, had been too stubborn to allow that. 

Even now, he had cut Jared out, stopped talking to him, pushed him away and he had never even told his friend why.

"I keep hurting him," Travis said quietly. "I don't know how to cut it off without hurting him but then I don't really like it when he lets me go... I'm so stupid."

After a moment Lana nudged him with a shoulder and gave him a gentle smile.

"Don't you think you should apologize?" she asked.

Travis shook his head fervently.

"No! It's better this way."

"Is it?" Lana said softly. "You're worried about him leaving you and hurting you, I get it, but if you talk to him maybe you can come up with a solution together... and if he does leave..." she shrugged. "Don't you want to get as much time with him as possible before he goes?"

Travis looked at her. Eyes wide at the idea. If he had said something from the start... would Jared stay? Could he trust him? The instinct, deep in his gut was no. Don't trust him. He'll just hurt you. Keep him at a distance like you have been doing from the start. But then another thought hit him. Maybe, for the time being at least, he could be happy.