The Gift - Chapter One

This is a gay/yaoi story. So if you don't like, don't stay.

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I walked into my last class of the day feeling that it couldn't be any better. My birthday this year was just getting better and better. Before I use to hate having my birthday the week after exams. It was just in time for me to get all the bad news about how great I didn't do on most of my exams, and then to round it off, take my report card home for mom and dad to see, and sign, so I could take it back to my councilor who would place it in my permanent record.

But not this year. I had my friend Kim help me out. Over the phone, or in person, we did every piece of homework we were given and studied for every exam and quiz we didn't know we were getting. Some of the teachers try to be sneaky like that. I'm going to brag when I got home, I said to myself as I walked through the door and saw the teacher copying over the last of the grades into a book.

This was the easiest class I had this year. I'm so getting an 'A'. I grinned to myself as I walked around a few guys to get to my seat. I almost thought that someone had taken my spot when I saw something on the desk in front of it, but when I looked closer I saw that it was a gift. Cool, a birthday gift.

I slid into my seat and propped my backpack up against the wall to give my attention to the box that I spun around in my hands while it was still flat on my desk. It was a good size box, bigger than my hands on each side. I almost rattled it like a ten year old, but I stopped myself when I thought that it could be something electronic or fragile. I looked around the room to see if anyone would send a signal my way to say that they left it for me. But no one did.

“Hey Keven,” I said as I reached over and hit the arm of the guy sitting across from me.

“Yeah Jason,” he said without looking up from his phone that he was texting on.

“Did you see who put this on my desk?” I asked him. He looked up and for a second to glance at the box in my hands, before going back to his all important text.

“Nope,” he answered before I saw him send his message. Now he turns and gives me his attention. “When I came in it was already there.”

“So anyone could have left it here then,” I said more to myself, but I was still psyched. A gift was a gift. I bent down and placed it under the chair, to keep it out of harm's way.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen,” the teacher started as he now stood from behind his desk. “I will call your name, and your score and you will come up to get your exam,” he finished as the sounds of loud groans took over the room. “You have no one to blame but yourself for the bad grade you may have gotten,” he said in a small attempt to quite the class. “I will be calling you in alphabetical order so I can take attendance at the same time,” he ended as he looked down at the first exam he had on the top of his stack.

“Allen, ninety,” he said before looking up and watching a dark skinned girl walk toward him amid all the clapping we gave her. He held it out to her and she took with a big smile before walking back to her seat. “Boulder, eighty,” he called next. Keven smiled at me as he got up and I clapped with the rest of the class as he walked up front to get his exam back from the teacher. “Clark, B, seventy one,” he said next. It was still passing so the class clapped for him when he got up. Next was Clark, K, with eighty. Then Garcia, followed by Hall, Harris, Jones, and Lane.

“Marshall,” he finally said and my body was already standing when he said that I got ninety eight. I grinned at my A grade. I walked up to him as the class hollered around me. I had gotten the highest score so far. As I tried to take the papers from Mr. Russell, he held on to it a bit tighter before letting go, causing me to look up at him. “Good job Mr. Marshall,” he told me. I just beamed.

I turned around and bowed to the class that just clapped even more for me before Mr. Russell, told them to quite it down and told me to go back to my seat. Before I reached my seat, I heard him call the next name and their score of ninety nine. I stopped and stood still as the guy, who the name belonged to, stood up in front of me. That made the class go silent. Cole Matthew looked at me as if he was waited for something.

I had learned to pretty much tune out his existence and just naturally avoided anywhere I would expect him to be, so this was the first time in a week that I've come face to face with him and we share almost all our classes along with our lunch period with each other.

“Mr. Matthews,” the teacher warned. He wouldn't warn me. I was the good kid here.

“Yes Mr. Russell?” he asked with out looking away from me.

“Walk around and come for your exam,” he told him.

“Yes Mr. Russell,” he said before he stood for just a moment longer in front of me, before turning around and going through the gap in a column of seats, that I had used on instinct earlier to avoid his seat. Why I didn't use it to go back to my seat? I haven't a clue.

When he was no longer blocking my path, I walked past the last two seats to my desk, and sat down before looked at his back, as he made it to the front desk. The teacher told him something, but it was too soft for the the rest of the class, if not just me, to hear.

I continued to look at him, without knowing why, as he turned around, looked at me, and held my gaze as he walked back to his seat. It was only when he sat down did we both break eye contact. I turned and looked at Keven who was looking at me in an odd way.

“What?” I asked him.

“I don't know what. That is why I'm looking at you,” he told me. “I don't know if you need a bodyguard after school or a room for the two you,” he said as his grin almost made an appearance. He really didn't know what to make of what just happened.

I shook my head to get the creepy idea out of there and try to forget Matthews and his out of place stare. Mr. Russell continued calling out the names, and their score until the last person sat down and showed her exam to the other girl she was sitting next to. The rest of the class was talking , and it was feeling like a free period as the teacher put away the two exams that belonged to two students that were out for some reason.

“When is your next game?” I decided to ask Keven since we weren't being given any work to do at the moment. When I saw him take out his note book for when the teacher did start to say something note worthy, I followed suit while I waited for his answer.

“Next week. Second shift has this week's game,” he said as he clicked his pen open.

“Who are they playing?” I asked before turning to look into my bag for a pen that I knew was in there somewhere.

“The Pirate Parrot,” he told me with a straight face. I snickered as I remember the last time I saw them play our school's team. They were bad, but what would you expect from a private, science based high school that only created their team two years ago?

“Johnson may not beat them as badly as we did last year,” Keven said just before we heard chalk moving across the black board. We looked up almost at the same time and saw something like a list being put up.

“I think they should just disband their rugby team all together,” I said before Mr. Russual started to speak.

“We will be doing some work this period, in case you believed other wise,” he started out. “Take out your text book and go to chapter twelve,” he said before waiting for us to find it.

+++++++

“Don't forget your gift,” Keven told me as he started to stand.

“Oh, thanks,” I said before I reached down and picked it up before standing. I swung my bag over my shoulder, tucked the gift under my other arm and looked around to make sure that I wouldn't walk into anyone on my way out. At first I thought that I was the last one to leave when I saw Matthews looking at me from the door way before turning to leave. Why was he looking me? Did he really want to fight me like Keven though?

I walked over to the door at a normal speed but stopped to look out the door and into the hallway. There were still some kids around, but not so much that it was crowded. I easily saw Matthews blatantly looking at me as he leaned up against someone's locker. I was very relived that it wasn't mine. It wasn't even on this floor and I didn't have to go there today, which I was starting to think was a good thing if he wanted a fight.

I walked in the other direction, even if it took me longer to get out of the building, so I wouldn't have to walk past him.  As I made my way down the hall, my fingers itched to put my ear buds in and play some music, but I wanted to make sure that I heard anything happening around in case he really jumped me. I hope Keven is wrong.

I walked down two hallways before I turned to walk into a stairwell. I stopped short to look back the way I came to make sure that he wasn't following me. I stood there for a few seconds, but I still didn't see him. I pushed my way through those heavy doors and placed my bag on the step in front of me before putting my gift on it. I then fished through my light coat, that I wore all day, to find my iPod and the black ear buds that I used with it. I had to untangle them before I heard Jennifer Lopez singing Let's Get Loud.

I picked up my gift and had it securely under my arm as I slug my bag over my shoulder and started down the step. I rushed my way back to the front of the building and actually managed to stop the bus as it was starting to pull out of the parking lot.

As I was looking for an empty seat I heard someone else get on the bus behind of me. As I sat down I saw who it was. Matthews. He must have been waiting outside of the school for me. Why on earth was he following me? I watched him walk past me as he actually didn't really look at me as he walked to the back of the bus for a seat. I tried to put it behind me, like when it looked like he tried to get my attention last week, and ended up just looking at me for like two minutes.

I stood there like some scared fool waiting for the next shoe to drop, as he looked at me until the bell rang. Then when he moved, he just left the room without even walking past me. I'm starting to really feel like I'm being sized up for something. I told myself as I looked out of the window. As we stopped to let off the first kid, the song changed over to James Blunt slowly singing You're Beautiful as it let in some more sounds from the bus around me.

The bus had like six stops to make before it to got my house. So I started thinking over what projects I need to start working on and the notes that I took today to go over with Kim tonight. I ran my fingers over the blue bow and light purple pattern embossed on blue wrapping paper. I tried not to think of opening it since it would make carrying it harder when I had to get off the bus.

On our forth stop, Karry got off with her boyfriend Gary, who normally got off after me. One day the bus driver let me be that last one on the bus, so I would know where Kim lived when we took the same bus home a year and a half ago. That was before she got a bf and stayed back to watch him swim after school. I pulled out my phone and started typing up a text for Kim.

I'm almost home. Call me when you are ready to do our home work. I'll try not to text you before that.

I sent the message and closed my phone. The bus stopped for its fifth stop and I decided to move up closer to the front of the bus so I could get off that much faster when I got to my house. I had zoned out the music until I sat back down again and it was nearing the end of Kiss Me from Sixpence None The Richer.

I saw my street coming as the song ended. There was silence from my playlist causing all the noises to come  back to me and I felt the smaller movements of the bus as it rolled through another intersection. One more block and I would be there. Not actually at my house, but at the bus stop that was closest to my house.

The bus started to slow down, then came to a stop as a car pull in front of it and blocked the bus from stopping where it was suppose to. The bus driver honked three times to get the other car to move.

“Just let us out here. He's waiting for me,” I heard Matthews say from behind of me. And I mean right behind of me. I didn't dare turn around. I didn't care how much the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I wasn't going to look.

“I can't let anyone out until I park where I'm suppose to,” the bus driver told him.

“Fine,” Matthews said. “Da, you have to move or the bus driver won't let us out,” he must have said into the phone after a little shuffling on his part. He calls his father 'Da'? “It doesn't matter if he has space. He says that he has to park in that spot,” he said before I heard shuffling again.

The black 1970 Chevelle SS with white racing strips roared as it moved down two car lengths before coming to a stop again. The roaring was the last thing I heard once my music had kicked in again. Now I was just hearing the band Peaches singing Hit It Hard. I stood up and walked the last few seats to the door so I could get out, away from Matthews and head home. I thought I felt him bump me, but since I didn't feel him trying to get my attention to take it out on me, I decided to consider it my imagination. I had to walk past the car and gave it a look as I did. The paint job looked perfect. The car looked like it was brand new.

There was a guy sitting in the front seat and dressed in a suit, unlike the leather jacket with jeans that I expected to see. He couldn't be anyone but Matthews' father even if I didn't hear him call him that. He looked just like Matthews, just twenty years older. He flashed me a smile as he nodded his head in my direction when he saw me looking. I nodded back before starting to walk faster. I didn't really think Matthews would do anything in front of his father, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I got to the end of the block and I had to look back. Matthews was leaning on the car looking me . The words,

“...lets hit it hard
now you're in charge
you wanna roll
then take control...,”

pumped loudly and quickly through my head as I watched him watching me. He didn't look away until a hand reached out of the car and pulled at his shirt. Only then did his brown eyes look away and I found the will to leave and all but run home.

As I walked into the house, I pocketed my keys before closing the door behind of me. I had an hour before my mom or dad made it home. I went right to my to my room at the back of the house and sat down on my bed before off loading everything I had unto the bed next to me.

“Weird way to end the day,” I told myself before laying backwards and covering my eyes with my hands. I breathed deeply as I paid very close attention to the words of the song that started when I opened the gate for our front yard.

It was Pink singing Sober and I mouthed the words that she sang.  

“...I'm safe
Up high
Nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
No pain
Inside
You're like perfection
But how do I feel this good sober?...”

I sat up as the last sentence played into my ears. When it was done I pulled the ear pieces out and reached into my jacket pocket for the iPod and felt something that wasn't there before. I took out both things and turned off my iPod before turning my attention to the small square envelope.

Open me after you have opened your gift.