A/N Ok, so this chapter is really long and there is no sex in it. It sets things up a bit. This story is something a bit experimental. Don't know what I'm doing, just enjoy writing it.
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THEN
Jaan
On the way over to Sanchez's house Jaan remembered that he'd forgotten to pay the light bill with the money his mother had left in the drawer by the stove.
She said, "You need to pay the light bill on June 29. The light bill is due the last Monday of each month." He was pretty sure today was the first day of July so... there was that. But now, riding his bike, the wind blowing in his hair he couldn't care less.
He didn't really care much about anything at all really, he was high, he was about to get even higher with Sanchez, and he was two months away from starting his junior year of high school. Three nights ago he had gotten the second best blow job of his life (well he'd only ever had two before) from this Senior girl who wanted him to come over to her house that night and "hang out". He was already in training for basketball season and getting better everyday, and on top of all of this he had hit a recent growth spurt in the last 4 months and he was suddenly aware that every girl was looking at him, even grown women.
Young, high, and careless, Jaan weaved his bike in and out of traffic, his hair blowing in the wind behind him. Jaan lived on the city side of town while Sanchez and his family lived in the more spread out suburban area near the woods. Jaan had known Sanchez and his family for 2 years now. They met Jaan's freshman year when he tried out for the basketball team and somehow made Varsity. As a sophomore, Sanchez was already captain and the star of the team, but he wasn't like most kids. His family was weird. At least that's what Jaan had heard about them, that was before he got to know Sanchez.
The Brown family was a bit notorious in the small college town where they lived, a black family with three kids, all with wild dreadlocks and deep brown skin, the parents where professors at the local college; the mother a Philosophy professor, the father a professor of French. They lived in a modest house on a small plot of land with an above ground pool in the backyard attached to a deck. Sanchez's parents where eccentric to say the least. They had given all of their children Spanish last names as first names because they wanted to create their own army of Cuban revolutionaries. Their house was filled with art and instruments, hundreds of books and a pot of food always on the stove. He vaguely remembered seeing Sanchez's mother once in the grocery store before he met them. He remembered that she was wearing a pair of white painters overalls with a men's button up shirt underneath and a very large afro, it seemed nearly a foot tall. Jaan remembered thinking she was the craziest person he had ever seen. He was sure of it. How could someone go out of their house looking like that? He remembered poking his mother in the arm and then pointing at her, watching as his mother's eye grew wide with shock. "Wow" was all she said.
It was strange to think of his reaction to her then, now that he knew her, especially since she wasn't crazy at all. Rather she was soft spoken and kind with a penchant for painter's overalls and workmen's jumpsuits. Sometimes Jaan wondered if he had a crush on her, only to realize he just liked the way that she cooked often and spoke to her children in the softest French. Whenever he came over to the house and she was home, she'd always ask him if he was hungry, or if he wanted some tea, and then she'd make sure that he sat down while she fed him or gave him his tea or water. Also he remembered the first time he came over to the house that Santiago who was maybe 9 or 10 at the time was having a full blown melt down, sprawled out on the ground with his mother standing over him. The house was filled with light and there was loud experimental jazz music playing in the background. When he and Sanchez walked into the house she yelled something to him quickly in French and then she turned to Jaan and said in an accent so heavy he could barely understand her.
"He just realized his mortality. Now he can't stop crying." Then she walked over and kissed Jaan on the cheek. "Do you want some tea?"
He couldn't believe it. Not only was it the woman from the grocery store but she was kissing him and there was a child with long snakes growing from his head bawling in the middle of the living room floor.
Jaan started coming over more often after that. He rode his bike over most afternoons after school, when they weren't at practice, and in the winters he took the bus halfway through town and then walked.
Sanchez was a funny kid too. He was smart, the star of the basketball team, and also oddly dreamy. Every once and a while he'd catch Sanchez staring absently into space only to turn to him and say, "Can you believe I've been in this body all my life?" totally out of the blue. Jaan liked him for that, and the way that he could turn anything into the best thing, and also that he still built Lego houses for fun but taught himself Russian. The entire Brown family was like that, the oddest mix of contradictions.
That day Jaan was hoping that he and Sanchez would ride their bikes out to the creek to smoke, then go and visit the girls from the party. As weird as Sanchez was, he was amazing with girls. Jaan had watched him for years pulling girls just by smiling. He was beautiful even Jaan could admit it. His hair touched his shoulders and was inky black and wild, running in all directions. His perfectly shaped almond eyes almost always looked half closed. He had the appearance of someone who might have distant Asian ancestry. And his smile, it was his smile that did it. Perfectly white and straight teeth set inside a gorgeous mouth. Sanchez was something of a demi god to women of all ages. The older teachers where enthralled by him, stunned into silence or shock when his brown body sauntered into their classroom and surprised that such a loopy athletic character could ace any test given to him in any class, yet still remain so strange. Maybe that's why they liked him, because inside of this unrelentingly handsome body was a goofy, curious kid.
As Jaan rode the last stretch to Sanchez's house he thought about the pretty redhead at the party who had pulled him into the coat closet to kiss him. As the wind blew against his face he thought about her pretty plump lips on his neck and he could feel that tingling sensation in his stomach.
Jaan dropped his bike on the Brown's front lawn and ran up to the front door to ring the doorbell. Santos opened the door. She had a pair of headphones on her head and one of Sanchez's shirts from the basketball team. It was so large it looked like she didn't have anything on underneath it, but Jaan could see that underneath the shirt she was wearing a pair of shorts with green frogs on them that he was pretty sure belonged to her little brother Santiago. On her face were her thick black-framed glasses that nearly dwarfed her features.
Jaan paused for a minute as they stood staring at each other. He felt that familiar tightness in his chest, the uncomfortable feeling he always felt around her.
He cleared his throat, "Is Sanchez home?"
She twirled the end of her headphone cable in the air, allowing it to wrap around her finger; She shook her head no.
"Do you know when he'll be back?"
She shook her head no again.
"Umm... ok" Jaan backed away from the door slightly.
She laughed lightly, "They're in New York."
"OK, when will they be back?"
She walked away from the door leaving it wide open. Jaan stood there for a moment. Well he could go inside and finish up this conversation or he could continue the conversation from the door and then get on his bike and find Sean or Mike or maybe head over to the Tennis Courts to see if the girl's team was around practicing.
He stepped inside.
Santos
Santos could tell that Jaan was already really high. She knew that he and Sanchez had been getting high a lot that summer, because Sanchez had told her. He had the tendency to tell her everything. Even all the gory details of his silly sexcapades, and some of the trouble he had been getting into. She knew all the girls he liked and the boys he had kissed. She understood how scared he was about his senior year, and applying for colleges. She knew that he spent a lot of his time really sad and was afraid to let other people know it. She knew of all his friends, he liked Jaan the best though he had never told her outright, she knew.
"They'll be back Sunday night" she said sitting on the couch. She picked up the remote control and started the game again.
Jaan stood in the house but just a step away from the doorway. He was debating. She could see that he couldn't tell if he wanted to be in the house with her or leave and do whatever it was he was going to do, but without Sanchez. She continued playing the game trying her best to ignore him standing there.
"Why didn't you go?" he asked. He closed the door behind him and walked over towards her on the couch. He sat on the floor beside it and watched her playing the game.
"I have school."
She was the dumb one. Santiago was 11 in the 8th grade, Sanchez had taught himself Russian, and she was the one in summer school math class because she couldn't get all her math work finished during the school year. Which was a shame because she was already in the super slow math classes. Actually, all her classes were super slow. And she wasn't just taking summer Math; she was taking summer history and English as well. The problem was she just never could seem to get her work done. She understood everything. When she wasn't playing video games or outside with Santiago she usually was reading and writing stories or looking at maps. But when it was time to do the test, or write the stupid report she could never do it. She just couldn't make herself perform on command. So she was stupid probably. She figured as much at least. And she'd struggle through 11th grade just like she struggled through 10th.
"Oh that's right, Sanchez told me."
They sat silent for a minute. Santos looked at Jaan. He was very pretty, but something about him was jagged. His hair was long, too long for a boy but he had worn it that way for as long as Santos knew him. He was maybe the only boy she knew who could wear hair so long and still look masculine even though his hair itself was beautiful, feminine even. Jaan looked back at her, catching her eyes for a split second before she could turn away.
"So how is it going?" he asked
