A Secret Not Worth Keeping, Chapter Two
Title: A Secret Not Worth Keeping
Author: hotbaguettes69
Chapter: Two
Rating: PG
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 3035
Summary: Pierre Bouvier lives a normal life as an 18 year old on his senior year in high school. He's captain of the hockey team and all the girls want him. But Pierre is harboring a secret. He thinks nothing could be worse than people finding out the truth... Until he meets a boy who makes him think maybe his secret isn't worth keeping after all...
Author's note: I got some positive feedback from chapter one, so I've decided to continue it. PLEASE keep commenting, and giving me feedback. I won't continue writing if I think nobody is reading lol.
David
David wanted to speak up. He wanted to tell the three boys standing around him to stop. To leave him alone. But suddenly he had no voice. His throat seized up and he couldn't say a word. He wanted someone to help him... but all he heard was laughter from everyone around. How could they find this funny? He was terrified of what would happen to him and he honestly thought that he was going home beat up. David was no coward... but in this school, where it was him against the world, he felt small and helpless, and he knew he was too afraid to do anything to take this situation into his own hands. So he squeezed his eyes shut tightly as he kept being pushed around and braced himself for the punch that he knew was bound to come. All of a sudden, as David was half way between a pass from one boy to another. he heard a voice yell "HEY!" and he felt the first boy lurch away from him, then the second, as if someone had shoved them away. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!" He heard the voice yell again. It sounded familiar. As David opened his eyes, he saw why... the voice he'd heard had matched the most amazing pair of chocolate brown eyes David had ever seen. The eyes that he hadn't been able to get out of his mind for the past 24 hours. The eyes that were now standing in front of him, saving him from the terror that was his new school. David looked around to see expressions from everyone in the lunch room ranging from shock, to guilt, to disgust. "Come on David." Pierre said, putting his hand on David's back and moving forwards with him, straight out of the cafeteria, not once looking back.
Once they reached the hallway, Pierre took his hand off of David's back and walked a bit slower, but kept walking, much more casually now. David's mind was racing, still trying to process everything that had just happened. Pierre had helped him. He wanted to be friends. "Th-thank you... so much..." David said, hands shoved far in his pockets, gaze fixed on the floor.
"You don't have to thank me, David. They have no right to treat you like that." Pierre said, his voice tainted with anger and disgust, but thick with genuineness. David slowly looked up, finally feeling brave enough to look at Pierre. "Still... thank you Pierre." David said, and Pierre could see how much the action meant to David.
"Hey, I know it's only your second day, but I can tell it hasn't been easy on you, and you could probably use a break. Do you wanna take the rest of the day off and come hang out at my place?" Pierre asked, sounding like a small child asking his mother to have a cookie before dinner. David could tell he was nervous, which was oddly comforting. And more than a bit cute. No. David shook the thoughts out of his head. He couldn't be thinking that. Not about Pierre. He couldn't mess up what might be his only potential friendship at this school by scaring away a straight guy with a stupid crush.
"Actually, that sounds really great. Your parents won't mind?" David asked.
"I live alone." Pierre said simply, smiling down at the other boy. David nodded and smiled back, and they exited the building together without saying a single word to anyone.
Pierre
As Pierre walked down the street with David, he could hardly believe it was happening. He had been absolutely terrified when he asked David about coming over, that he might say no, or maybe even that David really didn't have any interest in being friends with Pierre. But when he'd accepted the invitation, Pierre felt as if his heart might explode. And now here they were, walking silently side by side. It wasn't an awkward silence though... it was just comfortable. He felt comfortable with David, even when they weren't saying anything at all. All of the anger he'd felt towards the kids in the cafeteria was pushed to the back of his mind. Being with David made him forget about all of the bad things. All of this had gone through Pierre's mind before he even realized he was thinking it. But when he did realize it, he pushed any thoughts like that to the back of his mind and focused on being what David needed most right now... a friend. A heterosexual friend. He couldn't allow himself to care about a guy in that way, much less a straight guy. So they would be friends. And Pierre would be David's friend until the day David requested otherwise. And Pierre hoped that day would never come. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the front door of his apartment building. "Here we are." Said Pierre with a smile, opening the door and holding it for David. Pierre followed David through the door, instantly moving back to his side and leading the way through the building and up 2 sets of stairs until they came to a stop in front of Pierre's apartment door. Pierre fiddled with his keys, opening the door, and holding his arm out, motioning for David to enter. He had to admit though, the silence was getting kind of awkward and he wished David would say something. David walked in and looked around, then turned to face Pierre who had already entered and shut the door. "This is really nice." He said.
"Thanks." Pierre replied. "Do you want something to eat or drink?"
"Um maybe some water if that's okay?" David asked.
"Of course. You can sit down if you want, I'll be back in a minute." Pierre said, motioning to the couch, and leaving the room.
David
David sat down awkwardly on Pierre's couch, and looked around. This really was a nice apartment for a high school student. Not that he had ever really been in alot of high school student's single apartments to compare. Then he realized, he really didn't know anything about Pierre. Why was he living in a one bedroom apartment by himself... in high school?
"Hey, I hope this is okay." Pierre said with a smile as he came back into the room, sat down next to David, and handed him a bottle of water.
"Yeah... that's perfect. Thanks." David said, returning the warm smile. And suddenly, looking into Pierre's eyes, David didn't care about anything he'd just been thinking. All he wanted to do was be with him. NO. He could not be thinking like that. He didn't like Pierre. He was just really grateful to have Pierre as a friend, because he didn't have anyone else right now, since the move. Yeah, Pierre wasn't really his type anyways. Athletic... smart... funny... cute... NO. He. was. not. Cute. He was just Pierre. The heterosexual potential friend of David Desrosiers. That is all they were and that's all they ever will be... and David was okay with that. He had to be.
"So, why did you move you here?" Pierre asked. David's heart flipped around in his chest about 30 times. Did he really want to tell Pierre about the conditions of his move? Did he really want to scare him off by getting that personal the first time they hung out? Well, he figured, what did he really have to lose?
He hesitated for a moment. "Well... we just couldn't stay in Oregon after what had happened..." He said, leaving the sentence open-ended. When Pierre only gave him a curious look, he knew he had to tell him...
"Well..." He started. "I have two sisters. Rayenna and Emaa. Last year, when Emaa was fourteen, she was walking home from a friends house. It was around midnight, on a Friday, and she didn't expect to be home that late or she would have arranged a ride. Anyways, on her way home, she passed a dark alley that she'd passed all the time and never thought anything of. I guess it was so dark, that she didn't see that there was somebody standing in it..." He continued. He saw Pierre's expression deepen slightly like he was waiting for the bad punch line that he knew was coming. "Somebody grabbed her and pulled her into the alley, which was pretty deep. She tried to scream but he'd covered her mouth. She came home that night, shaking and sobbing and barely able to breathe. Her face didn't look hurt emotionally... just empty, terrified, like she'd just seen a ghost. I was the only one awake still and I brought her up to her room." David could feel the pain stabbing at his chest, but continued the story anyways. "She wasn't saying anything so I tried to be a good brother and comfort her. I went in her closet and found what looked like the comfiest pajamas, and made her some tea while she changed. I figured she'd gotten into a fight with one of her friends or something..." David took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to his lap. "He raped her. She didn't see who it was. All she knew was that it was some guy in his mid 40s." David's face was a tortured twist of pain and anger.
"David... I-I am so sorry... I had no idea, I wouldn't have asked if-" Pierre started. David cut him off. If he was going to tell this story, he was going to tell it to it's end.
"She made me promise not to tell. And for awhile, I didn't. I hoped maybe her way of coping would be to put it behind her and try her best to move on and live her life. But every day, I saw her getting worse. She isolated herself from her friends, stopped doing her homework, quit the volleyball team... fuck, she loved volleyball... she got angrier... and no matter how much she pretended to everybody that she was fine and nothing had changed, everyone could see that something was wrong." David could feel the pain rising in his chest, and it felt like he was there living the experience all over again. "The crying was the worst part for me. Her room was right next to mine, and every night, I would hear her sobbing. It killed me over and over again. Every fucking night. One night I decided to go talk to her..." David began, tears welling up in his eyes. "I thought maybe I could help her, and if I couldn't, I'd already decided that I would tell someone what was going on. I couldn't bear to see her hurting like that. So I went to her room, expecting to hear her crying, but I didn't. I thought maybe she was finally starting to get better. But then I knocked and she didn't answer..." Large tears fell from each of David's eyes, as he continued with his story. "So I open the door, and she's lying there... all I remember is seeing my baby sister lying there staring at nothing... and blood. Alot of blood. It wasn't until after her funeral, that I finally told somebody about what happened that night..." David let his words trail off, now looking into the air in front of him.
"David... I am so so sorry... I can't even imagine how completely horrible that must have been..." Pierre said. David looked up to see that Pierre had a single streak on his face, and his eyes were full of unshed tears.
Pierre
Pierre regretted asking David this question more than anything. He was simply trying to make small talk, not make David cry. Hearing the story about David's sister, and seeing David so torn up... it hurt Pierre to an extent that nobody would understand in a million years. But he knew he had to be strong for David. He had to be there for him and be what he needed... even if it was just as a friend.
When David looked up, and Pierre saw the hurt in his eyes, he couldn't stop himself. He pulled David into his arms, and hugged him in an extremely boyfriend-y way. He did his best to pass it off as moral support, but he couldn't see David hurting that much and not do anything to comfort him. When David laid his head down and burried his face in Pierre's neck, Pierre felt as though his he was soaring in absolute zero gravity. He hated the fact that this was all he would ever get to do for David... comfort him as a friend. But he would take whatever he could get. Suddenly David took his head off of Pierre's shoulder and repositioned himself so he was sitting cross-legged, facing Pierre. Pierre leaned against the arm of the couch to face the other boy as well.
"So what about you?" Asked David, wiping every last tear from his eyes, obviously trying to move on. "What's a high school senior doing living alone in a one bedroom apartment?" Pierre's heart raced. LIE. His mind told him. But at the same time his heart was telling him, you can't lie to him! So Pierre chose not to lie, but to not exactly give him all of the details.
"Uh... my parents... when I was in grade 10, they learned something about me that they didn't really agree with... so they threw me out. Said they didn't want someone like me breathing their air." Pierre said. And it wasn't a lie. That was what happened. What Pierre neglected to tell David, was that the 'thing' his parents learned, was that Pierre liked boys.
"Wow, Pierre... that's really horrible. I'm sorry." David said, an apoligetic look on his face. Pierre's heart slowed back to normal only to speed back up when he heard what David had to say next.
"What was it they found out that could make them do something like that?" Pierre's heart sped up a million times, while his mind raced through a thousand different lies he could tell David... none of them sounding right. If he told David the truth, what would he say? Pierre's best friends didn't even know and this was a boy that he'd just met. But this was also a boy who had just shared his most painful memory with Pierre. A boy who Pierre already felt more comfortable with after one day, then a lifetime with most of his friends.
"I guess I just had a secret, and I thought they would understand... but they didn't. I've never told anyone since." Pierre explained vaguely, clearly avoiding the question."
"Come on Pierre... you can trust me. I promise. What was the secret?" David pried gently.
Pierre closed his eyes and took a deep breath in and braced himself to tell this strange new boy whom he'd had a crush on his biggest secret...
"I'm gay." Pierre said, without opening his eyes. He braced himself for David to jump off the couch, scream, yell at him about how disgusting he was, and storm out of the apartment... and suddenly he wished he hadn't told David his secret at all, for he may have just jepordized any chance he ever had of being David's friend. Pierre hated himself.
"Pierre..." David started, and Pierre knew what was going on. David was much too calm and gentle to create such a big scene about this. But he would surely let Pierre know he didn't agree with this, and then he would leave. David would walk out of Pierre's life forever, and there was nobody to blame but himself. "I'm gay too..." David said sounding nervous, and Pierre's eyes popped open and his head shot up.
"Wh-what?" He asked, completely shocked. Not one time since he'd met David did he consider it possible for him to be gay too, let alone to like Pierre back... he'd simply just viewed him as a heterosexual god who had come here to make Pierre's heart hurt. But maybe that wasn't the case after all...
"Pierre, I'm gay..." David said again, this time a little more confident. Pierre's heart squeezed hard into itself, then popped back out.
Pierre and David stared at each other for several long seconds, until the silence was broke by a four sharp knocks on the door. Pierre gave a light, warm smile to David, as he got up and walked across the room to answer the door.
When Pierre opened the door, Chuck pushed past him to let himself into the apartment. "Hey, I'm glad you guys are here! You kind of ditched me in the caf and I figured this is where you'd be. Well, as long as we're all here, do you wanna get some work done on that project? Sooner we get to work, sooner we get it done." Chuck said cheerily, walking over and sitting beside David on the couch, who was now turned and sitting with his feet flat on the floor.
Pierre and David exchanged a look that you never even knew happened, and matched Chuck's cheery mood.
"Sure!" Said David with a big smile.
"That sounds great." Pierre said with a light chuckle. And to their surprise... neither of them were pretending. They were both just genuinely happy.
The 3 of worked on the project for a couple hours, which turned to just hanging out. They ordered pizza and just chilled, laughing, joking, and all just having a really good time. By the time 7 o'clock came, Chuck was already on his way home, leaving just David and Pierre in the room, with the air alot thinner than it had been before.
They were on opposite sides of the room when they started slowly walking towards each other. "So..." David started, still walking towards Pierre. And before Pierre could talk himself out of it, he took the biggest chance of his lifetime. He was soon within touching distance of David. Pierre reached up, placing his hand on the side of David's cheek, and place a soft, gentle kiss on his lips.