Page 41 of Boys Like You

“What if one of us pretends to date her?” Rocky pipes up.

“No damn way, we already had ‘the talk’ because she made my dick hard, no way are we saying, ‘hey, JD, we voted and you need a fake boyfriend so other guys don’t date you.’ We’re not cavemen, and she can date if she wants to. We don’t have to like it, but we’re not her keepers.” Levi has a point. Though we haven’t discussed the real issue; what if one of us starts having feelings for her? It will happen eventually; I see the way they are with her, myself included. The touches, the staring at her like she’s the only person in the room.

I know we’re all worried how she will go tomorrow. Rory already has her timetable; one he made Mr Turner change. Now she has a class with each of us, plus a spare which she can spend watching Rocky or Levi train.

“Good point, we don’t want to come across as overbearing, but I’m not cool with her dating. Not unless it’s one of us. There are five of us, couldn’t she just pick one?” Rocky exclaims.

“Do you even think before you speak sometimes? None of us are good picks for her. I can barely control my temper, Levi has control issues, Rory has Cindy shit to deal with, Maximus can barely speak to her, let alone be intimate, and Rocky is just Rocky. JD doesn’t need that.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m the most normal one out of all of us, I would make a good boyfriend.” Rocky pretends to look offended.

I laugh. “Until you get bored. Don’t pretend you could stick with just one girl.”

“For JD I would.” And I believe him; she is becoming one of us, and we do anything for each other.

“No one will be dating her right now, she needs time to heal and we don’t need to complicate that. We need to be smart about this. She could have a boyfriend looking for her for all we know. Right now she needs friends, and that is what we will all be to her, end of story.”

Everyone agrees.

I slip out and into the kitchen, needing a breather.

“Are you okay?” Levi asks, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“I will be, just knowing intimacy may be an issue for me sucks. What if I freak out on the first girl I’m with? Who would want to be with a freak? It’s bad enough I most likely wouldn’t be able to talk to them.”

“If she freaks out, she isn’t worth your time. You’re amazing and you’ll find someone who gets you, don’t worry.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you get to have sex and have no bullshit from your past attached to that.” He quirks an eyebrow. “Nightmares we can deal with, but being touched—”

“JD touches you,” he interrupts, and he’s right; she does and I don’t flip out.

“She’s different, she’s never looked at me like there’s something wrong with me. She doesn’t touch me without it being okay and she knows with just a look.”

“It’s freaky how much she gets all of us.” It really is, I’ve been seeing my therapist two times a week again to try and understand it all. Seeing her curled up in the sand that night overwhelmed me. All the memories of my past; abuse, beatings, hunger, my innocent sister and all the guilt of making it out alive came flooding back like flashes of light and I just shut down. At times, the guilt consumes me, but somehow it’s not so bad with JD around. Maybe JD is the redemption I need; if I can help save her, maybe I can forgive myself.

Learning to cope after what I went through has been hard. Some days getting out of bed sucks. Levi is my saving grace. He will, still to this day, get in my bed and hold me. I know others wouldn’t understand but my family does. My parents may not be biological, but I can tell from the look in my mum’s eyes, she wants to console me but she understands why she can’t.

If I freak out at school most of the staff know to call Levi. It happens less and less now that I'm older; I tend to feel an episode coming on and can make it out to a car or a bathroom. It doesn’t stop the stares and whispering, though. People think I can’t hear them. I do.

The other guys know the drill; stay close by, don’t touch me, remind me to breathe, reassure me that Levi is on his way. I put it down to him being the first to ever offer me comfort. No one ever truly cared before him. Levi wrapping his body around mine is associated with comfort. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

“We voted, we’re going to crash and take JD to her first day of school.” Rocky announces as he and the guys come into the room. Mr Cole smiles.

“Oh, thank god, I can sleep in and not have to sing you off to school. I honestly thought I was raising a bunch of pussies.”

“You mean we didn’t have to have all the fuss and singing?”

Mr Cole laughs. “No, I just wanted to see how long I could carry it on for. I must admit, I thought it would have ended when high school started.”

We all pack up while Mr Cole packs the food in containers that he made for our lunches. Once we have everything we need, all five of us pack our gear in Rory’s car and head to Mumma B’s.

I can’t wait to see the look on JD’s face when she wakes up and we are all asleep on her floor.

The light sound of my phone vibrating wakes me. I stretch out, enjoying the feeling; I haven’t been able to stretch with my ribs being so bruised and sore. Throwing off the blankets, I sit up and switch off my alarm. Mercer set it last night so I would be up and ready in time. The drive to school from here is about forty minutes with no traffic. He told me they would all be here to pick me up, even though I insisted I only needed one of them. First days are a big deal, apparently.

Swinging my legs around to the steps, I freeze. There are bodies sleeping on my floor that hadn’t been here when I fell asleep.

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