Because You Suck: Chapter 3: Part 4

Zach blinked, wheezing as he blew water out of his mouth and tried to connect to the world around him again.
“498…” he repeated, his mind only beginning to register the words.
“Zach?” Gentry cocked his head, crouching by the edge of the pool,” Are you ok?”
The other’s blue eyes snapped open, the way a bird’s did before attack.
“498…”
“Yeah. You swam 498 laps.” Gentry repeated, looking at the clipboard.
Zach’s expression hardened, “Bullshit.”
Another boy leaned over Gentry’s shoulder, blocking out the sun. Zach’s eyes turned to slits when he recognized it was Carly.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t you graduate?”
“I’m the guest coach.” Came the smug reply, “The coach calls me to do it every summer.”
Gentry elaborated, “He times all the swimmers along with the team judges, and gives the final outcome if there are any problems.”
“That’s bull! You just don’t want any lower classmen on the team! Gentry…” Zach’s expression was pained, but Gentry looked away.
“You got a good time.” He said.
“I got 500 laps in five minutes, not 498!”
“Can you prove it?” Carly piped up.
“How the hell can I prove it if I was swimming it?!”
Carly raised both eyebrows, “You think the whole world revolves around you, don’t you? But you WILL accept that you lost, because that’s just what you did. My team loses too, but we accept it.”
“At least you lose fairly!” Zach moved to get out of the water, but Carly shoved him back and gripped onto one of his wrists.
“Let me go!” Zach yelled, trying in vain to pull out of Carly’s grip.
“Carly… let him go.” Gentry said softly.
Carly snorted in return, and Zach yelled, “You’re both fucking cheaters! You rigged the diving board for the freshman team last year! You de-motivated them at every shot, so that now they just don’t try anymore. So don’t you tell me about losing fairly when you are a dirty lying chea---”
Carly cut him off by pushing him under the water, letting the chlorine fill his lungs. He tried to struggle, but Carly firmly held him down. The chlorine stung his weakened senses and overwhelmed them.The other Seniors pretended not to see it, until a sudden loud splash forced them to look up. Carly had tumbled into the water, and Zach had narrowly escaped the former leader’s frantic grasps by pulling himself out of the water and fleeing to the girls’ locker room.

Because You Suck: Chapter 3: Part 3

Senior Swim Team tryouts were held on the hottest day of the semester break. The pool water steamed, and the air was ripe with the smell of chlorine and burning flesh.
For some, they offered the seniority-earned promotion of entering the prestigious Senior swim team. For others, they offered a chance at escaping the miserable Freshman swim team for something better.
Zach was there for just that reason.
Gentry sat in a white lounge chair, lazily eying a clipboard. The wet black Swim Team shorts clung to his hips, showing off a lean, muscled body hardened through countless swim meets. His hair flickered in the afternoon sunlight like a daunting red flame.
With a hint of contempt in his voice, he read from the clipboard:
“Next in line for tryouts… Zach Tyler.”
He looked up to see Zach, with his dark features and those unusual blue eyes. It was always strange to see him without his heavy clothes and thick-rimmed glasses.
Gentry glared at him, and Zach raised his eyebrows in a quiet declaration of war.
“Do I just go in the water and start?” he asked, peering into the unclouded depths of the pool.
“Yeah. Get comfortable.” Gentry peered down at his clipboard and tapped the rim with his pen, ”You need to swim a 500 yard freestyle in under 10 minutes.”
Zach returned the statement with a curt nod, “I know.”
He positioned himself at the rim of the pool, ignoring the noise of the other swimmers or the pounding fear in his head. If he didn’t make the team, he would be stuck in the lazy, constantly losing underclassman swim team for one more year. The moment he pushed off the wall, an almost primitive urge took over and the world outside was by the water ripping at his sides. His breath came in heavy gasps, and slowly his mind became clouded by the overpowering smell of chlorine and the sensation of his limbs hitting the water. The number 500 flashed behind his tightly closed eyes, but he didn’t register how lap each went by. He stopped intuitively when the whistle blew, crashing headfirst into the wall.
Gentry’s red hair blurred into view, and his voice followed soon after.“498.”

Because You Suck: Chapter 3: Part 2

Frustration and disappointment can make odd bedfellows!

Geronimo was pushing against his cage, thumping his feet on the wire bottom and jumping frantically against the wires. Gentry cast it an irritated glare and flipped open the cage door on his way to the couch.
The guinea pig emerged from his cage, but stopped suddenly before the threshold of the screen door. He then warily raised its head to sniff the air, watery black eyes wide open. Gentry threw his backpack onto the couch, glaring as the demented animal shuffled left, then right, almost out, then in again.
“What are you waiting for, dummy? Run.”
The animal jumped into the air once and fled out the open door, which Gentry closed with his foot. Stupid animal. At least now he was alone, the lofty sitting room was all his. The darkened halls, blue walls, the mahogany table and the drooping ferns. Gentry sat on the couch and opened a book, flipping through it aimlessly. He had hoped the present would trigger something. He wasn’t sure what, but hoped it would make them more than what they were… he wanted it to change things. Maybe Zach didn’t. Who cared? WHO?
“So you’re the one who always lets that beast escape.”
Gentry looked up suddenly, ”Carly?”
He surveyed glinting blackness of the other boy’s eyes, and, seeing nothing in their depths that hadn’t already been there, Gentry turned his attention to his book.
“How did you get in here? Through a window?” he asked listlessly.
“Your Dad let me in. I waited for you.” Carly stepped out from the dim shadows that hung over the den, ”I expected at least a greeting, considering I made you swim team captain.”
“You chose me because I’m the best.”
”You haven’t changed, Gentry.”
”You left for college a year ago, of course I didn’t change.”
Carly laughed and sat beside the redhead, “That’s not what I meant. You still don’t give a fuck about anyone or anything. Not me, not your pet, not even the swim team! But,” he pushed down the books in Gentry’s hands, ”that’s why I made you leader. You aren’t full of sentimental crap… sentimental attachments get in the way of good judgment.”
“I don’t feel like hearing you talk.” Gentry murmured, falling into an irritated silence.
“And I don’t feel like taking your attitude. Save it for your underclass Estonian bitch.”
“Shouldn’t you be in college or something?”
“I am in college.” Carly replied, ”I got invited to be a guest judge for tryouts.”
“And that’s worth traveling across the country for?”
“Of course. They love me here. It’s not like in college.”Gentry looked up at the former leader again. There was something about that once infallible pride that had been cut down, and it made him… sympathetic.

Because You Suck: Chapter 3: Part 1

“Did you see the tits on that freshman?”
“HELLA sweet. I sucked them off last night.”
Mike high-fived Ethan and they shared a grin.
Gentry slowly sipped his water. He concluded he could kill them if he had less homework and more time to plan. And motivation… senioritis could be so debilitating.
“Hey Gentry…”
“What?” red eyebrows arched in feigned interest.
“Where are you going to college next year?”
Gentry thought a while, then replied, “I’m not telling anyone.”
“Shit, man, why?” asked Sydney in disbelief.
“Everyone here just uses it to be elitist. It’s no one’s business.”
“What does elitist mean?”
Gentry just shook his head, “Forget it.” And gulped down as much water as his mouth could hold. It was his secret drinking game--- whenever Sydney, Mike, or Ethan said something fantastically stupid, he took a gulp of water.
“Gentry, who are you going with to prom with?”
“With whatever.”
“Whatever? Like, whatever you can find?”
“Yeah. Whatever I can find.”
“Be careful man.” Warned Sydney, “People are saying you’re gay and… haha no offense man, you do seem kind of gay.”
“Me? Gay?” Gentry took another gulp of water.
“Yeah man. Let me hook you up. I know this chick who--- hey isn’t that that fag from the sophomore swim team?”
Ethan and Mike looked up like prairie dogs, squinting their eyes. Gentry took a quick glance in the direction and, upon seeing Zach, quickly looked the other way.
These last few days, Gentry felt elated and light-headed as he toyed with the idea of having an actual boyfriend, not just a fuck buddy. He liked Zach. He liked him a lot.
“Yeah. It is. So?” asked Ethan, “Don’t make me lose my appetite haha.”
“Did you hear?” Sydney drawled, “They say he has a boyfriend now.”
The other boys leaned in, and Gentry rested his elbows on the table.
“A boyfriend?” he asked, his eyes shining but his voice completely even.
Sydney crossed his arms and coughed, flattered by the attention.
“Yeah,” he said, “He got this present in class. One of those expensive cookie gourmet things. Everyone’s saying it’s from a boyfriend.”
“But he threw it away, didn’t he?” asked Ethan, “Kylie told me she saw him throw it away…”
“He threw it away?” Gentry asked, lowering his shoulders as he sunk back into his chair.
“Yeah, apparently. Why do you care, huhhh?” Sydney teased him, “Are you a fag, too?”

Because You Suck: Chapter 2: Part 42

THANKS SO MUCH FOR EVERYONE'S COMMENTS ^__^! This is the end of chapter 2, which is (by far) the longest chapter in the entire series. The other ones will be WAY shorter (you'll be uber shocked ^^!)

“Lookie itsa cookie!”
Zach looked up, his sleep having been successfully disturbed by a moron pushing a little bag of gourmet cookies in his face. His dry lips were just starting to mouth a complaint when the moron perkily continued.
“It’s a cookie-gram! For you. From an admirer!”
Zach wordlessly took the cookies, remembering that he was in literature class, and he had fallen asleep. The moron proceeded to do the “Cookie Dance” out the door, as the deliverers of these stupid things had to do. Everyone in the class was staring at him. Finally, someone yelled,”Zach! Who’s is from?!”
Zach ignored him, looking at the neat package of cookies and the white, perfectly folded card attached to it, with the name ZACH perfectly spaced out. He didn’t have to guess who it was from. The note simply read,”Let’s have milk after school.”
Cute.
Zach shook his head and thought,”It’s a sick game you’re playing with me, Gentry. You can’t turn me on whenever you want.”
The moment the bell rang, he threw the present away.