LUCAS

I closed the door of the car too strongly, but Atticus was behaving like a jerk and I couldn't bear him anymore. Fenix did not have that confident attitude of before. His shoulders were down and his attitude was more shy and silent than before.

"I said something wrong. I didn't want to offend Atticus, I was reserving my twilight joke for when there is more confidence" he said, trying to pretend confidence.

"No, this has nothing to do with us. They have their own business without resolving."

“I guessed something like that, they have a lot of unresolved sexual tension.”

"Thanks, I was starting to think that I was the only one who noticed it. But it's their shift to fix. We're going to eat something while they speak.”

We went into the hamburger joint where the cashier didn’t stop following me with the look, maybe I should have gone for sneakers to home. But that wasn’t a proposal that Rosemary would have accepted.

"Do you know we have a dress code?" he said with a cocky smile. "But I can make an exception for a handsome guy like you." He winked at me.

I smiled at him back. He was a hot guy with some sexy tattoos on his arms and long black hair. He reminded me of an old rocker.

We keep flirting while ordering. His insinuations weren’t very discreet. It’s hard to find other gay people around to flirt so openly. I was enjoying it.

I bought a normal burger with cheese and Fenix ordered a triple maximum burger with french fries. The guy approached me with the receipt. He rested his elbows on the counter and I did the same making sure my biceps showed. If you work out hard five times a week, you want it to be noticed. Only a part of my good physical shape was due to the shapeshifter genetics.

"Your order will be in ten minutes. But I wasn't joking about the dress code. If you wait outside before my boss sees you, I’ll appreciate it," he winked at me again.

Fenix and I left the restaurant and we leaned against the wall next to the door. I looked at Fenix who looked down with a dull expression. I was so focused on the hot guy that I hadn’t noticed but he had that expression since we entered the joint. I thought about asking him but he took his phone and started to scroll.

I decided to do the same. He didn’t look in the mood for a conversation and our relationship was weird enough without trying to know what was inside his head.

I touched my pockets searching for a smartphone that wasn’t there. I remembered that my father took it off as part of my punishment and also of my followers who won't have updates for a time.

Suddenly, Fenix frowned his brow and kicked the air. "Shit" he yelled.

"What happened?" I asked.

"As I didn't pick up the phone, my dad went to the police. And your father told him that we had broken some books in the library and that we're now helping to clean up."

"What, really?"

"Yes, I'll be grounded until college," he sighed and laid against the wall.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why do you apologize? It isn't your fault."

Maybe it wasn't my fault, but it was my dad’s and it made me feel guilty. He had become so square since my mom abandoned us.

The hot cashier shouted our number before I could think about what to say to Fenix. I looked inside and saw a man with a tag that said 'Manager'.

"Don't worry, I'm going," Fenix said, touching my shoulder and entering the joint.

After a while, he went back with two paper bags and three smoothies. I took some things off him so he could walk comfortably. He seemed more down than before, even a little upset.

"Are you okay?"

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"Yes, I am. By the way." He gave me a napkin, "from the guy at the counter." I looked at him and he avoided my eyes. Just how our relationship had been for a while.

I looked at the napkin which was a number, an Instagram, and a name, Marcus. I noticed that Fenix had continued walking without saying anything. His attitude brought back fears of my past. Fears that I thought I had overcome.

We approached the car in silence and saw Atticus moving at the back part of the car with Rosemary. I touched Fenix's shoulder and indicated to go to a table at the side of the burger joint. I could take the opportunity to talk with him. We sat down and started to eat our hamburgers.

"Fenix, I want to ask you something and I need you to be sincere," I said.

"Of course," he answered, looking at his hamburger.

"Do you have some problem with me being gay?"

He stopped to eat and looked at me with open eyes. "No, why do you think this?"

I looked down. "The birthday party of Sam Hudson in third grade."

Shortly after coming out, there was a boy, Chad, who always made fun of me because of my stuttering and gayness. As Fenix was my friend he made fun of us saying that we were a couple. Fenix said that it didn't bother him. But at Sam's party, Chad was especially cruel. This day was so nervous that I had my first change into a bear. And Fenix got into a fistfight with Chad.

Initially, I thought he had lost control because of Chad's insults, like me but in his own way. However, from that moment he stopped staying to play or come to my house. He only spoke with me in school, and ever there he was distant.

"Did I say something wrong at that party? I'm sorry, I don't have a problem with gayness ..."

"I'm speaking about the fight and from that moment you stopped hanging out with me."

I gained self-confidence over time. But, nine-years-old Lucas had suffered a lot losing a friend for coming out of the closet. If I hated him, this would be easier. But I didn't hate him and for this, it hurt me so much.

"The fight wasn’t because of that. You were shapeshifting in the bathroom," he said with a doubtful expression.

"Wait, did you know?"

"Yes, your spirit was on the surface when you went to the bathroom and I heard the first roar after a while. Chad was searching for you and I didn't have a better idea to distract him," he said while his leg was shaking like when we were kids and he was nervous.

"Then why did you become distant?"

"Do you remember what happened after?" I shook my head, I don't remember anything after the transformation, first shifting was hard. "Sam's parents called our homes, your father came for you and my grandmother came for me. She saw both of you and she was really angry to not say anything about you being a shapeshifter."

We both stayed silent, I didn't know what to say.

"However," he carried on, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry so much. Although my grandmother didn't want to, I shouldn't have been a jerk with you. There is nothing bad with you being a werebear."

"I understand that for normal people this is hard, it was for my mother. I'm not angry with you," I said with sadness in my voice.

He had been a good friend for a long time, and although he had become distant since the party, he tried to support me when my mother abandoned us.

He came to my house several times in that dark period, with food and good handles for my baby brothers. Everyone expected that I would take care of them when my father was working double time but I was incapable, my mother abandoned us because of me. I had enough of dealing with my own feelings to help my brother with theirs.

Without Fenix, I couldn’t do it. It was the main reason why I didn’t hate them after several months without speaking to me. He reappeared to help when I needed him. At that moment, I thought that he was an old friend who felt pity for me. But, after all the revelations of the day, it was clear that our friendship hadn’t finished because of him.

I really couldn't blame him for obeying his grandmother at the age of nine. Although that was painful when I was young, I really wanted to move on. I deserved it and he deserved it.

He looked at me with his big brown eyes. "Can we be friends again?"

"Of course," I smiled and hugged him, the truth I did without thinking. But I didn’t regret it.

"Thank you, It's good to see that you're still the same," he looked away when we ended the hug

"Why change the perfection?" I said and we both laughed.

As we finished the food, we lay down on the table. Each to one side. We were in silence for a while, only looking at the stars.

"Lucas, I wanna tell you something that I don't tell anyone besides my grandmother. Now, that we're friends again, I wanna tell you more than anyone. Well, there are a lot of things I wanna tell you now that I have someone from whom I don’t have to hide anything but this is like something that I need to get off my chest." I nodded. He took a big breath of air. "I think I'm bi, well, I'm really sure I'm bi."

"Cool! Finally an LGTBI friend," I said very happily, lifting my back and looking at his red face. I know how hard it may be coming out of the closet and I wanted him to feel supported, besides I couldn't say that he trusting me in that way made me very happy.

"Thank you, I was scared about this," he said with a smile.

"I know that it can be hard, but I'm sure that your parents will support you. And I'm here for whatever you need."

"You're at the best," he said trying to hide the worry in his voice.

I didn't want the mood to decay. I raised my back slightly, enough to see his face. "Well, it's high time we started with the important conversation, the crushes. Imagine that we are into the same guy, this has to speak now for security," I said half-joking.

I was wishing for something like that in my life. Atticus is my bro but we didn't play in the same field making the conversations about the juice thing extremely awkward for the two of us.

He made a face of concentration like he was analyzing something. "Lucas look," he pointed behind me.

I looked back and saw bolts of lightning, a lot of them over our high school. Well over not, because they seemed to go from earth to heaven. We both looked at one another and then ran full speed to the car.