New A/N: I decided to post it because I would love feedback.I may or may not update it.

May 21, 2005

Human By Nature

Chapter One

"The guy can charm anyone," Camry said, "he really should be on the debate team this year."

I settled next to him on his bed and pulled the green sheets over my bare legs. The fabric was the thin linen Camry preferred and I don't know why I even know this. I held the fabric up to the light to gauge the thickness and traced the stitching along the seams.

"Leigh, do you think I should put him on the team?"

I dropped my hands to my knees and pulled them close. Each time he asked I hated having to answer, I wished I could just say I disliked the feeling, but he would say which one; I would have no voice for that.

"You should know I don't like advising you on stuff like this, " I said, feeling as much like a idiot as I sounded.

He raised an eye toward me and scooted closer beneath the sheets. I slid from the bed and slouched in his swivel chair like one of my brothers wooden string puppets. The feeling I had in my chest, like a dull, continuous popping kept on for a minute then I spoke.

"Sorry, Cam just I don't like the questions you know?" I said.

"More like you don't like me, Leigh" He said standing up. "The only damn reason I asked you over was to talk about the team, it may not be your biggest priority, but if I want us to go to nationals this year, it sure as hell is mine."

I caught myself before I said anything exceptionally responsive and just stared over at him for a minute. His eyes latched on to mine, and I turned away.. I felt like crying myself and sure must have looked like it because he stopped staring me down at some point and left his room. I went first for my pants to put on then headed for the door.

'Funny,' I thought, 'Captain of the Speech team and Water polo team and he was still less emotionally stable than I was, how does he stop from crying after a loss.' Sure enough, I felt bad for even thinking it; I knew everyone of his secrets so it didn't go that way at all. His parents were divorced five years ago when he was ten and his mom remarried two years later, he tells me all the time how great the guy is, and his mom just hit the million mark on her salary. Thats all anyone else knows or need to know as far as he's concerned. I can't help but feel a certain amount of power over him, a compelling sway my voice possesses with him alone.

"I'm so not an 'asshole' Cam, what in the world did I do anyway?" I said from my place across him in the library.

The book room was mainly my favorite place, not so much his, he would have rather been berating me with deprecations in the hallway than whispering profanities in the historical fiction section. He was angrier than last spring when I managed to cost us the city wide trophy for our chess team. I nearly rolled my eyes in exasperation at how livid one stupid conversation had made him.

"I'm sorry if I did anything, but I don't see why you can't just tell me now so I'll know."

Cam tore out a book from the shelf "Every Once In Twilight" by George Overhall. It had a memorizing cover picture of a ray light catching the black hair of a girl. I couldn't help but see the thinness of her face and the glint of a valley in her eyes. I might want to read that book sometime. If Cam would let me away alive, I mean.

"Lets get to English class," he said returning the book, "Ms. Mallory's going to strip points off our totals if we're late this time"

We walked out the door waving over our shoulder at the librarian and turned the first corner toward the G-Wing. I shrugged through the crowd to keep up with him and couldn't help but think he was trying to shrug through the crowd to lose me. I just ignored the possibility that he wanted away and hurried with him to the end of the hall, room G405. Interestingly enough, I've never seen a G404 or G1 for that matter. Cam opened the door and held it for a second for me to catch up. We both slipped into the room and sat in our third row seats just as the bell rang, and Ms. Mallory locked the door for any tardy students.

The woman pulled her pink, knitted sweater over her belt and turned to the class for morning announcements, and I turned away from her droning to start my math homework, of course. I had to do twenty problems before second period, Ms. Mallory wouldn't notice me, and the work she assigned was hardly worth more than ten minutes. It was pretty much me and Precalculus. I had worked through five problems before we were told to separate into groups of three. I sighed, group work was the surest way to inhibit progress on anything, including the group work itself.

Matt and Cam would be my partners, of course, pretty much the same every time. I turned my desk to my right toward Matt's desk and whispered a greeting. He clapped me on the shoulder and immediately started talking about our topic for the project: Homosexuality. Oh, what joyful fun.

"Matt, did you have to choose such a bothersome topic?" I said. "We need five extensive student interviews."

"No worries," he said " That's why we have the GSA"

I felt like boiling over. Any other subject and we could have an excuse to go to Los Alamos and question some physicists, but instead we get to spend a few Thursdays in the 'Hall of Toleration' on the other side of campus. Once again, what joyful fun.

"Hey Cam, what do you think about the topic?" I said.

"Don't you think," Matt said, "its one of those subjects everyone should really know about?"

I looked toward Camry expectantly; it wasn't too late to change projects yet.

"I have to agree with Leigh on this one," he said. "A project on cloning or something would be slightly less awkward."

When this was said, my face probably shone with relief. There remained three unchosen subjects on the front board to choose from. I raised my hand to attract Ms. Mallory's attention and found Matt's gaze resting on me. Guaranteed guilt trip.

"Why not keep what we have now," he said. "You're acting kinda like a jerk."

"I suppose one could say that," I replied, "except for the fact that no one in the class would pick that subject anyway."

To which he answered and most heatedly, "Maybe there's another reason you don't like the subject."

There was one really important reason why Cam and I were Matt's best friends, besides how great of a guy he is, mainly because he was the most 'popular' student at Hounder High. He need only speak his mind to entreat the entire student body against a person. I felt my determination against the topic drain away. What would he do to us to make us do the topic? And just how important was it to him?

"Frankly, I'm just more interested in science" I broke in. "If you want to do a report on this, then lets get started."

Matt laughed lightly and Cam shook his head, and me? I sighed in relief. We took it seriously from there and began sketching out what we would do first. By the end of the period, we had an ordered list of twelve things and a very rough outline of the written portion of the project. As the bell for break rang, we gathered our packs and headed for our next class together, journalism.

We sat at our round table with two other students, Kyle and Whitney. Kyle was the Chief Editor and Whitney the Co-editor. I was the next important officer after those two, and Cam, even though he only joined to have another class with me, was lead photographer. As for Matt, he was in charge of the newspapers formatting and outlining. The entire period was pretty much ours to use, the teacher suggested certain topics, but we were pretty much left to discuss the next issue on our own. In short, we did nothing but think about the five hundred point project in English class that was equivalent to our final.

"Hey, Kyle, have you chosen your subject for the English project yet?" Matt asked. "We got the best."

At this point, a thin smile appeared on Matt's face, and realization must have spread across mine. I had completely forgotten that Kyle was the Co-President of the GSA with Elise Kenton.

"You're not," I started.

"Hold on, what project are you talking about?" interrupted Whitney, "Ms. Kemmer hasn't assigned anything for us yet."

"It's Ms. Mallory, but both classes will do it eventually," Cam offered.

"Yeah, and guess what our topic is, Kyle," Matt said. " We have homosexuality and how it affects today's youth"

The chief's face went red and he burst a bulb with uncontrolled laughter that drew every eye in the room.

"So should I help you?" he said leaning back in his chair and drawing his arm over his eyes. "I might as well choose the same topic and we'll do it together. Sound good to you Matt?"

Notoriously nice where Elise was infamously caustic, he offered to help. I know I wouldn't have, even if I was Matt's friend. With that said, it went over relatively easy; the rest of the period we brainstormed ideas for the media portion of the project and set Tuesday as the first meeting for the project. Kyle, with Whitney and Kalvin, was going to work on their project for Ms. Kemmer, negating any chance of complaint over similarities.