High School Never Ends

Or: College Kind of Sucks, Too

Author's Note - Woot! A new story! This is a chaptered piece, with seven chapters planned out. I've written six of them, and I know exactly what's going to happen in the last chapter, so hopefully the postings will be fairly regular. Of course, I've got a new job and new classes, so I might be busier than usual. Anyway, a few things to note - this has two main characters, which means there are two different narrators. I've tried to make this easier to follow by putting the narrator's name is bold before their section. If it gets confusing, let me know, and I can try to find another way of making this obvious.
Here's a better description of the story:
Lance St. Marten and Mallory McQuaid are both taking the same Bioethics course, with the same boring teacher. Lance is 26, and taking classes in hopes to improve his job options. He's also looking for that special guy to spend the rest of his life with. Too bad the one guy who's got his attention is the straightest man he's ever met… and almost 6 years his junior. Mallory is 19, fresh out of high school and unwilling to leave her family for an out-of-state four-year college. She's not sure why she's even in Bioethics in the first place – all this stuff is way over her head. As the semester goes by, though, she makes connections with her classmates, and one in particular…
Enjoy...!

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CHAPTER ONE

Monday, First Class

Mallory

'Bioethics' was the name of my first ever college class, and it was every Monday from nine in the morning to noon. Mornings were easier because my mom left for work at seven, and she dropped me off at the Community College at eight. That meant, of course, that I was waiting for an hour in the building before my class started. Luckily, however, the classroom was open, so I could sit in there and work on my laptop while waiting for the other members of my class to show up. Someone was already there, though, sitting in the corner of the room, also working on a computer. He had coal-black hair, the color I'd always wanted, had attempted to fake using dye, but it had never worked. His hair was fairly short, and kind of curly. He also had scruffy five-o-clock shadow and the beginnings of a goatee. He wore a grey t-shirt that had "ARMY" written on it in black letters, but he was also wearing a hemp necklace and ripped jeans. I wonder if there was some sort of statement there, but I didn't bother asking him. Besides, I would rather be writing on my computer than embarrassing myself in front of my fellow students (though I had excelled at that very thing in high school, it was not an experience I cared to repeat).

Only, as I looked back on my computer, there was no blinking cursor at the end of my sentence-in-progress (which was, if you care to know Casey knew there was something seriously wrong with her brother, and she was). I wasn't sure what Casey was, and that's why I'd stopped. Except now I couldn't continue, because the screen was frozen. I tried to move the mouse, but it didn't move.

"Oh fuck," I said, and then covered my mouth, remembering that I wasn't alone in the classroom. But Army-shirt guy looked up from his computer.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, and the fact that he had a kind of raspy voice, deep and gravelly, would have made me go weak in the knees if I hadn't been sitting down. I have a thing for voices like that.

"Um, my computer just froze, and I was right in the middle of working on something… and I really didn't want to lose that," I told him. He looked concerned, and he closed his computer before standing up and walking over to see what was going on. He sat down next to me, and I could smell Old Spice on him, which didn't do much to make me feel less attracted to him.

"Did you try control-alt-delete?" he asked. I shook my head, and he reached over to press some buttons on my keyboard. Nothing happened.

"Hmm," he said, and took a seat next to me, "do you mind if I take a look?" he asked. I shook my head, because I didn't know anything about how to do anything with my computer, and if he knew what he was doing, then I wouldn't argue. He moved the computer in front of him and started looking it over. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I took out my notebook from my backpack and set it down on the desk. I didn't want to sit there and watch the Army-shirt guy, because I'd probably end up staring and that would be embarrassing. I opened to a new page in the notebook and took out my pen, writing today's date on the top.

"There we go," he said, sliding the computer back to me. My document was sitting right there, exactly the way it had been, and the screen wasn't frozen anymore.

"Thanks," I said, surprised that he'd managed to fix it. He smiled at me and damned if he didn't look even better.

"I'm Levon," he said, "like the Elton John song." He stuck out his hand. Well, that was an interesting name, not one I'd ever heard of. My mom was an Elton John fan, so I guess I'd have to ask her about the song.

"Mallory," I replied, shaking his hand, "how did you do that?" I asked, gesturing to the computer. Levon shrugged.

"I'm pretty good with computers, I guess," he said, "I like taking them apart and fixing them and everything."

"That must be hard," I said, still feeling kind of awkward in this conversation.

"Well, not really. Um, you know, if you like, I could give you my phone number in case you ever need help with it when you're at home or something," he said, "and it's free," he added the last part with a grin that reminded me of my little brother when he was trying to look innocent.

"Okay," I agreed, because really, my mom and I didn't know much about computers, so having someone available to help when something was wrong, worked out nicely for me. Especially because he was so damned cute. He took my pen and scrawled his phone number on the top of my notebook page.

"Thank you," I said again. He flashed me another grin.

"No problem," he replied, and stood up. He walked back to his desk as someone else walked in – a woman. She looked to be in her early thirties or so, with rich brown hair that she wore in a ponytail. She was a little heavyset, wearing a purple knitted sweater and khakis. She also had on a pair of glasses, the black emo-style glasses that seemed to be so popular to everyone. She sat down in the other corner of the room from Levon. The classroom had six two-person tables and it was arranged in a U-shape, with two desks making up each side. Then one desk with a podium on it was at the front of the room, where I assumed the teacher would sit. I was sitting at the desk nearest to the teacher's, though I'd chosen the seat at the far end of the desk. The brown-haired woman was sitting at the corner nearest to me, and Levon at the corner diagonal from me.

"How are y'all doin'?" the woman asked, with a slight Southern drawl that was mostly uncommon for living up north in Vermont.

"Pretty good, you?" Levon answered, opening his computer back up. He smiled at her and I wondered if that smile made her weak in the knees, too. The next person to walk in was another teenage boy, this one looking like the typical boy I'd had in my high school classes – baggy skater jeans, a baggy polo shirt, blue baseball cap on backwards, and brown hair that was almost too long. He slumped down into a seat near Levon and dropped his textbook and notebook on the table, slouching back into his chair. He kind of nodded at Levon, and I wondered if they knew each other, or if it was just a guy thing.

After him came another guy, this one a little older – my guess was that he was in his twenties. He had brownish-red hair, a goatee, and a black skull cap. He was wearing a pair of black cargo pants, army boots, and a camouflage shirt that fit him pretty tightly. And if I wasn't mistaken, when he walked by me, it almost looked like he was wearing eyeliner. He smiled at everyone before walking over and sitting down next to the brown-haired girl.

By this time, there were ten minutes to nine, and the man I took to be the teacher walked in. He was definitely older, and going bald and had one of those potbellies that older men tend to have. He wore a bright red shirt, long-sleeved shirt with black pressed pants, as well as a pair of horn rimmed glasses. He also had really bushy eyebrows, kind of like my grandfather. He looked around at everyone and put his things down at the podium. He looked down at his papers and then up at the clock. I decided to shut my computer down, and I slipped it into my backpack.

Just as the minute hand reached the twelve, and it became nine o'clock, the teacher cleared his throat and took out his attendance list.

"Bayer, Virginia," he said in a monotone. This was going to be a boring class if he was going to talk like that all the time. The brunette woman raised her hand.

"I prefer Ginny," she told him, and he wrote something down on the paper.

"Corey, Levon," he said, but pronounced the name like "La-VAUGHN" instead of "LEE-von", like Levon had said it. Levon corrected the professor on his name and the teacher once again wrote something down on his sheet.

"McQuaid, Mallory," he called, and I raised my hand. He wrote on his sheet again.

"Parker, Wesley," he called. No one answered and he marked something else on his sheet.

"St. Marten, Lance," turned out to be the guy in the camo shirt. Before the teacher could call the next name, someone opened the door and walked in. He was well over six feet tall, and thin, with white blond hair that was a little bit shorter than the baseball-capped boy. He dressed in jeans and a baggy t-shirt, a black backpack slung over his shoulder. He sat next to the baseball-capped boy and they exchanged nods.

"And you are...?" the teacher asked.

"Oh, uh, Wes Parker," he answered in a low voice. The teacher nodded and wrote something down on his paper again.

"Watts, Collin," ended up being the last guy, with the baseball cap. He finished the attendance and put that sheet away. He took his glasses off and wiped them off.

"Welcome to Bioethics. I am Martin Fitzgerald," he said. He put his glasses back on. "I am going to say right up front that this is not going to be a 'fluff' course. Most of it is discussion based, and chances are you aren't going to agree with some of what the other students have to say, and that's okay. What is important is that you learn to argue effectively and politely. It's also important to understand both sides of the issues that we're going to discuss," he continued to describe what the class was going to entail, still speaking in a monotone. I felt like I could fall asleep just listening to him.

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Lance

"As a way to start the class, I would like everyone to go around, say their name, a little bit about themselves and why you're taking this class, and maybe why you're here at the community college," Mr. Fitzgerald said. God, that monotone was so boring. I was much more interested in the sights in the classroom... like Sexy in the Baseball cap over there. What had his name been... Collin? Damned if I wasn't half hard just looking at him.

"Mallory, why don't you start?" Fitzgerald said. Mallory must be the redhead. She was kind of young looking, with pale skin, but no freckles, like one would expect a girl with bright red hair and an Irish-sounding name like hers. She did have small features, a small nose, small hands, and if her hair had been curly instead of straight, her face would have been covered. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a green, flannel men's shirt. She was pretty, I guess, if you're into girls - or redheads for that matter. She was blushing as she began to speak.

"I'm Mallory," she said, "I'm 19 years old, and I just graduated from high school. I, uh, I live with my mom, my little sister and little brother," she said, her blush subsiding as she continued to speak, "I'm taking classes at the community college because it's close to home and I'm not ready to move out of my house just yet. Um, I'm taking this class because it sounds interesting I guess, and the course description said we'd be talking about stem cell research, which is a topic that's kind of important to me." She finished speaking and looked down at her hands folded on the table. It was clear that she was nervous about speaking in front of people, which I could understand. I had been like that when I was in high school. The woman next to me leaned forward to speak.

"I'm Virginia, but everyone calls me Ginny," she said, her voice a slow southern drawl, "I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but I'm sure you can figure that I'm probably older than most of you here," she smiled at this and continued, "I'm a single mother to a ten-year-old boy in the fifth grade. I'm taking classes at the college because I never had a chance to go to college, and I'd like to eventually become a nurse. I'm in this class for the same reason as Mallory, really, because it sounds interesting to me." She sat back. Fitzgerald nodded and then looked at me.

"Call me Lance," I said, flashing a smile at everyone. Sexy Baseball Cap looked at me, but didn't smile or anything. "I am twenty-six, and, similar to Ginny over here, didn't have a chance to go to college. Actually, that's a bit of a lie. I didn't want to go to college," I said, with a self-depreciating grin, "I decided to come back and give it another shot. I'm sick of working at the local grocery store and making a little more than minimum wage. I'm thinking of a career in education, but I'm still not sure," I said, shrugging. Finished, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for the next person.

"Okay, um, I'm Levon, like the Elton John song," the guy in the army t-shirt said. He wasn't so bad looking either, but too scruffy. I preferred my men to be clean shaven - not that I'd had many of them. "Well, I'm an army brat, I guess you could say. My dad's just recently retired as a Colonel in the military, and we've stopped moving around. I love computers, so I guess I'm kind of a computer nerd, but in case anyone here ever needs help with their computers they can call me," he said, "um, I'm here for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else. The class sounded interesting... I'm here at the college so I didn't have to quit my job for now..." he trailed off and shrugged. It was Sexy Baseball Cap guy's turn.

"Collin," he said, "I'm 18," and I thought oh, way to go, Lance, lusting over a guy 6 years younger than you, but I listened to him continue, "I graduated from high school last summer and now I'm here, I guess. There's not much to say... I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain..." he said, a grin quirking up the corners of his mouth. The rest of us laughed at that. He seemed to be finished speaking, and it was left to the last guy, the tall blond who'd arrived late.

"I'm Wes, and I'm 21. I play basketball, I live with my two dads," he said, shrugging. When he used the plural of the word "dad", everyone looked at him, and Wes nodded, "yeah, my dad's are gay. I don't really care, I guess. Actually, that's part of the reason I signed up for this class. It said we were gonna talk about homosexuality and stuff, and maybe that'll help me know more stuff about them," Wes said, shrugging. Having finished up the introductions, Fitzgerald straightened his papers, wiped his glasses off, and cleared his throat before he began to speak.

"Today, we're going to talk about the meaning of Bioethics, and how it relates to the topics we'll speak about in the rest of the class," he said, "and before we being, I'd like to pass out this sheet on the topics we'll be discussing." He handed a stack of papers to Mallory, and she passed them down and everyone passed them around. I looked down at the list:

Euthanasia

Animal Research

Homosexuality

Stem Cell Research

Cloning

Abortion

Well, this was going to be one controversial class, wasn't it?

"While we're taking a look at this, I want you to keep in mind that each one of you is going to do a project on one of these topics, and luckily, there is enough topics so that each person will do a separate one, and we won't have any repeats," Fitzgerald said, "I want you to be thinking about your topics and next week, everyone will choose," he added. For another hour or so, Fitzgerald attempted to explain what Bioethics was, and I kind of jotted stuff down in my notebook, not really sure what he meant by any of it... and all I really had written down was that "bioethics is the study of moral and ethical questions involved in applying new biological and medical findings", whatever the hell that meant.

"Well, before we get into what these topics have to do with Bioethics, why don't you all take a fifteen minute break? Come back at 10:30," Fitzgerald said. Everyone got up and left the room, except for Mallory. I made a stop at the bathroom and then to the vending machine. The rest of the class must have gone outside to smoke or something, which didn't surprise me. If Collin smoked, maybe that would turn me off to him (because smoking is a big turn-off for me) and I wouldn't be going through the semester with a hard-on most of the time. I went back into the classroom with a small bag of chips and a soda, from the vending machine, and sat down to eat them. Mallory was still in the classroom, flipping her pen around and staring, in a bored manner, at her open notebook in front of her.

"So, what do you think about this class?" I asked her. Mallory looked startled that I'd spoken to her, and she dropped her pencil onto her notebook. She blushed again, and I wondered if she was going to get embarrassed every time someone talked to her.

"Well, it's, uh, interesting I guess," she said, finally daring to look up at me. She shrugged, "I just hope it's not going to be this boring for the whole semester," she added, and I laughed.

"I'm with you on that one," I replied, "professor's kind of a bore, eh?" She giggled a little, but nodded. She seemed to be a little less nervous now, which I took as a good sign.

"Do you like working with kids, is that why you're thinking of going into education?" she asked me. I shrugged. At the same time, though, Collin walked back in the room and slouched into his seat. I tried not to stare at him as I answered Mallory's question. It was kind of hard with him right over there, but at least he didn't smell like smoke or anything (not that he was really close enough for me to smell smoke if he did).

"I guess so," I replied, "I don't really have any idea of what I want to do, and education always kind of seemed like a sure bet." As I was speaking, Levon and Ginny walked back into the room and sat down at their desks.

"Yeah, except teachers don't make a lot of money," Collin replied, leaning forward a little bit, "you want to make money, you should go into communications - like advertising and stuff," he said, "that's what I'm gonna do." From where he was sitting, Levon shook his head.

"Actually, anything to do with computers - designing them, fixing them, creating programs for them... especially in this technology age, that's where the real money is," Levon said, "that, or the military. You can retire young and pretty rich," he added as an afterthought.

"I don't think they'd let me in the military," I said with a grin, "and I can't do anything on computers to save my life... well, I know how to work the internet and type up documents, but that's it," I added.

"They'll let pretty much anyone into the military," Levon said, "if not on the front lines, then doing other stuff." He shrugged.

"Have you heard of a little something called 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'?" I asked, "I am notorious for not being able to keep my mouth shut," I added.

"Yeah, but that's only if you're...oh." Levon replied, finally understanding what I was talking about. I nodded, waiting for what kind of response would come from them. No one seemed to have anything to say, so I took that as a good sign.

"If you really want to be rich, you have to be an actor, a musician, sports star, or author," Ginny said.

"Yeah, it's crazy how someone who entertains us is paid more than someone who teaches our kids," Collin said, nodding. Fitzgerald walked back in and started shuffling through his papers. The clock said that it was 10:30, but Wes wasn't back yet.

"Okay, let's start with the top of the list," he said, "Can anyone explain to me what Bioethics has to do with Euthanasia?" Collin raised his hand.

"You don't have to do that," Fitzgerald said, kind of shaking his head, "you don't have to raise your hand. Go ahead and talk, just try not to interrupt each other." Collin nodded and lowered his hand. Wes walked in at this moment, and Fitzgerald looked at him. Wes didn't seem to notice and slid into his seat next to Collin. Apparently being late was a regular occurrence for him.

"Well, if I think I'm right, then Euthanasia is like physician assisted suicide, right?" he asked. Fitzgerald nodded. "Okay, well, I guess it relates because of the medical thing... if there isn't a way for someone to continue their life the way they want to - for example if someone was going to end up as a vegetable, and they wanted to end their life with dignity, they might choose to have someone help them end their life," Collin said before leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. Next to me, Ginny leaned forward, as though she wanted to speak.

"That would assume that the person has that kind of control over their own body. Christianity and Catholicism, among other religions, say that the body doesn't really belong to the person, it belongs to the God. So they don't really have the right to decide when to die," she said.

"So how does the government decide whether a person has a right to their own life and when to end it?" Fitzgerald asked. Everyone seemed to exchange looks at each other before anyone spoke.

I didn't really have an opinion on Euthanasia, I guess because I didn't really understand it, so I kind of listened, but without really listening.

Then Fitzgerald started talking about Animal Research, which really got Levon going, and he made a fist with his hand, and his muscles were moving in his arms. I guess some people just really got into things.

"If it's not right to do research of that type on people, why should we be able to do it on animals?" he asked, and Fitzgerald seemed to smile a little bit.

"And there is the question, isn't it?" he asked, "And it depends on our definition of life, does it not?"

"Animals are living just as well as we are!" Levon argued, and I saw his jaw moving as though he was clenching it.

"Some people would argue with you," Wes said, his calm demeanor quite a difference from Levon's passion about the topic. I could understand where Levon was coming from, but I didn't feel as strongly as he did.

"Well I don't see how they could," Levon said, narrowing his eyes at Wes, as though it was Wes's fault.

"Some people, and I'm not saying that it's me in particular," Wes said, smiling a little bit, "but some people would say that, because animals don't talk, we can do research on them, and it's morally acceptable."

"Ah! And that's the word we're talking about!" Fitzgerald exclaimed, and everyone looked at Wes and trying to go over what he'd said and the word that Fitzgerald was looking for.

"Acceptable?" Collin asked, looking amused. The half-smirk smile that he had on his face did nothing to quell the slight hard-on that I still had.

"Are you talking about 'morally'?" Mallory asked softly, "people's morals affect how they feel about certain controversial topics," she said, looking up at Fitzgerald as though she expected to hear that she was wrong.

"That would be correct... Molly?" he said, totally getting her name wrong. I guess since it was the first class, we could forgive him.

"Mallory," she corrected, turning red. She looked down at her notebook and was silent.

"What Mallory said was correct. Morals affect their stance on everything in the environment," Fitzgerald explained, "now who can tell me what affects someone morals?" he asked. Blah, blah blah. I rested my head in my hands and just kind of listened, without really listening... I mean, seriously, this was a lot more boring than I was expecting it to be. I was really waiting for us to get into talking about cloning and stuff. Okay, homosexuality would be interesting, too, but I didn't really think that there was anything for me to know about being gay that I didn't already know. I mean, hello, how much more can you know than someone who already is gay? The only thing I did want to see was what everyone else thought about homosexuality. Or, more specifically, what Collin thought. I doubted that he himself was gay, but there was always a chance...

"How does homosexuality come from someone's morals or ethics?" Fitzgerald asked, and I sort of sat up, looking around.

"Some people think that being gay is something that you choose," Collin said, still leaning back in his chair. The way he spoke didn't give me an impression about whether he agreed with those "some people" or not.

"That's fucking stupid," Wes said, leaning forward. Now he was showing emotion, which I found interesting. I remembered what he said earlier, about his fathers being gay, so perhaps that was where the passion came from.

"People don't choose to be gay. It's, like, inborn or whatever, but it's not a fucking choice," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, looking incredibly hostile. You know that whole "you're really pretty when you're angry" thing that guys always say to the girls in the movie? Wes definitely looked kind of hot, but I don't think he was quite as sexy as Collin in the baseball cap. Though I shouldn't have even been thinking about that, because both of them were quite a few years younger than me, and probably not gay.

"I agree with Wes," I said, "if I'd had a choice, why the hell would I choose to be gay? There's so much persecution and stereotypes against being gay," I said. Wes looked over at me, surprised. I remembered that he hadn't been in the room the first time when I'd said that I was gay.

"And that stupid thing about how gay parents will raise gay children," Wes said, "I know for a fact that neither of my dads have parents that are gay, but they both ended up gay. It's flawed logic," he added. I nodded, but didn't say anything to add to what he'd said, because he'd said what I was thinking, too.

"I understand that the two of you have very strong opinions about this, and I can understand that, but you need to calm down. Wesley, you need to watch your language when you're speaking, please," Fitzgerald said. Wes rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. I wanted to argue that it wasn't fair – after all, he hadn't spoken to Levon about the way he'd talked about animal research, and he'd been just as angered as Wes and I had been. Whatever, it wasn't worth pissing off the teacher.

"That's about all the time we have for today," Fitzgerald said, "for next class, read chapter one in the textbook, and decide which of the topics you're going to do your final project on." Everyone started packing their things up and getting up from their seats. "And Wesley, please try to be on time next week." Wes rolled his eyes but nodded. I left the room, wondering if I wanted to bother stopping to pick up something for lunch, or if I wanted to go home and scrounge something from the leftovers I had.

"Hey, uh, Lance?" I was already pushing open the doors to the building and stepping out when someone calling my name stopped me. I went the rest of the way through the doors and turned around, holding them out for Wes, who had apparently been the one to speak to me. He came through the doors and I let them close.

"Yes?" I asked, because my stomach was growling, and I kind of wanted to be on my way so that I could get some food.

"I just wondered, uh, I know this is a weird question and you don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable, but I was wondering when you knew you were gay. Like, how did you know you weren't attracted to girls or whatever?" he asked. We moved out of the doorway because other people were coming through, and I kind of gestured for him to walk with me to my car and he did.

"It was in junior high," I said. We reached the car and I unlocked the doors, before turning back around to face Wes. "All of my friends were always talking about how hot Jasmine Phelps was, and I was thinking the same thing about her brother, Jarrod." I smirked a little at the memory. Jarrod had been gorgeous, that much was for certain. He had these intense blue eyes, dirty blond hair, and even at thirteen, he'd been tall and broad shouldered. Man, just thinking about it now made me go all tingly.

"But you knew you liked guys… right?" he asked, and I wondered why he even cared. I nodded. "But did you ever like, date a girl, just to see if maybe you weren't totally gay?" he asked. Okay, seriously, what the hell did he want?

"I don't see how this is any of your business," I said coldly, and opened the drivers' side door to my car, "I have to go now." I got into the car and turned it on. I closed the door and Wes stood there for a minute before I saw him walk in the opposite direction, to a black Jeep. Whatever the hell that had been, it was done now, and I pulled out of the parking lot, ready to go home and feed my still-growling stomach.

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Author's Note - anything you liked/didn't like?