Jasper’s POV

My eyes slowly opened as the pain in my head increased a hundred fold and my stomach flipped unhappily. Why the hell had I drank so much the night before? It had been a long time since I’ve been this hungover.

I groaned and blinked at the time on the alarm clock beside my bed. Six o’clock. Definitely time to get up no matter how much I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. I knew that if I didn’t get up now, I wouldn’t get up at all and I still had some work to get done for my classes tomorrow.

I dragged myself out of bed and realized I was stripped down to my boxers. Thinking hard I half remembered someone undressing me and getting me into bed. I figured it must’ve been Sam since James would’ve just left me dressed and done something horrible to me so he could take pictures to blackmail me with.

I stumbled down the stairs and almost tripped over an empty beer bottle. Frowning I peered around me, there were empty bottles everywhere and the door to the beer fridge stood open empty. I knew that we hadn’t brought the party home with us last night and stood for a while trying to figure out how this had happened.

Since nothing I thought of made sense, I walked away from the spot where I had almost tripped and took a better look around the apartment. No one was around. I found that Luther’s room was empty as well but had a couple bags on the floor which meant that Kyle was probably around. Running a hand through my hair, I walked over to the balcony door and practically fell over from the shock of what I saw.

I opened the door and rushed over to Sam’s side. He was crumpled up into a ball on the couch, head in one hand while a beer bottle dangled out of the other hand. It was the look on his face that had me filled with fear. He had obviously been crying and had this broken and tragic look that I’ve never seen before.

“Sam? What happened?” I asked quietly as I pulled him to me in a hug.

He pulled out of my arms and looked at me with empty eyes and said, “Dan’s dead.”

I looked at him in shock for a moment unable to process what he had said.

“W-What?”

“He’s dead Jas. He’s dead. Dan’s dead.” Sam said looking at me.

Sam threw himself at me and started sobbing uncontrollably into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close. Tears formed in my own eyes as I looked down at my best friend mourning the loss of his first lover.

After Sam finally stopped crying and I was able to get him to lie down on the couch to sleep, I quietly got up and walked into the apartment to find my phone.

I ran through my contacts until I found Luther’s name. I texted him telling him to come home. I then phoned James.

“Get over here now.” I said after James’ greeting.

“What? Why?” James asked me.

“It’s Sam. Dan died.” I told him quietly, hearing a ‘fuck’ and the sound of the phone disconnecting.

People always ask why James isn’t one of our roommates. I always have a bit of difficulty explaining, especially to those who we don’t know very well. We don’t like talking about it. We had originally planned that James, Sam and I would get a place together but then James met Steve. Sam and I hated Steve, he was cruel and controlling. Steve was always rude to Sam and I and made James feel guilty when he spent time with us. When it was time for us to move into our apartment, Steve talked James into moving in with him instead of us. Unable to talk James out of it, we asked Luther if he wanted to move in. Six months later, Steve stepped over the line and hit James. Sam found out even though James had tried to hide it and literally kidnapped James and locked him in a closet. Sam called me. Together, we moved all of James’ stuff out of Steve’s place and then spent the next couple week with James constantly so that he couldn’t go back to Steve. After nights of long arguments, tears and shouting, James finally agreed that he couldn’t go back to Steve. James roomed with me until the next semester started then decided to move into the school dorms. Sam and I let him because we knew he needed to be on his own, without us, for a while. James met Carl and they became friends. They decided to stay in the dorms and they’ve been sharing a room ever since. At first I was worried that James was jumping into a relationship with Carl but it’s not like that. Carl cares about my brother and James cares about Carl but it’s a deep friendship only. Carl understands James’ situation more than Sam and I ever could and they are good for each other so Sam and I are happy.

Less than ten minutes after I had called him, James came bursting into the apartment.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“Shh. I finally got him calmed down a bit. He’s asleep out on the balcony.” I told James, “Jam, it’s bad. I don’t know when he found out but by the time I woke up, he had drank every drop of alcohol in the apartment.”

“Shit,” James muttered, “Did you get any information about what happened out of him?”

“No. He wouldn’t say anything other than ‘he’s dead’ or ‘Dan’s dead’. I figured I’d wait until you were here to call Mark. Mark still doesn’t really like me and I don’t want to upset him more than necessary. You’ll have to make the call.” I said to James.

“Yeah, okay.” James said opening his cell phone.

I listened to the first little bit of James’ conversation with Dan’s partner. Luther and Kyle came home shortly after James started talking to Mark so I quietly explained the situation to them. The three of us ended up sitting quietly as James’ finished up the phone call.

Turning to us he asked, “Did any of you know that Dan was positive?”

I looked around at the shocked faces around me, it seemed none of us had known.

“Do you think Sam knew?” I asked.

“Mark says that Dan was always afraid to tell Sam, that he was ashamed. Dan was hospitalized on Monday with PCP. He died late last night.”

Fuck.