After the biggest mistake of my life, I learn that Max is my stepfather’s new business partner. He keeps popping up at our house and at events. He always gives me the smile that he offered me that night. I hate him. I hate the way he made me feel. Yet somehow, I nearly always give in to his invitation.

Instead of hating the aftermath like I did originally, I start to enjoy it, and then love the way it satisfies me. No one else knows he and I have been sleeping together. It’s a dirty, filthy, shameful secret. The more he leaves me sore and feeling abused, the more I like it. There’s nothing better than the agonizing pleasure of being used. It makes me feel alive in the vastness that is my existence.

Every attempt my parents make to turn me into some preppy lawyer version of my stepfather results in me rebelling. I begin wearing clothes that piss my parents off, just to get their attention. In fact, most things I start to do are intended to tick people off. It rarely gets me the attention I’m seeking, but the longer it goes on, the less I care. At some point, it simply becomes who I am, a total asshole.

It goes on for two years, until I leave for college. By then, I’m about as messed up as a guy can get.

In freshman year, I meet a guy named Derrick Jaye Harrelson that goes by Jaye. He’s tall with black hair and exceedingly handsome. I’m tall enough at five feet eleven inches, but he’s a whopping six feet one inch. My dirty blonde, short-cut hair and brown eyes have nothing on him. Between his chiseled jaw and his intense eyes, he’s a dream. I nearly feint when I find out he’s gay. I’m bisexual, but no one knows. Everyone thinks I’m straight. I’ve worked hard to keep everyone at a distance, but Jaye sees right through my defense mechanisms. He may not know that I’m interested in him, but he’s such a good guy that I wouldn’t deserve him anyway. He reminds me of a mother bird, going around gathering up all the other messed up, lost, and broken birdies under his wings. At the end of freshman year, all of us lost souls that he’s gathered rent a house with him. I’m the worst of those birds. Yes, I could get my stepfather to rent me an apartment of my own, but I want to be near Jaye.

Going in to our second year of college, I realize I’m in love with Jaye. I never say a word or indicate it. I’m an asshole to him just like I am to everyone else. I sit back at a bit of a distance as he parades around with one older guy after another. He refuses to date guys our own age. I don’t understand it. He lets men that are total sons of bitches mistreat him and then toss him aside. I want to kill every new man he convinces himself is interested in him for more than just sex. They aren’t. He’s a fuck boi to them. They fuck him for a while and then tire of his clinginess and toss him aside. He slips into despair until it’s absolutely devastated him and then he starts the cycle over again, never deterred.

When Jaye buys a motorcycle, I do too. I get a crotch rocket. It’s the most asshole thing I could think of and pisses my parents off even more. I mean, sure they bought it, but given that I was told to purchase a vehicle and they didn’t give a damn to be a part of the process since I was ‘eighteen and independent,’ I did what I wanted to.

Towards the end of our second year of college, Jaye meets some Tesla driving business executive and starts dating him. Jaye’s an idiot. Men like that don’t date guys in college. They fuck them. They don’t stay with them. I know from experience. Hell, the guy he’s getting involved with, someone named Thad, is probably married with a family. He lives towards Atlanta, Georgia and we’re in Athens, Georgia so it would be easy for the asshole to live more than one life given that we’re about an hour or so apart.

Jaye is so chipper about this guy that it makes me sick. We met this Thad guy a few weeks back when we were in Atlanta for St. Patty’s Day. It ticks me off to know how it’s already going to end. Jaye is the type of guy that has really high highs and really low lows. This is just the start to his next trough of despair. Why does he keep doing this to himself? I wish he would quit. If he would just give guys his own age a shot then he’d be happier. I’d be happier, not because I’d have a chance, but because someone could actually make him happy. He’s the type of guy that deserves to be happy.

That wealthy bastard is upstairs with Jaye now, no doubt fucking his brains out. The guy just ‘generously’ bought several hundred dollars’ worth of food for us for finals week that starts next week. It comes with payment between Jaye’s legs of course. Fucking bastard!

Out of spite, I won’t touch any of the extensive loads of snacks and candies that he’s dropped off. The same can’t be said for my housemates.

There are seven of us total. It’s a four-bedroom house and everyone shares a room but me. I’ll pay twice as much in rent before I share that much personal space with someone; unless it was Jaye. I’d bunk with him in a heartbeat, but it’s probably best that I don’t. If we roomed together, he’d eventually figure out that I also like men. That’s a secret that would destroy my parents. It’s a secret I’ll take to my grave.