Yeah we used to stick together,

We wrote our names in blood,

But I guess you can't accept that the change is good.

- - -

Three weeks seemed to pass in a blur, with exams coming close and prom and all this crap about who would become prom king and queen, my head was starting to resemble a spinning top.

As a member of the prom committee, I fulfilled my tasks and chose the perfect table decorations and table placements, with the help of Ben of course. One thing about him was that he was bossy as hell, and if something doesn't go his way he'd become all stroppy and brat-like. For ages, we had argued and argued over which colour bow should be present on the back of the chairs and what colour the chair covers should be.

In the end, I surrendered and let him have his way.

Jace and I were on a good level of trust once again, sure, he didn't trust me a hundred percent but it was getting close to there and I was happy about that. I would always see how weird he'd act whenever I go to a class that I have with Flynn and how awkward he'd suddenly get whenever we see him across the hallway. First, he'd freeze in his spot and then his nose would flare up, which was cute and disturbing at the same time, then he'd clench his fists, grit his teeth and finally, he'd constantly bring his finger to the edge of the frames of his glasses to bring it higher up his nose even if it wasn't falling down in the first place.

"Jace, you need to chill." I spoke quietly to him as we sauntered down the crowded corridors.

"I am chill." He grit his teeth and kept his eyes trained on Flynn who seemed to be having a good time talking to his new friends that were the guys who came to the bonfire as plus one's.

"No, you're not." I told him and clutched the straps of my rucksack in my hands.

He finally stopped trying to make a hole on Flynn's face and looked to me, bringing his skinny index finger to his glasses and gently pushing his glasses higher up his nose.

"I'm starting to regret telling you how much I liked seeing you with glasses." I chucked weakly. A ghost of a smile made itself present on his lips and he blushed, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. Long gone was his gritted teeth and clenched fists, I just have to keep distracting him until we reach my locker so he stops looking over to Flynn.

I was a couple centimetres away from my locker when Flynn suddenly approached us and leaned his back against the locker next to mine. His new friends crowded us and we exchanged fist bumps and greetings.

"Hey." Flynn said, and smirked at me.

"Fuck off." I bit and shoved the correct key into the keyhole, twisting it and pulling the locker door open with no gracefulness at all.

"Come on, we can get past thing, man, you're my oldest friend." That's it. That is it. A wave of some kind of emotion made my stomach stir and my breathing to pick up, Flynn was using my weaknesses against me, he knew our friendship was a kryptonite of mine.

I tried my best to keep a straight face and give him my full attention. "No, we can't get past this, I don't care about you anymore, Flynn. You're a mega bastard, I was just too blind to see it. I don't want to talk to you anymore, got it?"

I glanced to Jace who was glaring daggers at the bastard. "Fine, have it your way." Flynn spat and turned a 180. He walked towards the cafeteria with the rest of the guys and I finally exhaled a breath I kept in.

"Hey," Jace smiled to me and brought his hand to my shoulder, "it's going to be okay. I know losing friends is hard, but just remember how much of a dick he is. He didn't even fight very hard to get back your friendship."

"True, I guess." I shrugged and swapped some books around from my rucksack and locker. I slammed it shut and it echoed through the entire corridor, some eyes darted to me and I saw Jace tense up at all the unwanted attention, "let's go and eat."

I sat down at Jace's and Ben's table of friends like I've been doing a lot of recently once I got my tray of food. They all welcomed me kindly and I actually felt like I belonged somewhere for once. My table of friends weren't all that bad, I guess, but it's nice to have a change of scenery, plus, even though I'm out the closet to them, they still try and include me when they talk about their latest hook up and what size so and so's tits are.

"I'm so happy!" Rebecca gleamed and clapped her hands vigorously as she plopped down at the table. I rolled my eyes and I'm pretty sure Ben noticed this because he snickered.

"Let me guess, prom?" I cocked a brow, "I think when you told us the first thirty-seven times, we all understood clearly enough."

Rebecca scowled at me and stole my apple from my tray. She bit into it and flipped me the bird, you could say that since I've been sitting at this table, I've become a pain in her backside and she finally grew a set of balls and did things that weren't normal of her to do- like steal my fruit.

"it's finally coming along!" She did a little dance and you could tell she could barely contain her excitement, unlike me. I was literally screaming on the inside because I couldn't wait for my promposal to Jace, I'm sure he wouldn't mind coming out the school considering almost three quarters of the year group were going to go to another place for further education and the year groups below don't really care. I would need to talk to one of his friends about it though and find out if he's ready.

I looked to Ben who was sat opposite me, glaring daggers at Rebecca with an irritated look on his face, those two never got along because they were both at the top of the class and constantly competing against each other, whether it be who'd get the high mark on a test or who'd get an place on the school's yearbook as 'brainiac'.

"May I talk to you afterwards, Zach?" Ben asked me in a sickly sweet tone. I just shrugged and nodded, we had a lesson together afterwards anyway.

I finished eating my lasagne and with some small talk being thrown about, the bell finally went off and we all stood up. I waved Jace a goodbye and cheekily brushed my hands against his while doing so, he slyly winked at me before walking in the opposite direction.

"So what was it you wanted-" I started, but was cut off.

"Jace told me something I seriously shouldn't tell you but I'm going to anyway." Ben gushed out without even taking a break and I was taken aback for a few moments.

"Don't tell me-" I began but was cut off.

"He told me that.. Oh my god..." Ben looked down to the ground then back at me, "he told me he's ready."

"For what?" I narrowed my eyes. Did he mean Jace was ready to do the deed? What makes him think I'm ready?

"Don't go jumping to conclusions, I don't mean that." Ben snickered, "he means he's ready to come out to the school, but he said he'd only feel brave enough to do it if you do too."

My breathing caught in my throat, Jace was ready? He really wanted to do this? Was I ready? I wasn't quite sure to be honest. One side was screaming with giddiness about the situation whereas another was scared and frightened about the consequences. Maybe the first two times I had come out went well but that didn't mean it'd be the same, I'm in high school for crying out loud. It's a dreaded place where you're just constantly being judged every second.

"I don't know what to say." I pursed my lips and sat down at a chair at the usual table Ben and I had been sitting at for the past few weeks. "I don't know if I can."

"Come on! You should, it would be so great because it sets an example to everyone else. I won't let anybody come at you for it, they'd probably be in hospital before I allow that..." He trailed off and then funnily enough, tried to save himself, "I mean.. If anyone comes after Jace about it, I don't care about you."

"Lies." I punched his arm, "admit you didn't mean what you said at first."

"Uhm.." I looked over to seem to see a faint blush paint his cheeks. Well, that's a first.

"I can fend for myself, just so you know." I stuck my tongue out at him and dumped my rucksack on the table so that I could take out my books. "Why don't you tell me what happened between you and Flynn, huh?" My mind wandered to Flynn's dare at the bonfire. Either Flynn's really good at applying coverage or Ben never gave him a good, hard punch.

I watched Ben as he suddenly went into a daze but recovered from it quickly. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Don't act coy with me, okay? give me the gory details." I grinned menacingly and subconsciously rubbed the palms of my hands together.

"Why do I fear for Jace?" He snickered, but I knew he was trying to change the topic of the conversations.

"What happened?"

"I kicked him where the doesn't shine, alright?" Ben smirked, "it never actually happened, I didn't let it."

"Oh my god, Flynn actually did it? Serious?"

"He tried to. Can we drop it now?"

"Fine, fine." I sighed but couldn't resist a smirk in his direction. Mrs Lancaster walked into the room and slammed a couple textbooks down on the table, her lips were pursed and she took her laptop out of its designated bag and then she looked up at the class with a grimace.

"Your first exam is next Wednesday. I expect you to concentrate in this lesson as it is the last lesson I'll be teaching you. If you faff around, I will send you out you'll be the one failing, not me."

I turned to Ben who was drumming his pencil against his book, he had already written the date at the top right corner and he already had out everything else he needed in front of him like the reading book we're working from and a few pens. How many pens does one person need in just one class?

"You won't be welcome back here if I send you out, understood?" She asked and opened the lid to a green whiteboard marker. The class muttered agreements and the sound of zips and workbooks being opened filled the air.

The lesson, which was pretty intense, finally passed. I didn't understand why Mrs Lancaster left it until the last week to actually teach seriously, she was usually upbeat and happy and chilled out but today she seemed miserable and had a permanent scowl plastered on her lips but she was actually able to get something through our heads.

It was soon the end of the day, and I couldn't be more relieved. Jace was supposed to be coming over today because I still had some things to cover before the physics exam which was in two and a half weeks. Fuck, I thought, this year's gone pretty quick.

So much more drama had been happening in the past few weeks compared to all the drama I've been through at the beginning of secondary school, I've finally broken it off with Flynn, he's now happy hanging out with his new friends and he's actually stopped disturbing me and asking for forgiveness. How could I ever forgive him?

As curious as I was about finding out what happened between Ben and Flynn, I had priories and right now, they included spending some quality time with my boyfriend, even if that quality time meant writing down lots and lots of physics notes.

When two hours passed and we came to the end of marking a past paper, the first thing Jace did was use his arm to move all the sheets of paper to the side and out the way, which was surprising in itself but when he brought both of his hands to the sides of my face, I crashed my lips against his.

Hungry with desire, we decided to go even further and without breaking the kiss for even a split second, I sat on the bed with my back against the headboard, Jace climbed over me and popped himself down on my legs, straddling my hips and causing something down below to stir.

I grinned at him and he grinned back, cheekily, he brought his hands to the hem of my t-shirt and helped me rip it off and throw it somewhere on the floor.

"I've been waiting all week for this." He huskily whispered far too close to my ear, sending a shiver to run up my spine. He nipped at my ear with his teeth and I tugged at the end of his t-shirt too so that he could take it off.

I caressed his bare torso and peppered kisses along his shoulder and tricep, meanwhile, he continued on teasing me and licking my ear while rocking against my hard-on, the friction causing my eyes to roll back and bliss to take over.

"Jace," I piped up, trying to sound serious, but it came out breathless instead and he probably didn't think of it as anything more than a sound of pleasure.

"Jace." I tried again, my voice coming back to me again. Said person stopped what he was doing and rolled over to sit next to me on the bed instead of on top of me.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just, it's bothering me that I don't know what you feel towards me." I shrugged, "like, the whole Flynn didn't didn't screw our relationship up a lot did it? I love you so much, but you need to tell me if it's bothering you."

"Wow, you really know how to turn off a guy." He chuckled weakly and took my hand in his, he caressed it with his thumb and met my eyes, "it screwed up our relationship at first, but it's been ages since then. I think I'm over it and," he looked down at our hands, "I love you too."

I breathing caught in my throat and my eyes widened, I was practically speechless and all Jace could do was grin at me, "I love you." He repeated, "woah, that does feel good to say."

"Yo- you..." Still speechless, I ended up spluttering out incoherent sentences.

Jace brought his hands to my face and caressed my cheeks, putting light pressure on them so my cheeks squish up together. His cheeks flushed and he continued on talking, "Zach you absolute idiot, making me feel things around you."

I snickered- or at last, tried to - and slapped his hands away so that I could wrap him in my tight embrace, he melted into it and wrapped his hands around my waist. I didn't really know exactly how long we'd been like that, whether it had been seconds or minutes, when I was with Jace, everything seemed slow moving which wasn't a bad thing at all.

My eyes caught upon a glistening blue box on top of my dresser, underneath some clothes. Internally cringing, I could help the small snicker that slipped from my mouth, Jace parted from my embrace and cocked his head to the side like a small and overly cute puppy; I jumped off the bed and walked over to my dresser, moving all of the items of clothing out of the way and taking the box into my hands.

"This is for you but don't open until you get home, alright?" I handed the box to him and he pursed his lips, a hint of amusement playing on them. "oh and also, if you're baffled by what's in there, then remember that Molly and Cassie were there at the time."

"Ok, now I'm scared." He joked. I sat down cross legged on the bed opposite him and tried to seem as cool as possible while loosening the bracelet on my left hand which appeared more difficult than usual; my hands were shaking violently and they were also sweaty and not that appealing to touch.

I looked to him but I'm sure he didn't notice because his attention was glued onto my wrist, he was staring intently but he wasn't making a move to stop me from doing what I was hoping to do.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I took the bracelet off and tightened it around Jace's wrist which he stuck out for me to make it easier, it fit perfectly and made me feel as if I were a little kid on sugar.

"I know it's a stupid concept but it's somewhat special and I'd like to give it to you." I breathed out and tried to dry my sweaty palms on my jeans.

"Thank you, it's gorgeous." He brought his index finger to the metal plate of it and traced the design of the snake. Then he looked at me and furrowed his brows, "does this mean you'd- how did you know?"

"Ben." My face flushed and I combed a hand through my hair, "we'll do it together."

My wrist felt bare and weird and I didn't know if I would ever be able to get used to the feeling of no longer having that bracelet chained to me.

"Goddammit, Ben is such a blabber mouth." He rolled his eyes.

"Well, I think what he did was a good idea." I wrapped my pinky around Jace's pinky and gave his a chaste kiss on the lips.

"Are you sure though? Like, I could always just give you back the bracelet-"

"Yes I'm sure and I want you to keep it." I leaned forward and he fell back on the bed with me. I closed the distance and felt Jace's hands wrap themselves around my neck, pulling me down so that all my weight falls on top of him.

His lips moulded with mine perfectly and with the gorillas prancing in my stomach, I knew that this was real. I had no doubts about him, I loved Jace.

The best thing was that he loved me too.