Chapter Four

 

       The following day, Zach headed to a park not too far from his house to take a walk in the early afternoon. He needed something to get his mind off of last night and he thought taking a walk wouldn't hurt too much. It wasn't usually his thing, but he didn't really feel like doing much, so this almost seemed to be the only thing he could do.

       As he walked slowly around the asphalt trail that ran all the way around the perimeter of the somewhat large, spacious park, he looked up towards the clear blue sky for a minute before looking around at his surroundings. Wooden benches were placed at the side of the trail here and there and there were several trees throughout the opened park. There were a couple baseball fields and a playground near the somewhat small parking lot, which didn't have very many cars in it at the moment. Zach looked around the field a little before spotting a group of four teens throwing a frisbee just a little ways ahead of him.

       “Gawd Andrew, who were you throwing that to?” he heard a girl with shoulder-length brown hair say.

       As Zach got a little closer, he was easily able to tell that one of them was Greg. He wasn't too sure on who the other three were though, but he thought he remembered seeing them in the halls every now and then during school.

       “Shut it Heather, not like you do any better,” murmured the other male in the group of four—the one Zach thought was safe to assume to be Andrew.

       The second girl of the group with blonde hair threw the frisbee towards Greg, but it went above his head. He tried to jump for it, but it was just out of his grasp and the frisbee soared past him and right in front of Zach, who picked it up as Greg ran over towards him.

       “Hey,” Zach greeted.

       “Hey,” Greg said, smiling a little as he was handed the frisbee.

       “You wanna take a walk with me?”

       “Um,” Greg began before he looked back towards his three friends as if asking them what he should do. Sarah shrugged and Heather nodded. He looked back up at Zach afterwards. “Sure.”

       “Cool,” replied Zach as Greg threw the frisbee to his friends.

       The two started to walk, but they didn't say anything right away, or at least not until they were well out of earshot of Greg's friends.

       “Sorry I didn't call you back last night,” apologized Zach. “I had to go on a date with Lisa right after practicing with my band.”

       “It's fine,” replied Greg. There was a second or two of silence. “So how did it go?”

       “I'd rather not talk about.”

       “Oh, it was that bad huh?”

       Zach didn't answer and Greg understood.

       “Right, sorry,” he said.

       There was another couple moments of silence. Zach stared down at the asphalt trail they were walking on for a little bit before looking over at the younger male.

       “Did you really go out with Kyle?” asked Zach.

       The Sophomore looked up at Zach, a little surprised by the question. “Um, yeah,” he said, though in a slightly quiet and uncomfortable way.

       “Oh.”

       “Why?”

       Zach shrugged. “I heard you did and I was just wondering if it was true I guess.”

       Greg nodded. He looked down at his feet, watching one step right in front of the other as if they were trying to get the lead on the other one in a race, before looking back up at Zach a few seconds later.

       “Is it true that you beat up someone for being gay?”

       Zach was a little shocked upon hearing the question and he looked at the shorter male as if he were bizarre. “What?” he asked before giving a sort of chuckle. “Where the hell did you hear something like that?”

       “Um, don't remember.”

       “I didn't, trust me. I've only been in one fight before, but it wasn't because of something like that.” He smirked a small bit. “Besides, you'd probably be down on the ground by now anyway if I was really like that.”

       “Right, sorry.”

       The two continued to walk, talking about a few other things. Greg felt a little stupid for asking a question like that, but he just couldn't help it. He wanted to know whether the rumor Sarah told him was true or not. It made him feel a lot better knowing the answer though. At least now he wouldn't have to worry about getting a broken nose – or worse – from Zach just because of the fact that he was gay.

Author's Note

Is the dialogue okay?

Reviews

The dialogue is very well written, especially from the POV of two teens. It feels very real in my mind, as I try to picture everything going on in a story I'm reading.

So, it seems that Zach isn't the monster that Sarah painted him to be. At least Greg wouldn't have to worry about him for the time being. I do wonder if Zach's going to come out to him and will Greg embrace him. It's obvious that Greg is interested in him.

[Amund Schofield]

It would be interesting to have Zack beat up because he was gay.

[courtney]

yea the dialouger is fine