A Different Road - 1. Chapter 1

A Different Road

 

 

You ever had a best friend who was inseparable from you? Someone that if they got sick, you got sick, just so you could share their pain. Someone who you knew would come running if you needed a shoulder to cry on. Someone who would laugh at all your corny jokes.

 

That was Brett. My inseparable other. Until today.

 

I don’t even know what happened. I didn’t even see it coming. One day we were best friends and lovers. Now, he’s not even here to wipe away my tears. Tears that belong to him. Tears that have flooded from my heart, consumed my soul and now find their way to my eyes.

 

He said he had to travel a different road. This one without me. He’s traveling a new road with someone else. Mine dead ends ahead.

 

                                                                                                               * * * * *

 

“Gimme back my ball!” The small boy in front of me screamed.

 

“Wanna play?” I asked. He was new to the playground. I had never seen him before.

 

“No. I don’t like you!” he screamed, yanking his ball from my hand.

 

“Why?” He had never met me. How could he say he didn’t like me?

 

“Because I just don’t,” he pouted.

 

“Brett.” A tall woman walked over and stood beside him. “There you are. What are you doing over here?”

 

“He’s mean,” he told his mother as he pointed at me.

 

“Why’s he mean?” she asked patiently.

 

“He stole my ball,” he replied angrily.

 

“But you have your ball,” she told him. “He didn’t steal it.” He looked at the ball and then back at me.

 

“What’s your name?” she asked, patting me on my head.

 

“Corey Singer, Ma’am,” I responded timidly.

 

“Well, Corey.” She squatted down and looked into my eyes. “This is Brett. I’m his mother, Mrs. Weaver.”

“Why’s he mad at me?” I started to cry. “I didn’t steal his stupid ball. I just wanted to play with him.” She leaned over and took me in her arms. Brett stood back and watched. Then he began to cry as well. She reached out and pulled him into us.

 

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His mother made us hug each other. That day Brett became my best friend. He never hurt me again… until today.

 

                                                                                                                 * * * * *

 

“Corey, can we talk?” He walked into my bedroom and sat down beside me on the bed. I was reading a book for my lit class. I was glad for the distraction. Paradise Lost had definitely lost me in the interest category.

 

I looked over and noticed the serious look on his usually smiling face. He still looked as good as the day I first saw him. He was growing into a handsome man. He brushed his dark brown hair aside and looked at me with his penetrating brown eyes. I could lie and look into his eyes for hours after we made love. They were soft and warm. In all the years we had known each other, they had never once looked angrily at me.

 

“What is it Brett?” I asked taking his hand in mine. He slowly pulled it away. I gave him a questioning look. He had never done that before.

 

“Look, Corey.” Sadness came over him. I don’t know if it was for him or me. “I can’t do this anymore.” He stood and walked over to the window and looked out.

 

“Do what, Brett?” I walked over to him and gently wrapped my arms around his waist. He reached down and pried my fingers loose.

 

“This, Corey.” He moved away. “I’m sorry.” He turned, and I saw tears in his eyes. I had never seen Brett cry once since that time we were in the playground. We were five then. Now at seventeen, he was shedding his first tears.

 

“What’s wrong?” I was becoming increasingly worried. I knew Brett better than I knew myself. He wouldn’t be upset unless something was really wrong. He walked over and grabbed me by my shoulders and stared into my eyes. His brown eyes were twinkling with tears. I also saw sadness behind them, and it scared me.

 

“I love you, Corey.” Tears were falling freely down his face. “You know that. But I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be gay.”

 

“We’re not gay, Brett.” I was trying to understand what he was saying. “We love each other. That doesn’t make us gay.”

 

“Damn it, Corey,” he cried. “It does. I can’t live like this anymore. You’ve got us living our lives together, building a house and adopting children some day. It doesn’t get any gayer than that.”

 

“We’re best friends, Brett.” I reached for his hand again, and he pulled away. “I don’t even think about other guys. Only you.”

“That’s just it, Corey,” he said sadly. “I don’t think that way about you anymore.”

 

I walked over to the bed and fell down crying. I couldn’t contain my emotions. I loved Brett. Loved him. If that meant I was gay, then I guess I was. He had become my life over the past twelve years, and now he was getting ready to walk out of it.

 

“I’m sorry, Corey,” he said sadly as he turned to walk away. “It’s just that I’ve got to travel a different road than you.”

 

“No, please!” I shouted. “Don’t go! I can’t live without you!” I ran over and clutched him tightly. I couldn’t let him go.

 

“I really am sorry, Corey.” Tears were flowing down his face. He turned and opened the door and left.

 

Brett had just walked out of my life.

 

                                                                                                                * * * * *

 

“Hey, Mrs. Weaver.” Brett’s mother had just met me at the door. “Can I go up and see Brett?” He hadn’t been in class today. We were in the fifth grade and this was the first time I could remember him ever missing a day of school.

 

“Honey, he’s awful sick,” she warned me. “You’d better not. You’ll get sick too.”

 

“That’s alright. I really want to see him.” Tears formed in my eyes. My best friend was sick, and I wanted to be with him. Without another word, I headed upstairs. His mother was going to say something, but stopped and laughed instead.

 

“Hey, Pukeface.” I grinned as I opened his door slightly. He was lying in bed with the covers over his head. He pulled them back and looked sadly at me. His hair was tousled all over his head, and he looked very pale. His normally bright eyes were dull.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asked weakly. “You’re going to get what I have.”

 

“I don’t care.” I walked over and sat on the side of his bed. “Can’t let my best bud suffer alone.” When he started coughing, I reached over and rubbed his back. He was wet with sweat. He must have been running a high fever.

 

Suddenly, he grabbed his mouth and sprinted from the room. I ran behind, watching his vomit slipping through his hands. I carefully stepped around it. When I reached the bathroom, he was retching violently into the toilet.

 

I put my hands around his waist and braced him so that he wouldn’t fall. The stink was horrible, but I didn’t want to leave him. He finished, and I walked him back to bed and helped him in. Then I went out into the hallway and cleaned up the mess he had made.

 

“Thanks.” He looked up at me when I returned to the room.

 

“Hey, no problem,” I assured him. “That’s what friends are for.”

 

“I don’t think that’s what the friend’s manual says,” he laughed weakly.

 

“Sure it does,” I replied as I held out my palm and pointed to it. “Right here. Rule Number 15. Clean up puke off floor when friend is sick.” He started to laugh, but then he began coughing.

 

“Shut up dickwad.” He rolled over and curled up into a ball. “I don’t feel too good.” He closed his eyes and started to go to sleep. I toed off my shoes, pulled back the covers and lay down beside him. He sighed when I pulled him into me and held him tightly. Within minutes, he was sound asleep. So was I.

 

His mother came in several hours later and found us curled up together. She woke me up and told me I should go on home. My mother had called and said that supper was ready. I awoke in the middle of the night with sweat pouring off my body. My stomach felt queasy, and I knew I had better get to the bathroom quickly. I barely made it before I emptied my dinner into the toilet. I guess I had caught what Brett had. I didn’t care. Rule Number 2 in the friendship handbook: Friends share.

 

                                                                                                                   * * * * *

 

Where is the damn rule book now? Rule Number 1: Friends don’t hurt friends. I lay on my bed and cried remembering the time we had been sick together. We were out of school for three days. Brett’s mother brought him over, and we stayed together while my mother nursed us back to health. Neither of us could stand to be away from the other.

 

Is it possible for your heart to break? I’ve heard of a broken heart, but I was seriously worried that mine was going to burst. I never imagined that losing someone could hurt so much. My chest was tight, and the damn tears wouldn’t stop flowing.

 

I kept going back to his words, “I don’t think about you like that anymore.” Like what? He doesn’t love me anymore? He doesn’t want to have sex anymore? What? If he had only told me, then perhaps I could deal with it. But saying he couldn’t do it anymore had no meaning.

 

And what about me? I don’t count in the equation? I don’t have a say in the matter? He decides he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore and that is it. I should hate him, but I can’t hate Brett. I could never hate him.

 

Maybe over the years we had gotten involved too deeply, but we loved one another. Our friendship had turned to sex, but it didn’t seem to matter. It had always just seemed the natural thing to do. We always said we weren’t gay; we were just two close friends. But I knew about a year ago that I was probably gay. I didn’t tell Brett because I wasn’t sure he was. Now I know he isn’t.

 

“God!” I screamed into the pillow. “I can’t live without him!”

 

                                                                                                                      * * * * *

 

“Where’d you get the magazine?” Brett giggled, opening up the centerfold of the Playboy we were looking at. I was spending the night, and we had waited until everyone in the house had gone to bed. I didn’t want us to get caught with it. It was about four months after we had shared the flu.

 

“In a trash can over on Second Street,” I told him.

 

“What? Are you some wino now, rummaging through the trash?” He laughed as he turned the page to a woman with huge tits.

 

“Shut up, Fuckface.” I elbowed him in his ribs. “Why are you complaining? You seem to like the pictures.” We were sitting on the bed in our underwear, and it was obvious that Brett had an erection. I did too.

 

“Hell, yeah,” he giggled again. “Look at the size of them,” he remarked as he pointed to a busty blonde. “I’d love to bury my head there.”

 

“Sure,” I laughed. “Like you’d know what to do with that little worm.” I looked down and pointed to his dick poking at his underwear.

 

“It’s not a little worm.” He pulled it out and started stroking it. “I’d know exactly what to do.”

 

“You’d probably stick it everywhere but where it should go,” I giggled. He elbowed me in my side.

 

“Like you’d know what to do.” He elbowed me again.

 

“I didn’t say I would.” I pulled down my shorts and began stroking myself. It wasn’t unusual for us to jack off in front of each other. We’d been doing it for about a year after we heard a boy in our gym class talking about masturbating. Neither of us knew what the word meant, so we went to the library to look it up. You should have seen the look on our face when we found a book about it. It even had pictures of guys doing it!

 

At twelve, though, neither of us could produce sperm yet. We learned about that word too. But we sure liked the feeling we got after we did it a while. Until that night, we had done nothing more than jack each other off once in a while.

 

“Listen to this,” Brett said excitedly when he began to read one of the stories. “She took his cock and began sucking him. He was moaning and thrusting his cock deeper into her ravenous mouth.” He was rapidly jacking off as he read it. I watched intently while I continued to stroke mine.

 

“I wonder what that would feel like?” Brett said huskily. “I can’t wait until I get a girlfriend and she does that to me.”

 

“Jerk,” I laughed. “That’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

 

“Then I guess you’ll have to do it.” He wiggled his eyebrows, reached over, grabbed my neck and tried to push me towards his dick.

 

“Shit! I’m not going to do that.” I grabbed his hand and pushed it off my neck. Then I wrestled with him until I had the back of his head and directed it to my erect cock. He continued to struggle, but he let me lead his head to my dick. When he licked the head, it sent shudders through my body. He looked up at me.

 

“If you ever tell anyone I did this, I’ll kick your ass.” He then leaned over and took my small cock in his mouth and began sucking it. I thought I was going to die. It felt much better than jacking it off. His mouth was warm as he continued to suck me. I was moaning softly. I couldn’t believe that Brett was giving me a blow job. After a couple minutes, he sat back up and looked over at me.

 

“Your turn,” he giggled as he grabbed his cock and pointed it at me.

 

“I didn’t say I’d suck your dick,” I replied.

 

“Fair is fair,” he replied. “I sucked yours, now you gotta suck mine.”

 

“Who said that?” I asked. He opened his palm and pretended to read from it.

 

“Right here. Rule Number 83.” He looked at me and grinned. “If your friend sucks your dick, you have to suck his.”

 

“Damn!” I cried out. “You would have to get out the rule book.” He started giggling.

 

I leaned over and took his cock into my mouth. He jumped when I put my mouth around it and started running my tongue around the head.

 

“It tickles,” he laughed. I took the entire length of his dick into my mouth. He started moaning, “Oh, man. That feels good.”

 

I can’t explain it, but having Brett’s cock in my mouth seemed the most natural thing in the world. He was enjoying what I was doing, and that was all that mattered. I was making my friend happy. I didn’t feel dirty. All the jokes in the boys’ locker room about girls sucking a guy’s dick made it sound like it was a nasty thing to do. But I didn’t feel like that.

 

Brett tried to get me to pull off several times, but I wanted to feel it when he had a dry orgasm. I wanted to feel him pulse in my mouth.

 

“God, Cory!” he screamed. “Stop! I think I’m going to pee in your mouth!” He grabbed my head and tried to pull me off. I pushed my mouth down deeper.

 

“Unngggghhh!” he moaned. I could feel him begin to pulse, and then I tasted something bitter. He had just shot his first sperm in my mouth. I couldn’t believe it. I had made my best friend have his first orgasm!

 

I was grinning widely when I sat up and looked over at him. He lay back on the bed with his eyes closed, and he was breathing heavily. After a minute, he looked over at me and smiled. I could tell he was really happy. I looked over and returned his smile. I then grabbed my cock and started swinging it.

 

“Fair is fair,” I grinned. He shrugged his shoulders and then leaned over and started sucking me again. After a few minutes, I tensed up and had a dry orgasm. It would be several more months until he would taste my sperm.

 

                                                                                                                     * * * * *

 

I lay curled up in bed in a fetal position with the covers pulled over my head. I didn’t want to ever crawl out from under the comfort of my bed. If I didn’t get up, then I wouldn’t have to face the cruel reality of the world.

 

My pillow was wet from the tears I had been shedding. I looked at the clock. It had only been two hours since Brett walked out of my life.

 

“Corey.” My mother knocked softly on my door. “May I come in?”

 

“No, Mom.” The door opened slowly, and she peeked into the room. So much for privacy. I guess all her lectures on respecting a person’s privacy meant little when it was my room.

 

“Are you alright son?” she asked worriedly. “Why are you in bed at 8:00? And it’s so dark in here.” She walked over to the window and opened the blinds. Then, she turned on my overhead light. I pulled the cover tightly over my head, hoping she would go away. No luck. I could feel her sit on the side of my bed. She tried to pull the cover back, but I fought to keep my face covered.

 

“Corey. What is wrong with you?” She pulled down the cover and looked at my tear-stained face. “My God, you’ve been crying!”

 

“Mom, please leave me alone,” I pleaded. “Please? I don’t want to talk about anything right now.”

 

“But you’ve been crying,” she said softly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“I really don’t want to right now.” I pulled the cover back over my head. “Please leave.”

 

“Not until you tell me why you’re crying,” she insisted. She pulled the cover down and wiped away a falling tear. “What’s wrong?”

 

I don’t know why I said it. I guess I felt I had nothing else to lose. I had lost the only person in the world that meant anything to me. I really didn’t even worry about the consequences of my next statement.

 

“I’m in love with Brett,” I said softly.

 

“Of, course you love Brett,” she replied. “He’s your best friend. You should love him.”

“No, Mom.” Tears were rolling freely down my face. “I’m in love with Brett.” This time I stressed- in love.

 

She studied my face for a moment. I couldn’t tell by her expression if she had fully understood what I had just confessed to her. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed and she stared at me for a moment. She then stood up and looked down at me.

 

“I see,” she said calmly. She then turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.