Brandon Smiling: From the Billy Chase Chronicles (1) - 24. Entry 24

May 3

I should have just stayed home sick today. I might as well be sick because I feel so bad.

The news is traveling fast around school now: the Billy and Joanna thing. I actually got to see this Joanna girl myself today. I could see why Billy could go for her. She's beautiful though not Marie beautiful. When Marie comes to this school she's going to be a bigger queen than her brother is a king, I'm sure. Joanna will have to kneel and kiss Marie's ruby slippers. No competition.

Speaking of queens, I may have to hang up my tiara. It's obvious that convincing myself that I'm gay is making my life much more difficult that it should be. It isn't right for a boy to like a boy like he likes a girl. It's just all wrong, you know? Since Billy's straight there's no point in my wanting him and, basically, he really was the only boy I ever wanted in that way. I never really wanted JOEseph in that way. Not really. I spent most of my life trying to *avoid* JOEseph, not get together with him. That thing in the shower was horseplay. That's all it ways: horseplay. It didn't mean anything. Not really.

Not really . . .

So, I'm going to focus on Marie. I need to train myself to like girls. They seem to like me ok so it should be good. I'm sure that if I let her kiss on me and rub on me and all that stuff (when she's not in Kid School as Jamie calls it) that I'll be able to get horny for her just fine.

I just wish all this rationalizing was working to make me feel less like I've lost the light of day forever. It's such an over-exaggeration thinking things like that. My old therapist used to tell me I make catastrophes out of small problems. It was part of the anxiety of losing my mom, so maybe this is just that. I've not lost the sunshine forever . . . Just for a little while.

Just a little while . . .

I should call Marie and make plans for this weekend! We could go see that new romance movie they are playing about a piano teacher or whatever. She loves those and I like them too, really. They make me cry, but I can try not to and be more of a man like I should be. Marie would appreciate that.

I could be more of a man if I did that. Yeah.

Maybe I should start taking her to some of the basketball games at the school. She'd probably like coming to the High School and seeing what her new kingdom will be when she takes power. Wow! Maybe when she's popular (and she will be) I can be popular with her? I could be her Royal Consort! Hehehe. Lord Temple has a ring to it, don't you think?

I always thought I had a strange last name, Temple. I wonder why our family was named after a house of worship. I asked my Dad once and he thought it was from the Templar Knights, whoever they were. Were those like Jedi Knights or something?

Anyway, I can see the embossed invitations to the Prom now for Prom King and Queen, their Royal Majesties: His Grace, King Brandon Temple and Her Grace, Queen Marie Cross. Temple and Cross! That sort of goes together!

Marie Temple, that's kind of pretty too.

Maybe if I can forget all this gay business I can dream about having a family of my own with a house and kids and dogs and SUVs and stuff. I can give my Dad grandchildren! That would make him so . . . happy!

Wow! That made a tear come to my eye. I thought I was supposed to be more of a man. Boy, do I have work to do!

I worked hard today . . . at avoiding Billy. I bumped into him a couple of times today by accident. Once he found me locking my bike up. He was right in my face so I had to smile and be friendly. I mean, I don't hate him.

Lord KNOWS that I don't HATE him! I doubt I could ever hate him . . . not ever.

He caught me in the hallway later and that time I just couldn't deal, plus I saw Joanna coming from the other direction. I didn't want to get in the way so I just put my head down and disappeared in plain sight. I've always been good at that. If you don't look at someone in the eyes they aren't really there and neither are you there to them.

That sounds stupid, but think about it a minute and you'll understand why shy people do that. It's weird the way it works.

It's for the best. I mustn't get between him and Joanna. Billy has a chance at real happiness here. A lasting healthy relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Maybe they can be the kind of high school sweethearts that go on to get married some day.

Maybe, in the future, when all of this teenage weirdness is over and we're all grown up and 'ok' again, I'll be able to visit Billy at his house for a barbecue. Marie and I can bring our kids and they can play with Billy's in the pool. Joanna and Marie can go talk about 'girl' stuff and Billy and I can talk about football or whatever men talk about.

We can be normal! We can be right! We can just be friends and not anything else! Life would be good and everything would be right with the world. Our parents will be proud of us and no one would have to be ashamed. We could go to church together and not feel like Satan's spit every time we walked in the door with our wrongness.

No faggotry at all! Just perfectly normal problems normal people have with money and temptations to have sex with other people's wives, etc. Perfectly normal and common sins that everyone has. Not . . . being an abomination. Not being something 'gravely disordered'.

Hell, even being a murderer is better than being gay, right?

Sure, whatever.

Oh my God, Billy! Why did you have to be straight? WHYWHYWHY?

Why did you have to be straight and not me?

This is Brandon . . . Still Queen of the fucking Prom

May 4

Well, I hid out by the bleachers and the grassy place most of the day. I had to come in for classes. I should have stayed home.

I couldn't avoid Billy forever, especially since he seemed to be looking for me all day for some reason. I felt like a hunted deer. I don't know why he'd bother to do that. He should focus on Joanna. That should be his main concern. She's the right person for him. Not me!

When he caught me in the hall I just ducked out of the way. It was probably cowardly of me, but I just can't face him right now. I need to break my connection with him or I'm just going to continue to feel worse and worse about this.

I . . . just can't be his friend. That's all. I thought about it and I wanted to try that, but the temptation is too strong. I would want him again and I can't want him because I can't have him. What is more, I *shouldn't* want him. That's the big part. I can't fall for him like he was a girl because he's a boy and boys can't go with boys.

All of this is in my head anyway. Billy just wants to be friends, of course, but I just can't, you know?

No more JOEsephs! Not again. Not ever!

I guess, at some point, I will have to 'normalize' things with Billy. I can't live out in the athletics field all the time. I do miss my library time and that seems to be the only place I have in that school where I have any real comfort, despite that librarian who should be fired.

It's funny, I've scratched myself bloody on my arms somehow today. I must have just sat there scratching and scratching and not even known it. They sting a bit tonight. I put some medicine on them. I hope my Dad doesn't notice. He doesn't like it when I do that. He thinks I might be having 'problems' again. Well, I may be having problems, but they're nothing he can help me with.

If I'm gay it's better that he not know. He doesn't need to have his heart and hopes for me broken knowing that his only son is a fucked up perverted mess.

If I disappoint him and break his heart, I'll just hang myself. That's all. I wouldn't be able to deal with that. It would be too much, far too much. Better for him that I not exist than for him to know that he has a shameful excuse for a son on his hands. He's still young enough so he can marry again and have another son and raise him up and be proud of him. He can forget me.

He should forget me if I can't get this under control. I have to stop being gay, that's all. It's not real. It's a temptation to things that can only destroy me in the end.

God has provided a pathway out of this. He has given me Marie. I need to focus on her. Sex doesn't need to be important. At our age, just like all the teachers, parents, and other grown-ups tell us, it's better not to muddle things up with sex. We have work to do. We have to learn and get ready for college and then be ready for careers. There's no time for sex. Sex is for married couples who have settled down and can have children safely. In any other way, it's just trouble and suffering in the end.

Growing up and becoming a good man requires a person to have self-discipline and to contain the out of control lusts and urges that are dangerous if left uncontrolled. Actually, maybe it would be easier not to date Marie either.

Maybe I need to just focus on studying and working hard to get through school and then get a job that can support myself and my Dad when he gets older.

Love and joy is for others. Not for me.

I don't deserve either.

Abominations don't deserve anything.

Goodbye Billy.

This is Brandon . . . Growing up.