I can't talk about it - 1. Chapter 1

I could hear them again; this was the fourth time in as many hours that they had started sniping at each other, stupid little comments, little moans, complaints, and retorts. It should have just been nothing; but it kept happening.

I looked over at my sister, I shared the same expression she did, guarded neutrality, and we knew they weren’t happy with each other. She put her headphones back on to ignore it all, and me, I felt sorry for her but I had to do this.

I put my coat on and stuffed my iPod in as well. I left my phone in my room on purpose.

“I’m going out.” I called to my parents. They had stopped arguing for now, my dad sitting on the sofa watching TV my mum was standing in the kitchen, her shoulders shaking slightly.

Mum asked where I was going to which I lied and told them I was going to the pub with a friend.

They didn’t query it so I said a quick goodbye to them and walked out the door. A tear quickly formed as I shut the door, the silence after it closed seemed final.

It was final.

Funnily enough I walked past several pubs on my route to my destination, it was a public place, but at this time of night and in this temperature, no one was here at all.

The path up towards the hill was pitch black but I had scouted the route out several times. Hell, dad had even taken me here to practice hill starts in a car.

The path wasn’t very long and I managed to find the place I wanted to get to pretty easily in the end.

I shivered for the first time since being outside, it was forecast to be at least -10 Celsius tonight, and as I sat on the bench I could believe that.

Nothing stirred the sight and sounds of my breath the only thing disturbing the serenity of the place.

I looked at the tear splashes on the concrete that glistened from frost underneath the gaze of the three quarters moon that was out tonight.

I checked the time on my iPod, 9.45pm, not late enough for me to be back yet so they wouldn’t worry at the moment.

I placed my iPod back in my pocket, wondering if that would be the last time I would use it.

The place I had come to was a viewpoint of the surrounding valley; it offered superb views of the area, not that I could see tonight anyway.

I reflected on what some of my friends would be doing right now, clubbing, house party or pub would be most likely for them all. I sighed as I remembered all the times I was with mates at party, still sober, still self conscious, still feeling lonely amongst dozens of other people.

Being gay doesn’t help, not that I have had any problems with people and my sexuality yet.

The constant feeling of being different, not liking the party scene, gay scene is too extrovert for me, my martial art club is mainly with graduates, and live outside town.

I feel like I can’t open up to my flatmates yet...wait it’s because I never open up that I feel like that.

Why do I do that? I could ask myself, the answer; I always try to push it down, I lie so much to myself and to others about my feelings that I almost sometimes forget what I have hidden so deep down.

Until it emerges, until something reminds me how I feel about myself: physically, mentally, totally.

More tear splashes are illuminated by the moonlight and I swear it has gotten colder; like I give a shit anymore.

For my whole life I felt like I didn’t fit in, friends were either classed as acquaintances or were people I knew from other people.

Even people I knew for a long time, I hated to ring them to ask if they wanted to hang out.

I always felt like I was intruding, like the dog that pawed for attention if I ever asked them.

I waited for them to ask me, stupid I know, but it was the only way I knew that they wanted me around.

I stood up and looked over the lip of the cliff the viewpoint was situated on, had it been light I could have seen the height of it, but everything was hidden, just like my emotions.

And I thought back to my parent’s arguing they weren’t happy, that much was obvious, was it my fault? I went away from home; I told them I was gay? Did that start the arguments?

All these thoughts, all these feelings, the self hate, the doubt, the feelings loneliness kept spinning in my mind, my brain was ticking over faster than I could imagine.

Occasionally a happy memory came across but that was nearly always followed by a period of loneliness.

I recalled the countless times of overwhelming shyness, of times when I was nearly paralysed by it, stuttering, stumbling always ending up leaving the party, gathering, whatever it was early, always hoping something would click in my brain, but it never did.

I didn’t want to feel this anymore, didn’t want people telling me it would get better, and I’ve been told that all my life. Fuck all it did.

A gentle rustle of the trees brought me back to the cold reality and I could see the area of snow that had been melted by my salty tears, I realised I had sank to my knees; my legs were freezing from where I had knelt in the snow.

I walked to the edge, the ground there steady enough to take my weight.

I looked into the darkness, the empty space below me fitting.

I was numb and raw now, both from the cold and from the crying.

‘No more’ I thought before I fell, and the pain ebbed.