On The Outside - 28. Chapter 28

I think the thing that bothered me the most was the idea that Drew would see this hurtful garbage, publicly displayed for the rest of the world to see, and he’d feel even worse about it than I did. Is that weird?

All of this hatred and intolerance is being directed at ME, specifically...and Drew is the one that I’m most worried about. It’s going to absolutely gut him to know that this was happening to me, and that there was nothing that either one of us could do about it. These people hate themselves sooooo much that they simply can’t handle it on their own. They have to spread that dark cloud of misery and put it on everybody else’s shoulders because these sad sacks of shit have nothing in their lives to feel proud of. No passion. No purpose. No ability to self soothe or soul search with any degree of maturity that might actually repair the damage within them if they only loved themselves enough to stop blaming everybody else and simply FIX whatever the fuck is wrong them!!!

And since they’re unwilling, or maybe even incapable, of doing that...the rest of us suffer for it. Those people need to ask themselves...what are they going to do once we’ve all had enough and stop giving a shit about their problems? What happens when they forced to deal with their own problems for a change? The self hatred, the misplaced anger, the shame of it all? In those quiet moments, when they’re all alone with no one to carry the cumbersome weight of their emotionally wrecked bullshit for them...how are they going to cope with life? I’d love to know. And I hope I’m there when they try. Because I plan to take a great deal of pleasure out of watching them fail.

I had a few books that I needed for class in my locker, but I didn’t dare go by and open it up with all of that hatred scribbled all over it. I wanted to distance myself from it. Act like it had nothing to do with me. A method of denial that I knew wouldn’t last for long, but it might just buy me some time until I could figure how I was going to fight back against this invisible enemy and, hopefully, come out on the other side of it with my heart and soul in tact.

I mean...I knew what being boyfriends with Drew could mean for me and my high school reputation. And I won’t lie...it really terrified me at first. I was severely paralyzed with fear, worrying about whether people would find out or not, wondering if every whisper and giggle was about me and my deviation from what they were taught was normal and good in life. But I couldn’t help myself once I realized who I really was inside. Drew let me know that it was ok to love who I wanted to love. To be who I wanted to be. And when we shared that first kiss together...on some random rainy night when I found the courage to surrender to the almost painful throbbing of my infatuated heart...I finally found myself. My TRUE self, you know? And I knew that I was too far out to turn back after that.

My intense cravings for him had finally found direction, and all the love in my heart that I had to give to another person had found something to anchor it in the deep, soft, light brown curls of Drew’s hair. In the beauty of his boyish grin. In the delicate pressure of his lips against my own. My God….what an angel. He was the absolute highlight of my entire life. And while I may be distracted by the idiotic attacks being forced upon me by people who have no love of their own to settle into...thinking of Drew’s gentle appeal to me on every level that could be appealed to...helped me to put his love above all else. The rest of the world, be damned...right?

So...i avoided my locker and just went to class as though nothing in my life was wrong. Even though my entire game play from the very beginning had gone completely astray once Drew’s eyes met mine. To anybody who might be going through the same thing...just know this...

...You can’t ‘fight’ it, ok? You just can’t. And you shouldn’t have to.

I tried to refuse the emotions inside of me just like everybody else did at one time or another. I really did. But they don’t go away. They can’t be covered up with a blanket. They won’t just allow themselves to be buried under the mounds of shameful dirt that you shovel on top of them with the hopes of not being seen as different by the people around you. You’re already different. You like different songs, watch different movies, have a taste for different foods...this difference just happens to be sexual. That’s all. What the fuck is everybody so goddamn SCARED of all the time??? It’s just love, for Christ’s sake!

If I start killing the neighborhood cats and nailing them to random fences...THEN you start looking for therapists and scolding me for being a fucking serial killer in the making! Otherwise...just leave me alone. I mean...PLEASE? Life is hard enough for a teenage boy without other people trying to manipulate my journey with selfish experiences of their own that I can’t, or would even want to, understand.

I don’t know...people just suck sometimes. How they take pride in that, I’ll never know.

When I got to class, I felt like I could feel everybody in the room watching me. When they made eye contact, I felt shame. When they avoided eye contact, I felt shame. It was as if the air had become as thick as tar as I moved towards my desk and did my best to appear as normal as humanly possible. I mean...it’s not like they really know for sure, right? It’s a rumor. A stupid product of juvenile bullying. Just because I’m partners with the ‘gay kid’ doesn’t make me gay, right? If anything...I’m just being open minded and tolerant of another boy’s lifestyle. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? I’m just...I mean...I’m...

...Wait...

...no.

I’m not going to do this.

I’m not going to hide and make excuses and make this whole thing out to be some kind of weird misunderstanding between me and the rest of the world. That’s a coward’s way out. And I don’t want to be a coward when it comes to my love for Drew. Not anymore.

I’m past that now.

I was actually surprised to see that Drew was not only on time for our first period class today, but he was there before me. Hehehe, he must have been anxious this morning or something. Not that I’m complaining. Even from a distance, spotting those cutely chaotic curls of his was a thrill that I’ve learned to truly appreciate, whether other people see it or not.

“Hey...” I smiled as I sat down in the desk next to him.

Hehehe, just one word, and Drew was already blushing to the point of wanting to hide his face from me and anybody else who might be watching. It made me laugh to myself as he wiggled a bit in his seat and inhaled deeply as he tried to muster up enough oxygen to answer me. “Hi, Ethan...” He said, turning his head away from me shortly after to snicker quietly. He seemed awfully happy today. I liked it.

“Everything is still cool, right? With you and me, I mean?” I said under my breath.

“Huh? OH! Yeah...everything’s fine.” He said. “My dad...he had like...a billion questions after you left, and he’s still being...well, a ‘dad’. You know? But it’s nothing serious. I’ll deal with it.”

“That’s not the most convincing account of things being cool.” I said.

“Awwww, no. Ethan, it’s fine. Really.” He replied, with this really apologetic, almost pained, look on his face. “I guess this is just him going through another ‘adjustment’ period. That’s all.” Then he looked over his shoulder at the rest of the class, and turned back to whisper, “But it was totally worth it. You’re worth it. K?”

“You are too.” I grinned, and it made both of us squirm around for a few seconds before our teacher came in and class started. With us listening to the lesson in between the giggly peeks we took at one another, trying to pay attention while failing miserably to absorb much of anything on that boring old blackboard. I swear, society really picked the wrong time in ANY boy’s life, gay or straight, to try to get them to focus on much of anything that they might need later in life. Hehehe! Because right now...I’m thinking that all I’m ever going to need is Drew. Only Drew.

And when class was over, it was so hard to keep myself from wrapping my arms around Drew’s narrow shoulders and hold him tight, giving him a protective kiss to, hopefully, keep him safe as he walked on to his next class. I don’t know why, but the very thought of him getting so much as an awkward look from another kid in these hallways seemed to send me into a rage that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I mean, nobody was writing homophobic slurs on his locker or anything, but I’ve seen how some people treat him in this place. And he’s just so sweet and gentle. A delicate angel that happened to be dropped from Heaven in a place where a vast of majority of people were never taught to see his tenderness and beauty for the untouchable ‘wow’ that it really was.

I’m just thankful that I’m not one of those people. What a waste that would be.

“Be careful, ok?” I told him, my eyes reflecting the pain that it took to say goodbye to him and allow him to go off and be beautiful some place else where I wasn’t able to keep an eye on him.

He wrinkled up his forehead a bit, grinning, “I’ll be fine. Hehehe, you be careful too.”

“K...”

“K...” He said. And I noticed that he ran his fingers up through his tender curls for a moment before shyly biting his bottom lip and forcing himself to back away from me before he found himself involuntarily expressing the intense urge to kiss me right then and there. I could see it in his eyes. And had he not backed away, I think I might have kissed him first. He was so damn pretty. It was times like this when he truly took my breath away, you know?

I turned around to pull my backpack strap further up on my shoulder and started walking to my next class too. But as soon as I turned the corner, I bumped shoulders with a senior boy and was pushed back against the lockers. “Watch it, fag!” He said.

Maybe it was paranoia on my part...but I suddenly EXPLODED in a rage and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, my fists clenched tight as the fabric wrinkled up in my death grip. “What the FUCK did you just say to me?!?!?!” I shouted! “FUCK YOU!!!”

The guy actually looked really shocked by my sudden attack. An obvious overreaction to a comment that I suppose he was only making as a passing insult that would come with no consequences, whatsoever. His friends looked just as bewildered as he was, if not more so. This guy didn’t know me at all...but my brain was blazing with a spontaneous series of emotional fireworks, fueled with a rush of teen angst and adrenaline...creating a deadly and irrational cocktail of blind fury that I couldn’t control. It was almost as if I was looking at myself from the outside...unable to calm myself down.

“CHILL, dude!!!” One of his friends said.

“What the fuck is up with you, man?” The boy said, and I had to fight to let go of his shirt ad attempt to catch my breath again. I just...I was thinking about Drew, and the shit written on my locker, and...I was losing my shit.

“I’m sorry...” I said, smoothing his shirt for a moment before he smacked my hand away.

“You’re a fucking psycho, kid! Get a life!” He said, and they all turned around and kept walking to get away from me.

Is that what I am now? Am I a certified psycho? Well what do people EXPECT from me??? I’m just a KID! I’m locked in a hostile environment all day long, five days a week, surrounded by people who want to bully, intimidate, and break me down, just for being different! I’m hurting inside! I’m trying to fit into a world that has proven, time and time, that it doesn’t give a shit about me! And yet, I’m constantly forced to get down on my knees and BEG for its acceptance! Causing irreversible damage to myself every hour on the hour. And the ONLY thing that brings me joy and comfort in my pathetic excuse for a childhood has to be hidden away like some kind of dirty little secret, smothered in shame and guilt for not being included in some invisible rule book for ‘normality’. It’s stupid! It fucking SUCKS!!! And now I have people writing shit on my locker and calling me a fag in the hallway? Yeah...I might SNAP every now and then! So what? Sue me! I wish that I could, personally, beat the living SHIT out of the people who cower behind their Bibles and their political microphones while people like me are forced to bear the burden of their unwarranted hatred of who I am. But...I can’t, can I?

Now I guess I really know what Drew meant when he told me...you can’t fight them all.

And that makes you feel so helpless, in the end. I hate it. Some days...the knowledge that people will never ever accept my attractions, or that they can’t just mind their own fucking business...it makes me hate everything.

Everything.

The only thing that I have to keep me stable is love. It doesn’t feel like it’s enough sometimes, because hate and bigotry is so...’tangible’. You know? You can direct it at a specific source and take your anger out on whatever you feel is the problem. But love is different. It requires patience. Faith. Trust. It requires sacrifice, and it pushes people who have been hurt or disappointed before to believe in something bigger than themselves all over again. As if for the first time.

What can I say? Love is scary. It’s so big, so overwhelming...that it terrifies us all. Hatred is so much easier to deal with. Violence is such a simple emotion to recognize and get rid of once you find a target for it. But...now that I’ve felt the infinite joy in Drew’s magical kiss...I think that I would rather spend the rest of my natural life pointlessly trying to dull the fear of being so vulnerable and helpless in Drew’s gentle embrace, feeling his soft and smooth skin sliding against my own...than regretting my own insecurities and taking it out on other people. I found a path to paradise. And I’m just a kid. Why can’t those envious assholes find a path of their own?

Am I wrong?

I leaned back against the lockers, my brain buzzing with an inner monologue that I’m sure anyone else would find exhausting. But, what can I say? Sometimes I just have to get some things off of my chest. Even if I’m the only one listening.

But, as I turned my head, I noticed Jermaine, Billy, and Joey, standing together further down the hall. The look that they had given me...I wasn’t quite sure how to read it. I wasn’t even sure that I would be able to nod to greet them for the sake of being ‘polite’ considering how I treated them the last time we were all together. I mean, I missed them. I really did. They were my best friends. They still are, if I had to be honest. I just...I was experiencing something that had captivated every part of my waking life, and gave me a sense of euphoria and divine purpose...but...

...I couldn’t share that with them.

And that meant that I was going to be forced to choose between the best friendships that I’ve ever had and the most incredible love that I’ve ever known. How am I supposed to work that out in my head and still have my physics homework done by Friday?

They all just turned their backs to me and walked down the hallway to avoid even talking to me today. Ok, I guess I deserved the cold shoulder this time around. I mean, I wanted to at least get a chance to talk to them again and explain why I was being such an asshole these past few weeks...but something about my foolish pride prevented me from emotionally collapsing in front of them and pleading for them to forgive me. Something that they probably deserved, but I was reluctant to give them.

With Jermaine’s big obsession with getting to know everybody and be so popular in high school...from party to party, from movie to pep rally...he might actually have some kind of inside info about who’s been writing that bigoted bullshit on my locker. I have to be honest...if anybody would have an inside track to the high school rumor mill...Jermaine would be the one. Hell, if I hadn’t been such a dick to him, I might have been able to find the culprit before everything got so far out of control.

I’m just going to have to bite the bullet, eat my green veggies, and apologize to all of them at lunch from the very bottom of my heart. I know that it sounds selfish...’oh, so NOW you want to mend ways with your best friends because you’re in trouble and need their help?’ But….seriously...I miss my friends. I really do. And if there’s any chance at all that they can accept Drew as my boyfriend, without any rejection or criticisms being thrown in our faces the way that Billy and Joey talked about before...

...I’d love to have Drew join us. You know...as an official part of of our family.

I think that’s all I’ve wanted. Both of my worlds colliding into a utopia that I never could have imagined before now. We’ll see if they’re on the same page as I am. Because, if they’re not...I might find myself all on my own here. And I don’t know if I have the strength to handle it as well as Drew has since he was exposed to the public.

The days of secrets, denial, and straight porn, are over. I need to step up.

I just don’t have the faith and self love that’s needed to do that yet. But I’m working on it. I promise.