JM Shorts: That Year With Joe (A Three Part Novella) - 3. Part 3 - Loss

Part 3

'Loss'

The first time being in love is hard to describe.

The first time being extrapolated out of love is even harder.

Being in love, or falling in love as people like to say... well, I guess it feels like a fulfilment. It's all those stories you've read. For me It was in those women's magazines my mum brought home. Stories of poor women finding rich men and falling hard for them. For me it was never about material objects... fuck, I was 14! I had my own unique feelings - feelings that I used to think no one could ever truly grasp or understand. Why? Because they were not me. Despite knowing deep down I couldn't express those feelings, I felt a deep connection with the boy I loved. In return? He had nothing to offer.

In hindsight Joe was probably the biggest taker that had ever come into my life - still. Perhaps this was his upbringing, his age at the time or just his personality. He obviously had to look after himself a lot of the time, and I don't blame him for being street savvy. Where I find an ocean of sadness is the non material things he used me for.

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~

A few months had passed now. I don't recall how many; It could have been all of the months in the year. All I know is I was now fifteen, Joe still Sixteen. It's all a foggy pond of spaghetti in my head.

Those months were the worst times in a way. He would ignore me for weeks. I hoped, prayed, and imagined that he would come and knock for me. Like on a Friday. Youth club night. He was never there now, bored of it, he said. I still went, if only to get through the weekends without him.

School was torture. Seeing him there every day, knowing I couldn't go up to him because of the whitewash of dismissal I would receive.

"What d'you want," he would ask if I ever did pluck up the courage.

"Can we talk?" I'd ask, which would send him into a sulky tantrum.

"Just go and be with your own friends, will you," it would typically end.

I spent so long in the toilets crying about him, always crying. Always wishing he'd change. Why did he have to be like this? I'd ask no one. Why was I used so much?

When we were together, it was like being wrapped up in love, as if it was something tangible you could grab hold of and cover yourself in. I want to say it's like candyfloss. You can pull chunks of this 'love' and rub it all over yourself.

Saturday nights were the most memorable. My God, how I lived for those Saturday nights. They always ended up with him staying over, and we'd have primitive sex... but it was our sex. I'd lay on top of him, rubbing myself against his stomach until the end. He would push the end of his rod up against my crack, and produce circular motions using his fingers, pressing the head hard against me. He'd go on for ages until I felt the end reward of his work splash all over my back. Whenever he was at that moment, I would grab him, squeeze him as tight as I could, knowing he was so lost in orgasm, and I could be his for those short few seconds. Once, just before he came, he even let me kiss him. It was a clumsy kiss and looking back now, it was a kiss that more than likely repulsed him. But being so close to his end point, perhaps in a small way, he got some satisfaction out of it. Who knows?

I never asked. I never will.

Then came the regret he got. It was evil, sending him quiet, non-responsive and always conveniently tired. Each time we finished, he vowed 'never again' like I was some dirty homo secret.

Truth is? I was!

One Saturday was, I recall, the pinnacle of 'us'. It was the best night... the best we'd had! I'd been over the flour mill on my bike. Just me. Just me and my thoughts of Joe. I had been praying hard that he would come over this Saturday - like I always did on a day that ended in a Y. It's nasty of me, but I wanted his father to chuck him out, which I know is a negative thing. But for him to be at my house, with me? That was the positive thing and It always outweighed the negative. Always!

After spending two hours at the mill, I came home, and he was sitting bare-chested on the sofa in my lounge. I don't recall why, it must have been a hot day, or he'd been out working with my dad. Anyway, my mum was on the other chair. They were chatting. For me? All my dreams had come true. Someone had answered my prayer at the mill. He was here. He was here, and in a good mood, smiling at me as I walked into the lounge. Just by that smile I knew something would happen tonight after the parents had gone to bed.

Dione Warrick was playing. One of mum's CDs of the era she loved. The 80s. It was Heartbreaker. An Iconic song and an ironic one too. I'll always play that song and think of him - him in my lounge, no top, smiling at me. The song will never mean anything else, even if I heard it as a plane crashed in front of me. That doesn't sound very kind, but it expresses how much I mean by my former statement.

"Have you both eaten?" Mum had asked. I remember.

"Not me," he said.

"Nope," I answered after.

"Here's a tenner. One of you go down the kebab shop and get you's both a burger, yeah?"

"Thanks, mum," I'd said. "Shall I go?" I offered.

"Why don't we both go," he said with a grin.

I knew what that meant. It meant he would ride his bike with me on the back. He seemed to enjoy both of us trying to share a saddle and how close my bits were to his body. It was a stupid thing, a silent thing we had. But we both knew what to do while on that bike. While riding he would sing. It was always Boys of Summer. It sounds sassy, but I would just put my arms around his chest and hang on, as the wind buffeted my face. He did sing it quite well as I recall. But it's not the singing! It was the time, the tune, the weather, the wind, us... it was us on a bike, cruising through the streets in the warm evening sun. For me, this was like reaching the top of what life was.

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~

There is nothing to worry about when you are in love. Just knowing how you feel is like the end goal; it is a celebration, everything is perfect, and nothing could ever go wrong. The more you travel down that rabbit hole, the more it feels like an addiction. You know what you're going through, and you're scared, but you remember with distinction the incredible clear high points and the horrible comedown. My come-downs from Joe were awful. Monday mornings were pure evil to me. Like a toxic day after being on cloud nine. You know you're falling into something that can destroy you, and maybe it has already, but you can't help it. You want to feel that incalculable warmth again. You chase it. You follow it, beg your soul for it back. Another Saturday, please. Just one more Saturday like that special one. But it won't materialise. It's not working out. He's not there! Your mum talks to you. You're in a foul mood. You don't want to do anything. Not play stupid games, not call for friends, not eat. That wicked downer feeling comes for you like a predator, grinning with its big ugly teeth. You know you're probably killing yourself, but you don't care; you don't: it's not worth being alive if you're always going to be who you were without this.

Every time it ends, it feels like a surrender. Despite knowing what you're going through, you're still a bit removed so that you can observe your emotions' undulations, but you can't get far enough away not to feel them.

You know how bad it is when he's gone again, and you're helpless to keep yourself back. You want to control the trajectory of this unbelievable dopamine rocket tearing through your insides. Still, you can't seem to hold it down hard enough to keep the stupid words and idiot suggestions from ripping through your voice box. Joe can crush me just with a few words, and he knows it. It blows me apart and mashes my brain. But I go back for more. It's on his terms, though. But I don't care. I want it as a heroin addict wants the hit again after not having it.

Who cares if you've done so well not to see him? He's back, and he wants to use you. He's horny. This is all it is. There is no love, substance, continuation, kiss at the end, smile, or aura. There is no love from him. This is no love from him, and there never has been! You're a fool. You lap it up like some obedient clueless yappie dog. Not knowing the person in front of you doesn't care about you, while you sit there, tongue out, begging for more... more rejection, more blowback, more empty sex!

Pfffft, What? Do you think he felt anything for you? He's a straight lad, overconfident with boys, zero confidence with girls. So it won't take Einstein to work out what he had to do to get laid - so long as he could swallow the fact there was a dick pressing against him.

He wanted contact stupid: flesh, warm flesh to stick his tool against. You were there. You wanted it. You fool!

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~

Then there comes the last time. You never know when the last time is until it's done and you're years in the future thinking back. There was a last time. I remember it.

The last time is erosion. It's looking at a face that used to light up your field of view like fireworks, and now you're only seeing embers. It's arguing... secret arguing as you've gotten braver now. You're demanding he answer your questions. And every time you open your mouth, you're sure that each word is chipping away at this enormous and beautiful thing that you're not sure you can even see the edges of anymore. For you something big is crumbling before your eyes. For him, there was never anything there to wreck.

"Fuck off, will you, Gaylord,"

BANG! The comment hits you square between the eyes. The comment is bad enough for someone like you, but it's from him. He said it! He fucking said one of the most painful things as a gay person at 14 , not out, could ever hear, and it came from the guy you built your year around. BANG! it hits again as you repeat it in your mind to make sure.

"What?" I sobbed. I sobbed in front of him. "Why? Why have you decided to torture me like this for so long? It's completely fried my brain, Joe."

"It's boring. It was a thing that we did, okay? You obviously thought it was something gayer. Well, sorry, but it wasn't. THERE! Have I finally answered your question?"

The last time? Well, it was made a Saturday before those words. I didn't know it, nor did he. But we'd set our 'last time' in stone.

I ran from the bikesheds back to the toilets on C floor. I cried there for ages. Unbeknown to me, the school had called my parents because I didn't turn up for two lessons. My life was effectively over. I was crushed... crushed because I knew I had just had the last drip of Joe at those bikesheds. By getting more animated with my true feelings for him, I had effectively ended what I had tried so hard to understand and save.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES, there was never any him and me. YES, we were never a couple. No, he owed me nothing apart from dignity. But in the end, I never got that in my own sense. I never got to give myself dignity back. I'd made a fool of myself, and yeah, no one knew. But He did!

I FUCKING DID!

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~

The sickly feeling of being alone again was hard. I had fallen for a straight boy harder than a moon colliding with a planet. the following weeks were brutal. I couldn't let go. I kept thinking he would visit me at home - perhaps apologise for being so insensitive. But why would he? What had he done wrong? He'd never presented anything to suggest his feelings for me were like mine were to him. Maybe he didn't even know how I felt. Did he care? Of course not. Well anyway, I never got to humiliate myself that far. No, not that low. I think telling him how I felt would have been worse than telling my family and friends I was a homosexual at that point.

Perhaps.

Now I avoided seeing him. I closed off the places I'd usually visit or go near. The pub was out of bounds. The tennis courts at school were off-limits. I came in the front way to school now because the main building blocked any view of where he might be hanging. I somehow avoided him in lesson change.

At the flour mill, I started my healing and grieving at the same time AND I was going cold turkey. I faced this alone. So alone. So alone I could have combusted with sadness. No one knew I was like this. But, on the flip side, I didn't know anyone like me. My secret WAS me!

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~

Joe was one of those boys that only come along once. For anyone reading this who is an elder statesman, will you agree with me? Did you have one? Perhaps when you were just a scrawny teenager like me, falling for your first boy. Can you relate?

For that one, that special one - the one which only comes along once? You always lose them because they are never suitable. You're too young to understand... so are they. It's fairytale stuff, right? No, not really... not in your head. For you this is the end of the world. And an adult? Nowadays? If they knew? They would probably say awwww, how sweet. Flashes of first love still enter my mind. I believe that it can be a form of PTSD that needs to be worked through just like any other trauma - because when you think about it... when you really think hard, isn't being rejected by someone you are deeply in love with one of the most painful and traumatic experiences of your whole life? And you go through THAT as a teenager. You go through that ALONE?

The special one? Well, something draws you to them, and perhaps they need something from you. You get used. And then they later go on to get married, have children and eventually emigrate to a far away land. As the years go by, you reconnect as Facebook friends, but never talk about the reason why. You never have the courage. You never dare mention theee history that makes you Facebook friends. You leave it ,and wonder...

Do they ever think about that time, as you do? Probably not. After all, you were nothing!

~

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

~