Black Star Cross - 20. Popping Feelings

Black Star Cross

Chapter 20: Popping Feelings

I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I swear, I didn’t even breathe for the few seconds that I stood there, motionless like a statue. Eventually, I came to my senses enough to return the hug that Anthony was still giving me. I figured that I should try to reassure him somehow. But what was he so upset about in the first place? Did his grandfather die or something?

We both stood there in that position for a couple of minutes. I instinctually started to slowly rock us back and forth in a desperate attempt to calm him down. Anthony was still on the verge of tears, but it looked like he was starting to settle down. He was starting to breathe more normally, at least. After about five minutes of doing this, I gently pried him off of me. He seemed reluctant to let go, oddly enough. I looked up at him, and him down at me, which was weird, considering the fact that I was the one trying to comfort him.

“Anthony. Tell me, what’s wrong?” I said as gently as I could. I feared that anything stronger would break him, especially in this fragile state that he’s in now.

Anthony had to take a few seconds to gather his thoughts and words, it seemed, and to catch his breath.

“Why?” he asked again. “Why did it fucking work? Tell me, please!” he shook me gently but firmly.

“Why did what work?” I replied back. I was confused. What happened? What was he talking about?

“Dude, don’t play dumb with me!” he shouted. He was clearly starting to get angry now, but also looked like he was ready to tear up again as well. “You gave me that fucking shirt yesterday, and as soon as I went to bed that night, I was out before I knew what hit me! Tell me that you put something in that shirt of yours! Tell me that you soaked it in...I don’t know, ethanol or something! Tell me that you drugged it! Please, tell me.”

Now he was going into one of his world-famous mood swings again. Starting out quiet, he got louder as he rambled on, getting angrier as he goes, peaked, then quickly deflated and became quiet and desperate, begging for the answer he wanted as it seems. I didn’t know that the t-shirt idea would have this kind of an effect on him.

“Anthony, listen to me and listen well. I didn’t do anything extraordinary to that shirt. The only thing I did to it was sleep in it Thursday night. That’s it. It’s just a smelly shirt.”

As I let those words sink into his brain, I thought about whether or not what I said was a little too harsh. But I’m not going to sugarcoat this for him. Hell, it certainly wouldn’t be sugarcoated for me. He needed a good dose of reality. See what’s actually going on inside that afraid and confused brain of his.

Now, unfortunately, Anthony started to panic again. His breathing increased.

“No.”

Pant pant.

“NO.”

Pant pant.

“No...”

Then nothing. No more panting, no more panic, no more denial. I believe it was finally starting to sink in. I suppose now would be a good time to try and comfort him, but again, I’m unfamiliar with that sort of thing, so I didn’t really know what to do as Anthony slowly broke down in front of me.

It was just then that I took notice of the fact that we were still standing in the doorway, and that it was freezing outside, just like a mid-January morning should feel. I was getting cold, and I bet that Anthony was too, even though he probably couldn’t feel it at the time. His mind was somewhere else. So, I took him by the arm and dragged him inside, shut the door, and grabbed his arm again (it seemed like the only way to move him at the time) and dragged him upstairs to my room. I tried not to wake anybody else up while doing so. I don’t think that Anthony wanted anybody else to know that he was here, or WHY he was here.

Sitting him down on my bed, I finally got enough nerves to sit down next to him and engage in actual conversation.

“Anthony, it’s going to be okay, man.”

“Dude, how the FUCK would you know?!” he snapped back.

His eyes, oh I did NOT like the look in his eyes. If he thought that he could get away with it, he would’ve murdered me right then and there and chopped me into bits afterwards. Maybe consoling him right now is a bad idea.

“I tried everything that I could think of,” he continued, “to get myself to fall asleep. I even tried that sleeping drug, Lunesta or something.”

“Isn’t that a prescription-only drug?” I asked.

“Yeah...”

“Did you tell your mom about your sleeping problem?”

“No, I don’t want her to know anything more than she has to.”

“But, then how did you get the Lunesta? You have to be eighteen now to get prescription drugs. You’re only seventeen.”

“How did you know my age?”

“You told me, remember? In the hospital?”

“Oh yeah, right.”

“You still didn’t answer my question, Anthony.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t steal it or anything. I just got one of my older friends to get it for me. I paid them back.”

I sighed. I knew that this wasn’t something that he should’ve done. There’s a reason why you have to be eighteen now to get these kinds of drugs. Wait...

“But no matter how many I took, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was like my body was fighting those things,” Anthony said.

“Hey, when did you get those drugs?” I queried.

“Um...the first batch I got was on Sunday...” he said.

“First batch?!” I said, louder than I probably should have.

“I ran out!” he defended. “I kept on not getting any sleep, so I thought that more pills would do the trick! Double the dosage or something! Maybe I was immune to the drug!”

“Anthony, you could’ve gotten yourself killed! It already looks like you’ve developed an addiction to the thing!”

Anthony looked at me in surprise, then bowed his head to the floor. He almost looked...sad.

“I just wanted to get some sleep,” he whispered. “I was so tired...”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He looked like a puppy that had just been yelled at for peeing on the floor. A cute puppy at that. I could feel my anger melting away at the sight of him. Dammit, why can’t I stay mad at him?! I scooted over to him and drew him into a hug. He didn’t resist.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” I apologized. I can’t even remember the last time I did that. “Did you take any pills before going to bed last night?”

Anthony shook his head.

“No, I wanted to make totally sure that your t-shirt didn’t work on me. I wanted to prove to you that your idea was stupid.”

He leaned into me. Neither of us said anything for awhile. I think that we were both processing at what we had just learned. I definitely didn’t want him to continue overdosing on Lunesta.

“I don’t want you to be using those drugs anymore, okay? You just continue using my shirt to get yourself to sleep,” I told him.

There was a moment of silence before he spoke up.

“I’m not stupid, Shawn. I know what this all means. I get the meaning behind me not sleeping until you gave me the shirt. I mean, what the fuck, I’m practically cuddling up to you right now, and I barely even noticed it!”

He was right. We were huddled up together on the bed. Anybody passing by the room, if the door was open, would’ve thought that we were a couple first thing. Actually, I don’t think that I really noticed it too much until he brought it up.

“I don’t want to be gay,” he said, whispering again. “I’m not like you. I’m not like other gay people. I like sports, I like alcohol...”

Hmm, another dangerous thing to do. But I’m not surprised.

“...I love my car, I like to hang out with my buds and shoot some hoops or something, I like going to wild parties where I know that the parents won’t be home, and there will be lots of booze and hot chicks...”

I think I get the picture, Anthony.

“...I don’t like ballet or anything sissy like that, could care less about interior decorating, I don’t talk weird or limp my hands, or hang out with a bunch of girls and go shopping for shoes, and I DEFINITELY don’t want to take some guy’s cock up my ass.”

Okay, THAT part I’ll have to work on. Wait, did I just think that? Ohhhh, this is bad. I haven’t even got to second base yet. Shawn! Snap out of it! He is NOT your boyfriend! Not yet, at least. Hey, I’m a horny, gay teenager with a hot guy who’s unsure of himself, literally sitting in my lap right now. Cut me some slack!

Okay, I guess that I better try to cheer him up now. Even though I, myself, had, and still, believed in all those stereotypes as well, I’ll just have to set those aside for now so that I can properly soothe Anthony.

“Hey, look at me. I don’t do any of those girly things. I don’t care about interior decorating. You don’t see me talking with a lisp, or limping my hands. I thought we already went over this. Not all gay guys are like that. Just like how not all straight guys are exactly the same. You can still be gay and be Anthony at the same time.”

He actually snorted at that.

“I hardly think that anyone else is going to think the same way. Once you go gay, that’s it. Life’s over. Guys on the football team will beat you up. That is, unless they all gang bang you and make you their slut beforehand. All the creepy guys will start subtly hitting on you, giving you unwanted attention, which will only make the others make fun of you more. You start failing all your classes, even though you know that you should be getting an A in it.”

The way he talked, it was like a prisoner talking about the guillotine the night before his execution. He saw absolutely no good coming from being gay. Honestly, I didn’t see any good in it either. It’s what killed Dad; how can it be any good?

“You know what? You’re probably right. Life’s shit once people know you’re gay. You might as well shoot yourself now and get it over with, because if you don’t, I’m sure someone else will. I mean, look at me. I’m not out to anybody. It’s not like I was planning on doing it anytime soon either. It sucks being gay, you know?”

Anthony looked up at me with a sort of surprised look on his face.

“I really didn’t think that you would say all that. I figured that you’d be saying some random shit about ‘how to be proud of who you are’ and ‘it’s not all that bad; everybody will love and accept you and if they don’t, they weren’t your friends to begin with’ and all that other shit.”

“Well honestly, I was trying to do that, but it got too hard. I can’t see any good out of it. It’s like having a huge wart on your face. It’s not life-threatening, but it will MAKE your life miserable.”

“Such a great analogy you have there.”

“I’m surprised you know what the word ‘analogy’ is.”

“Hey, shut up. I’m not THAT stupid.”

“Oh really? I seem to have it burned into my memory that you are just another dumb jock whose only purpose in life, other than to torment me, is to reinforce the whole jock stereotype.”

There was silence after that. I had meant it to be funny, but I think that I had crossed the line there.

“Man, Anthony, I’m sorry...”

“It’s okay, dude. You’re right. I’ve picked on you for so long, it’d be wrong for you to think otherwise. And, I do act a lot like a stereotypical jock most of the time, don’t I?”

“Yeah.”

We both sighed and continued to enjoy our time together. At least, I was enjoying my time together with Anthony. I don’t know about him. It wasn’t until about half an hour later, after doing nothing but sitting on my bed, me leaning against the back board and him leaning on me, that he finally tilted his head up and kissed the bottom of my chin. I was immediately broken out of my own thoughts and looked down at him to see if he had really just done that, when he took advantage of that by kissing me on the lips! Fortunately for me, this one lasted longer than the previous.

The kiss itself was nothing spectacular. It kinda reminded me of that upside-down kiss scene in the first Spiderman movie. I did have my eyes open in complete shock, though. You would have thought that it was my first time kissing him! But it was the meaning behind the kiss that was most important. It was all the tiny gestures that Anthony made that sent my soul skyrocketing. The way his left hand went up to cup the left side of my face. The way that his right hand slowly caressed the outside of my right leg. The way that he slowly eased his tongue into my mouth, being careful not to push things too far. He was ready. He didn’t know what to expect, he was terrified out of his mind, but he was ready. I, also, didn’t know what to expect. I was scared witless as well. But I knew that I was ready too. Perhaps I wasn’t ready before, back when we first really got to know each other. I was immature, but now I’m ready. Ready to act mature.

Anthony turned himself around and we continued to make out. It was subtle, gentle in a way. It wasn’t like one of those foreplay scenes you see in a stupid teen movie. It was kind of like a courtship dance. We never once tried to take off the other’s clothes. There was no need. We didn’t want or need that right now. Just being with each other was enough. After awhile of kissing, Anthony looked into my eyes and conveyed all of his emotions to me. In that one moment, I understood all that he was going through, all that he IS going through. In the same silent manner, I told him not to worry. He understood, smiled weakly, and rested his chin on my head, apparently suddenly drowsy. I was getting to be the same way, so I slid us both down so that we could both fall asleep comfortably on the bed. Arms and legs entangled, facing each other, we kissed one more time before drifting off into sleep.