-Ned Dankwort
I wake thinking I am alone. I have spent so many mornings alone. But then I sense your presence in the bed, and the night we spent together comes rushing back to me. I smile softly as I ease out of bed, down the hall to the kitchen. I stare out the window as the kettle hisses. Outside, there is a weak rainbow reflected against the storm clouds. The rain comes down, bars against the window.
As I stand there, I remember my first real kiss. I had kissed girls before, but this was my first true kiss. He pushed me against the side of the school wall; no one could see us.
“What are you doing?”
His eyes were filled with lust, but at the same time a searing anger. I knew I should tell him to stop, but I feared that if I spoke it would be his fist against my mouth, not his lips. I knew what we were doing was wrong … but it felt so right.
He said only one word to me that day, walking with his friends.
“Faggot.”
It was love.
Every day we’d share furtive glances, try to get each other alone for a quick kiss. Each touch told me that he truly loved me, even though each insult wounded me, secretly. He did it so know one would know, he said, no one could know! What we had was too bright and beautiful for the world to understand.
I thought that. I thought it was love.
I only told Matthew, my best friend. He said nothing, but looked into the distance, his shoulders tense with anger. He didn’t need to say anything. His silence said enough.
I knew, then, why the world couldn’t know.
One day he came to my house after school. Finally, finally, we were alone. No one hide from, no one to fear. We lean against the kitchen counters, he grabs my hair before I can stop the words coming out I gasp, quietly, “I love you.”
He stops, steps back from me.
Silent.
Before I know what is happening, his hands are on me again. I feel his fists bruise my face.
“Fucking faggot!”
I fall to my knees, again. He kicks me in the stomach, and walks over me, out the door. I lie on the floor for what seems like days. Finally, I look up to see your face.
“M-Matthew?” I am bleeding and ashamed.
Gently, you kiss the blood off my lips.
“B-but I thought…you hated me.”
“I hated what he was doing to you. He wasn’t good enough.”
I knew then in my heart that you were.
I make coffee for the two of us, still reminiscing. The bruises on my chest are almost healed, but the scars I have inside will never fully fade. You wrap your arms around me, and I smile. Staring out the window I see twinned rainbows, fitting within each other perfectly.