"I need you to hold me; I'm scared."

A story of two guys in love.

LANCE

   I never thought that it would end up coming to this. I always knew that, eventually, we'd have to come out to the parents, but it didn't have to happen like this. Brad and I have been dating for a little over a year now, and even though I've never come out and told my mother I was gay I never came out and said that I was straight, either. It doesn't really matter now, though, because it's all over. It hurts like f*****g hell.
   Brad loves to draw and paint and I love writing songs about what I feel in his art. That's how it's always been. In fact, it's the thing that brought us together in the first place. I never dreamed that it would also be the thing to tear us apart.
Brad's mom, Carson, found a song I'd wrote to Brad based on one of his painting's. When she read it, however, she wasn't at all pleased. I didn't mention this before, but I will now. All the songs pretty much hint at, "I love you, Brad, and I will forever." Well, Carson flipped when she read it and basically attacked Brad when we walked in the front door after school. When I stepped in and tried to say something she turned to me and screamed, spittle flying from her mouth, for me to get the hell out of her house. I didn't need telling twice. As scared as I was for what might happen to Brad, I was more afraid for my life, so I ran off down the road without looking back.
   Later on that night Brad called me and said, calmer than I'd ever heard him talk, that it was over. When I tried to find out for how long it was over he just kind of laughed and told me that I should think of it as a vacation. I don't know what he was picturing in his mind, but sunny beaches and tiki lamps were the farthest thing from mine at the time. Suppressing a sob, I asked what his mother had said. After drawing a deep breath he went into the long explanation that left me feeling numb and wishing that I could just die then, because I knew I would not like what came next.
   A lot of what she said was expected, the rest either wasn't or it was shocking and I didn't know what to think anyway because I just had this overwhelming feeling of impending doom.
   You know how in the movies, and some books, when people are about to die? How they always say that their life flashes before their eyes? I didn't see my life, but I did see all my times with Brad go on fast forward through my brain. The day that he came over and I had spread rose petals all over the floor and had fallen asleep before he came in, and he just cuddled in beside me and fell asleep too. The day that we first kissed and it was clumsy and we still laugh about it today. The day that he was sick and I fed him pomegranate seeds and cake and wiped the sweat away from his face. The day that I "proposed" in the Pizza Hut parking lot and he accepted and we skipped back to the car arm in arm.
   As all these things flashed through my mind, the harder I cried, and the more Brad tried to help me see that it was a good thing, that this would teach us to be independent, that we would be stronger for it in the long run when we were back together.
   That's great and everything -- but I wanna be with you now.
   There were so many things that I wanted to ask and a million more things that I wanted to say, and for some reason the only thing that I could manage to actually say was, " I love you." I wanted those three words to be enough to say all that I needed to say and still it just didn't seem to be enough. I couldn't find a way to explain how much it hurt to hear him say, "Think of it as a vacation." or "It'll be good for us, it was going to happen anyway." and "I still love you." I can't help but wonder if he left the song out on purpose to make it end so abruptly this way, and then I mentally kick myself for ever thinking that at all.
   When I finally do get off the phone with him I break down and can't seem to breathe because I'm crying so hard. Have you ever cried so hard that your eyes burn, your throat feels like it's tearing, you wanna scream, and your heart is pounding so hard you swear someone three houses away can hear it? That's what it felt like, combined with something tearing my soul away from my body and something else causing the world to crush me from all sides so that there is no escape. When I finally can see through the slight blurr of tears in my eyes the first thing I see is a stuffed animal he's given me. It's a sea turtle, my favorite animal, and I remember him telling me that he went through dozens of them at the Toys-R-Us until he picked out the perfect one which I've named Kelpie. I walk shakily over to her and pull her close to my chest. I sob into the soft turtle's back and wish that this were not Kelpie I was holding in my arms, but Brad. With a jolt I realize that I may never get to hold him in my arms again, tell him I love him, kiss him on the cheek or hold his hand.
   I open up a nearby drawer and shove Kelpie inside. I can't bear to look at her right now. Almost as soon as I turn around I see the scrapbook he made me for my sixteenth birthday and fall to pieces again. I walk over to it and flip it open to the first page and don't stop until I've gone through the whole book five times. By the time I'm done the pages are splattered with tears and I think I may have smudged a couple of lines of ink on one page. Without even thinking, I walk back over to the drawer Kelpie is in and stuff the scrapbook in beside her. I spend the next hour finding all of the things he's ever given me and stuffing them into drawer after drawer. When I'm done the room looks so empty. There are blank spaces on the walls where posters once hung proudly and an entire seashell collection is now locked up in a secure box where they will be out of sight. Even with all of this stuff gone it is still full of memories. The room itself is crawling with them, the laughter, the tears, the beginnings of a new romance that was not supposed to end.
   Admitting defeat, I walk back over to the drawer that started it all and gently pull out Kelpie and walk back into the center of my room. Holding her close to me I look once around my room and marvel at how much it feels like a tomb before I curl up in a ball on the floor with the sea turtle clutched to my chest.
   I need you to hold me; I'm scared. I think to myself.
   I am holding you. Kelpie answers.
   I finally cry myself to sleep but even then I can't escape the nightmare.
   When I finally wake up, I put everything back where it belongs. I'm not ready to let these things become just memories. Not yet.

Author's Note

This is a story loosley based upon what happened to me and my ex-girlfriend.

Reviews

[Here's What I Say]

That's how some of the greatest works of fiction are born: from real life. I think of some of my best stories, and all of them, somehow, someway, had root in real life. Fiction always has a least one kernel of truth.

It's painful to look at things that remind us of someone we love that we lost. It's a constant stream of alcohol poured on an open wound. I know it hurts, honey. I had to go through this with my ex-boyfriend (who helped inspire what is arguably my best story--and he's not going to like how he contributed if he finds out) and writing was a form of therapy to me. I wonder where Lance's future will lead him; will it really lead back to him? Will they really get back together again? Will it be better, worse or just the same if they do? Is it just best for Lance to cut his losses?

Something my ex said to me when we were dating seems to resonate in this story too albeit on a much deeper level. Do you know what sandart is? It's when someone takes a jar or a decorated bottle and it's filled with layer and layers of different colored grains of sand. My ex said that he saw me as another layer contributing to him; I became a new layer of his being. Albeit the least important one, I'll bet. But if you take that layer that I contributed out, he's less complete as a person. He's missing a layer that he's supposed to have. And that's what Lance is doing to himself when he's trying to take down every little thing, every little gift and token from Brad. He's taking a part of himself and shoving it in a drawer. He's taking himself apart. It's a painful layer that's just been added to him, but it's a part of him now. He can't change the fact that Brad was in his life and that he loved him. He just can't. There's a reason why his room felt like a tomb-- "We murder to dissect".

Brad is still there in him. And so is she for you.