Shh! Love Please!

Two boys face the truth of their feelings. What test could be too much for a good friendship between young men to withstand?

The silence my decline left pressed on the pair of us in the sunlit library, the light dancing on the warming snow outside the window beyond the table, were we sat across from each other. It got me thinking: am I as big a disappointment as he is to me? It was strange to watch his blank sixteen-year-old face, my own age, when it was so obvious thoughts were racing behind his eyes and struggling to reach his mouth. They had to be heard, needed to be heard. Did he have to ask me here, of all places? I had to break it somehow-�"with something. Even his own sorrow would be a good excuse.

“I’m sorry,” I continued. “I have a girlfriend and all now. I’m pretty sure I’m not part of the Village People…”

“Oh well,” he replied, finally showing emotion that betrayed his words. He did not want to end it there, and bitterness had seeped into his tone. “I just thought you’d be more true to who you are and your sexuality.”

“I never claimed to be gay!” I retorted. “I’ve always said I didn’t know which way my door swung. Now I do.”

He sat there quietly, staring at me, making me more than a bit uncomfortable. Forgotten earbuds hanging around my neck buzzed TATU’s Malchick Gay and mirrored the boy’s pleas to be loved to my ears. I had not even bothered to pause my music player, thinking this talk would not take this long.

“She’ll only betray you,” he stressed, placing his palms flat on the table. “But I was always there for you!”

He was not wrong, and I knew that. Well, the second part, at least. But I had seen that come at a cost to his previous relationship. Unable to juggle more than one relationship at a time, I had watched him neglect his boyfriend to hang out with me. Not something I wanted to feel for myself.

“Betrayal is nothing new for you, is it?” I commented.

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” he suddenly accused, as I knew he would. He always had a knack for picking out the negative tones, and he right now he had found the worst time to do it. “What?”

“Just what it sounded like,” I answered.

“You know I’d never do that to you,” he argued.

I shook my head. “I’m not so sure. I’ve seen you bow your top at your boyfriends when they did something minor, like forget to call or whatever.”

He had nothing to say to that. If our topic switching from the question of sexuality to quality of personality had given him any hope that I had changed my position, it was gone now. I saw it in his eyes. I had my heart set on my new girl, not him. Even when I had been alone before her, his million-and-one attempts to ask me out had not gotten my approval, only annoyance. The feeling just was not there. Maybe this time he finally understood.

He stood up and shoved his books off of the table into his book bag. As he slung it over his shoulders he shot me a cold glare that made my cheeks heat up, my opinion of him souring up even more. Why did he have to be this way?

He stomped off out of the quiet library. I made to attempt to stop him. He would text me later, sounding like nothing had ever happened. I hoped he would still understand by then that we would not happen. It was strange how he could hold a grudge on an ant for looking at him cross-eyed, but he completely ignored the big stuff like this if it did not get him his way. I was sure he would try again.

“Damn it, why do boys have to be like this?” I asked myself.

The sun shone through the tall library windows to my left, warming me as I closed my eyes and let the negativity fade away. I squinted past them at the buildings across the river. The song changed to Rooftops and the rooftops, too, changed as the wet, heavy snow fell away because of their own weight and the icicles cried as they met their slow demise.

Author's Note

I was looking through my old "Creative Writing" notebook and found this. What I posted is not the original various, since I rewrote a little of it to fit my current voice and style. I liked how it came out then, but I was not really happy with it. I knew I had left some mistakes in it, I just had not known what they were. Now I do, and I hope I've fixed them. I'm much happier with this product. I think you all will be too. And this won't be the last time I post from that notebook.