[dreamnotfound] forever yours, George

eight

graduation.

it was humid and sticky and unbearably long in those dumb grad gowns, but i got my diploma and my parents got ten million pictures and you and i got sad thinking about our future and shit.

because now we have to pack up all of our stuff and move into college apartments as roommates together. and we have to go to community college until our brains rot and melt and turn puke green and leak out our ears.

now that i look back on it, i was overreacting. i was a dramatic kid, that's for sure. it wasn't that bad. balancing school life and a part time job was pretty rough, but having you as my roommate was a bit of a bright side.

we were grown up. two adults shoved into the real world like a spotlight in a musical on Broadway with no preparation. we weren't given a script or even a chance to practice.

college was when it all
went
terribly wrong
and my life
crumbled
beneath my feet
and sent me careening into
nothingness
and you didn't save me.

let me paint you a little picture.

october 15th, first year of college. it was the only year that we were willing to go through considering that we didn't have a dream job in mind.

at this point, i was head over heels for you. i had adapted to the boy that developed in the mountains with his uncle and grown to love him. soon, i realized that the mountain boy was a shell over the boy that i knew for so long. or that's what i convinced my mind.

besides the point. i told myself that we were all developing and changing, and things were going to be different. if that's you turning a little more mean and having a deeper voice and crying sometimes in your dorm room when you think i'm asleep, or me confessing my built up feelings once and for all.

you have no idea how difficult it was, Clay. no fucking idea.

i had liked you since the moment i saw you during summer 13. i knew every one of your secrets, i knew every inch of your body and every mole and skin tag and freckle upon your skin. i was basically part of your family. you were my only friend, and i couldn't rip that all away.

or maybe i could. maybe i didn't love the boy from the mountains and i just forced myself to think that i did. maybe i could confess now that i know that the feelings are pretty much over. now that the boil is a steady simmer.

so one night, on the couch in the dim moonlight, you held a cigarette between your fingers like the evening after you bought your first pack in senior year. i still felt disgusting when you smoked.

"tell me about your trip to the mountains."

you had straightened your spine and clenched your jaw and fluffed your wavy hair. your deep eyes turned cold.

my heart fell.

"you wouldn't understand."

i had shifted closer to you. i remember because of the way the milky light shifted and cast down on your face, painting shadows along your sharp cheekbones and nose.

"please, Clay. it feels- it feels like you've changed. and i thought it was better, and it was normal again, but every time you take out a cigarette-"

and you take another drag from the rolled paper between your fingers, the tip glowing red-

"-i remember how you acted when you came back. and i don't like it."

the Clay in front of me that night was not the Clay i knew and loved. it was this monstrous version that belittled and tortured my feelings and smoked because it was cool and kept secrets from me that floated just beneath the surface, if you would let me grab them.

"you've never met my uncle. you don't know why i had to go up there."

and in a flash of pain and anguish and fear and misery, i slapped your arm hard. not the playful way i used to when you would warm my cheeks with the way you talked.

"then tell me! share with me, Clay! i don't know you!"

you sighed a long sigh that was strung in the air between us like a marionette. the night was cold and my arms were covered in goosebumps. i silently tucked my own soul in. i prepared for the Clay that would lash out and be harsh with me.

"he made me..." and you turn away coughing, spluttering the vulnerability from your lungs because it hurts to be the soft-skinned boy that you once were, right?

i tilted my head and tried to sympathize with you.

"he made me touch him."

and a tsunami of dread splashed over me and drowned me a million times over and banged my head on cold smooth rocks.

it all happened so quick. i was in your arms, and your sobs shook my body, and you cried for the first time in front of me. you melted beneath my grasp like candle wax. like a careless child's popsicle on a hot summer day, or on his best friend's 16th birthday.

"i love you, Clay. i'm so, so sorry." i whispered into the cotton of your shirt. you sniffled and it was okay because i didn't even want to make fun of you. i wanted you to know.

"you're such an idiot." you chuckled into my neck. your warm breath tickled the hairs on the back of my head as you squeezed me tighter and held onto me like a lifeline.

i knew that i was yours.

i knew that you had just poured yourself out for me,
even in just a couple simple words,
and it had all clicked.

forever yours,
George