When I Was Alphie

B-side: Gemma

Author's note: as always I would love feedback. Let me know what you loved, hated, or felt neutral about to help me improve my writing skills!

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B-sides: Gemma

Dear Gemma,

Your love is an island that I am forever destined to wash up on the shores of. I'm a ship to wreck, a water-sogged thing, a beached animal crawling across the sand. You always felt safe, a haven far from the tumultuous sea of my life.

Until you weren't.

When we were young you inserted yourself into my life; I let you in with the delight of someone who desperately needed another. It happened naturally in the third grade; your locker next to mine, a forced sharing of Valentine's day cards within our classroom, and your misconception that I was also a girl. I remember clearly how you approached me, little baby Gemma wearing purple tights and a tartan skirt, the card clutched in your hand. I wrote dumb poems inside everyone's card because if I was going to be forced to do something for school, I might as well make it creative. I was eight so the depth of the poems didn't go far, but you've always been a helpless romantic, haven't you?

There is a girl that looks like an angel / her hair a halo / she has pretty green eyes / I want to be her friend and learn how to be an angel, too

It wasn't my finest work. Regardless, you kissed me right in the hallway, and I promptly burst into tears because it was my first kiss and I thought that meant you had to be my girlfriend. You stole my first kiss and then ended up comforting me when I sank to the floor in distress, my Bob the Builder backpack weighing me down.

After that, we were friends, as if the kiss sealed the deal that was me and you. Things were simple at that age, and they remained simple between us. The dream team, Gemma, that's what you always called us. You'd always say things like, "Alphie and Gemma vs the world," whenever something happened to flatten one of us. We picked one another up, again and again.

I always needed simplicity. You saw something in me that no one else detected, and you helped me cultivate the interests that my family vehemently tried to discourage. Often I would pick up the things you took for granted and scrutinize them, pretending to be aloof, holding a bottle of nail polish up to the light as if I was only admiring the color. You painted my nails for the first time, declared my stubby nails beautiful, and made me take the bottle home because you claimed you'd never use it. There were other things that you noticed as well, such as the way I'd go through your wardrobe and claim I was just looking. You could detect the yearning in my eyes and you treated me accordingly.

You took me, planted me in the soil, watered me with love and kindness, and then later feigned that what grew was normal. I always thought that you treated me better than everyone else, while in reality, you treated me like a girl. With the slightest of nudges, you pushed me over the edge and into the abyss of what I truly wanted.

Angel Gemma, you were supposed to teach me how to be an angel, not this. Yesterday, I was a monster in your room, my hand snaking up underneath your shirt and caressing your naked chest. I can rarely get my fucking dick hard, yet it was for you last night. Because I've always been the most comfortable with you, always only you, since you were the one who understood me better than anyone else.

Hot chocolate with brandy; you always called it "the truth serum", a drink we had frequently when the days grew shorter and the cold reigned. That night, you made it for us, your hair accidentally dipping into the mugs we made in pottery class during our freshman year. Your split ends dripped hot chocolate. I pulled one of your loose blonde strands out of the inside of my mouth while I drank.