The world without Izaiah

2

During Christo's childhood, he knew something was different about him, but he wasn't sure what it was. He just was, and it bothered him deeply. Around the time he hit puberty, he started noticing himself looking at people differently, both girls and boys. His mom never spoke of gay people, never mind bisexual people. The only time he heard the word gay was at school, used in a derogatory manner.

He decided to ask his mother, Francine, what the word meant. As you might imagine, as an older, less open-minded Christian woman, she immediately shut him down, simply stating that gay people are sinners and that being gay sends you straight to hell. ,

He still didn't know what being gay meant. That is until a boy in his class came out, and he asked the boy, "Are you gay? You know if you're gay, you go to hell, right?"

The boy smiled at him and said, "God loves me even if I like other boys. God created me. He would never turn his back on me."

Everything his mom told him suddenly confused him. Why did people have such varying viewpoints on something that seemed so apparent to him then? He wouldn't go to hell for being gay, right? If god had an infinite love for him.

Even though he knew that for a fact, he still suppressed his thoughts until his sophomore year of high school because he still had feelings for girls. You can't be gay if you like girls, so he just thought that maybe it was expected to think about other boys from time to time.

And then he found his way onto Facebook, and suddenly everything made sense. A friend had made a post about their coming out as bisexual, and so he googled bisexuality and was greeted by a definition. He still had a voice in his head that was telling him there was no way you couldn't be bisexual because he was a virgin and had never even kissed a boy. After all, how would he know if he were genuinely bisexual if he'd never kissed a boy?

It wasn't long after that that he lost his faith altogether after hearing all the voices of queer kids talking about how their parents abandoned them for being gay. If all that were true, Christians must suck, and he didn't want to have anything to do with them.

Christo was a timid teenager. He never had a real friend to talk to about these things. His friends were superficial and merely hung out with him for social clout.

When he met Izaiah, however, he finally found someone he could talk to. Finally, he knew what love felt like.

Izaiah was in the same boat. He never had many friends, not by choice but because he struggled to find people who he clicked with. Usually, his eccentricities scared people away. Not to mention being openly and unapologetically gay. Even the other gay kids didn't like him much because he often drew a lot of attention to himself with his autistic traits and vocal stimming.

Christo learned quickly that Izaiah's seemingly odd vocalizations and mannerisms were just simply a coping mechanism to help him escape the stimulation and stress in the environment, especially during school where it's bright and loud and overwhelming for all students, never mind someone who is autistic.

Izaiah had a lot of tics. He would knock on his head and repeat everything he heard. Sometimes, his pacing made people nervous. Not everyone at school was pleasant to him.

Christo never had any issues with bullying, at least not like Izaiah did. He watched someone flash a flashlight in Izaiah's eyes, and Izaiah swatted at the boy. As the boy started sizing him up, Christo stepped up and got right in his face. The boy laughed and walked off. Christo was a good six inches taller than the boy and a football player.

Christo lived and breathed football. Nobody knew he and Izaiah were together. He was cautious not to make it painfully obvious. Nobody even thought he was queer. He seemed straight enough to slip under the radar, and he even had a girlfriend during his first year of high school. After all, football players weren't bisexual, at least not in people's minds.

Christo didn't believe in god anymore, simply because there weren't any queer Christians, at least not that he knew of. In his mind, they didn't even exist, especially since everyone at his church was so homophobic.

People at school weren't the most friendly towards queer people either. That's where some of Izaiah's bullying came from. They called him all sorts of names. He got pushed around and mocked. His school was predominantly Christian. Some of the students were quite friendly toward gay people, but other than that, people could be cruel.

One time, a student tried to hit Izaiah with their truck. It was all caught on camera, and the student was expelled immediately. Luckily, the student decided to leave him alone after the incident. Otherwise, he knew Christo would have attacked him.

Christo hated seeing Izaiah getting bullied. For the most part, his football buddies knew to leave Izaiah alone because they knew that they were friends. Christo explained autism to them; he said Izaiah's stimming behavior and why he talked differently. They still weren't the biggest supporters of gay people, but they were kind to him anyway, probably because they knew Christo would fight with them.

He knew fighting wasn't the answer to solve the issue, but he felt defenseless if he didn't fight. He knew Izaiah was fragile and depressed. His bright and cheerful demeanor was all just a put-on. If he just pretended to be happy, maybe he would trick himself into actually being okay.

Loneliness and depression were a sad reality that a lot of queer autistic people had to face. Even straight autistic kids had to face this reality. Nobody was patient enough to become friends with them, and they faced many problems with teachers as well. Being in special education wasn't easy. Sometimes, teachers were impatient with them.

Isaiah was brilliant in his way. Intelligence was just different than other people's. He had an average IQ, nothing extraordinary, but not low, either. His intellect came from things he was deeply passionate about, things he obsessed over.

His particular interest was figure skating. Even though he usually wasn't the most coordinated person, his gracefulness on the ice was unmatched. It took an entire lifetime of dedication for Izaiah to learn how to ice dance. Sometimes, it looked like he was floating across the ice. Christo thought he looked angelic as he glided effortlessly across the frozen surface.

But now it was all over. Izaiah would never figure skate in the Olympics ever again, and he would never have another chance at winning a gold medal.