Alighting

One: "Falling on Your Ass"

One - CLIFF | FALLING ON YOUR ASS

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing.

It's a nice quote, sure, and a wonderful sentiment in itself, but not exactly. The fall was what killed me - the fall from grace. The fall from being trusted by my family and being that one kid (you know the kid, come on) that is unconditionally loved and adored by all who know him. It sucked to turn into the opposite. But I suppose there are worse things.

I should probably provide you with some backstory - I'm gay. Only, I didn't realize this significant factor until seventh grade and my biology teacher leaned back over the desk to explain something to my seatmate, and well, you can kind of tell how that worked out. I haven't really seen girls, really properly looked at them ever since.

The first fall was in eighth grade. My next door neighbour's dog had just given birth and I -- even though I was still sort of in my pessimistic, cynical teenager phase, wanted to see some cute puppies -- and the cute boy next door. I walked over with my older brother, Cole, and tried to keep my eyes off the boy. In my defense, he was quite good-looking.

"That's William," his mother said, and he gave a cheeky smile to both of us. "Christ, Will, go wash up. You've brought back half that mucky lake in your hair."

He'd just come in from the lake, his hair in disarray, his shirt balled up in his arms. His emerald eyes met mine, and a smirk spread across his features.

I looked away and blushed, trying to distract myself from that devilish face by petting the panting mother of now five very gross-looking puppies. But that wasn't the last time I would be caught staring at him.

Or to be caught with him but that's a story for another time.

There were lots of mini-falls, as I like to call them, with various boys and by the last incident, my parents were well-aware of my sexual orientation. My dad never really said anything - but my mother was a whole other story. She was a firm believer, against homosexuality and anything her goddamn book was against. I usually just kept quiet (when my mother got like that, all loud and opinionated, there was nothing to defuse her) and once she was done ranting, she more often than not just left the room. Thank God she never required me to tell her anything about how I felt. Because I didn't know what to say. I couldn't control or diminish the way I felt about boys - it was like a forest fire. It ravaged my mind and consumed me.

The last fall, and by far the worst, was the incident with my vice principal.

Honestly, I knew he was gay from the get-go - maybe it's true, we do have a radar. He always looked at me differently, like maybe he knew I was too. He wasn't bad-looking, I suppose, more of a George Clooney type. I hadn't made any moves, if possible I was trying unbelievably hard to stay away from the principal's office, like most boys in junior high. But for a different reason than my fear of getting in trouble.

That sort of foolish thinking never kept me from what I wanted. There were things far worse than getting caught.

But alas, I ended up sitting in that depressing office with secretaries that look like they'd rather be anywhere but there -- with a small pink sheet of paper.

To be frank, I didn't mean to hit the guy. Loud and obnoxious Ryan. I just have an inability to handle assholes to that sort of degree. Well, in one meaning of the phrase. Wink.

But how I ended up in there doesn't really matter in the long run. It's what got me here today, folks. I walked in as nonchalantly as I could, trying to just be a normal boy for once who isn't thinking about what his principal looks like bent over. This was probably the most fitting time for one of those songs they play in the movies or tv shows where two characters are getting it on. Not that we completely got it on. But I did end up under his desk trying to undo his belt.