Tears (BoyxBoy)

Jamie ran out of the room, trying to hold back the tears threatening to start streaming down his face at any second. He felt like his heart was being ripped in two. Gasping for breath, he ran blindly, just knowing he had to get away. He tore down the path between the houses, sprinting to the only place where he ever felt safe.

Reaching the park, he bent over at the waist, gasping in breath. He braced his hands on his knees as his legs threatened to give out. He felt ridiculous, standing in the middle of the open field, tears leaking from his eyes, his hair sticking to his forehead from the sweat streaming down his face. The air was warm and damp in the July heat, and he could feel the material of his loose plaid shirt plastered to his back. He thanked God that the sun had already began to set, so people in the houses bordering the park wouldn’t be able to look at him too closely.

As he finally began to catch his breath, he straightened up and slowly walked to the swings to the left of the main play structure. Sitting on one of the swings, he wrapped his hands around the chains, fighting to keep from gasping out in pain. The pain of a breaking heart. The pain of the deepest betrayal he’d ever experienced and never once expected.

Looking up at the darkening sky, he let the light breeze cool the sweat covering his skin. The sweet smell of flowers surrounding houses’ gardens permeated the air, along with the slight hint of exhaust that comes from living in a quiet little neighborhood on the outskirts of a large city. The sharp barking of a dog in a nearby house and the rustling in a nearby copse of trees as the critters settled in for the night were the only sounds interrupting the silence.  He stared at the sky, but didn’t really see it. Instead, he was reliving the scene he’d left over and over in his head. The images flashed behind his eyes where they’d be forever burned.

His mom telling him that Ben was there. Jamie hurrying down the hall in his house, a smile stretching across his face. Hearing an excited shriek in Becky’s room. Swinging into her doorway, freezing where he stood. Seeing Ben sitting on her bed, Becky standing in front of him. Becky leaning down to Ben’s face, her arms around his neck. Her lips on his. Ben’s hands on her hips. Their surprised faces turning to see him standing in the doorway. Ben reaching out a hand to him, his forehead wrinkled in concern. Seeing him mouthing something, probably Jamie’s name. The world tilting as Jamie spun around, and then just blurs as he raced out of his house, not stopping until he got where he was, sitting on the swings, alone in the park at dusk, his heart breaking.

Any other guy, he would have reacted differently. Any other guy, he would have punched, probably thrown out of the house. Any guy but Ben.

Ben, who had been there with him through everything: who had helped him bury Hooch, his faithful cocker spaniel, in the backyard when they were ten; had stood by him through his parent’s divorce; had wrapped his arm around Jamie at his grandmother’s funeral; who visited him every day in the hospital when he broke his arm in three places after falling out of a tree; and who had held him while he cried after his father called him an abomination when Jamie told him he was gay. Ben, who had been part of every major event of his life since they were seven years old, his best friend, his confident, his rock. The boy who had stolen his heart when they were seven years old, and never given it back.

Under no circumstances would he have ever thought he’d see that same boy kissing his little sister, one of the three people in his life he had trusted with everything he was. Becky, who was three years younger than them, and just about to enter her first year of high school.

Glancing down at the ground, all the blinking in the world couldn’t have stopped a few more tears from slipping silently down his face.

The sound of shoes pounding along the path had him looking back up, and his eyes widened to see Ben flying down the path towards him. The look on Ben’s face had Jamie tightening his grip on the chains to keep from going to him. His face was red from exertion, and his eyes had a slightly crazed, desperate look to them. If it weren’t for his winded look, Jamie might have even said he looked sad, like Ben was in the same pain he was in.