golden

part two

John Hamish Watson was born in April of 1975 when his mother's favorite yellow daffodils bloomed. His sister said that it stormed the day he was born, and his father would just grumble about it. His mother would always say that it tied for the best day of her life (the other day was the day Harriet was born, obviously).

John always remembered his mother smiling. She didn't have the type of wrinkles older ladies got on their foreheads from raising their voice too loudly or squinting from the sun or frowning. She had wrinkles made from smiling too much and laying in the sun too long, and she had the deepest dimples John had ever seen in his whole entire life. When he was younger, she would just embrace him and hold him for minutes at a time just because she wanted to. And John didn't even care because she smelled like vanilla and had the biggest, warmest hugs.

When John was in his formative years, he remembered seeing Margaret Thatcher on the television. His mother would shake her head, making the blonde curls around her face bounce. His father, on the other hand, supported Thatcher and all of the laws she decided to put in place. So, when Harriet came home one night with a girl in her year, his father shouted and screamed and told her to pack her things and go.

John promised himself that night that no one would find out he had been yearning to snog boys in the gymnasium locker room.

He promised himself that night that he would never ever let himself fall in love with a boy.

He promised himself that night that no one would discover that he was something other than heterosexual John Watson.

And that was that.