Boy on the Ledge [BXB]

Boy on the Ledge

I encourage everyone to take a moment to listen to this song as it is one that I think fits Jonas and his story really well!

• • •

Everyone talked about Jonas — the boy on the ledge.

How he couldn't bring himself to jump — but oh how they wished he would. How he'd roam the hallways seemingly there, but not there. He was alive, yes, but oh how they wished he weren't.

And he wished the same.

Soon, people would sometimes hear him say, and they'd cheer to themselves because what he was doing — and what he was — was not right. They could not accept it. No boy should be attracted to another boy.

We thought he had actually done it one day — actually killed himself — and we were happy. Happy because his sins that tainted and disgraced us died with him. But I was happy because if he was gone, there was no temptation. It was wrong, I know, I couldn't be like him.

That day, the people who had never spoken to him, spoke like they knew him. How they knew he was a good kid, just lost. That's what they'd say — just lost.

But I was lost too — confused. I wasn't like Jonas. I wasn't like that.

The next day, he walked through the double doors and the school went ballistic. Harsh words and shoves accompanied him down the hall. I never participated, but I did nothing to stop it. I wasn't like him.

Go do it, they said, see if we care.

He stood up in the middle of lunch that day and immediately, all eyes turned to him. The courage on his face made me want to be like him in that moment. But I wasn't like him, and soon, I'd realized I never would be.

"I won't ask for your acceptance," He shouted, a look of pure annoyance on his face. "But I wont take your disrespect."

A murmur had established itself among the students.

He cleared his throat, "I'm gay." His eyes sweep over the crowd, not staying on anyone to long. "I'm not confused or lost — I am gay."

But nothing changed. They all openly harassed him — only now, he fought back. We (my friends and I) would hear teachers talking in low voices about how Jonas would pay for his sins — for being him.

I wouldn't, I wasn't like him.

One morning I walked up to him, and asked a question that had been bugging me for sometime, "How did you learn you were...gay?"

He had smiled, a bitter, yet pleased thing, and looked me straight in the eye. I'd nearly fainted, because these thoughts going through my head were wrong — and I knew I wasn't like that.

And then, finally, he replied, "I—" He blushed, "It was the night of Liam's party." He licked his lips nervously.

"That was a fun night." I told him, even though I didn't remember a thing.

He laughed then, a laugh that was the same as his smile, and took a sip of his water and I was mesmerized — but that was okay. It was okay to mesmerized. Just so long as I wasn't like him, and I wasn't.

When he finished his sip, a droplet of water escaped and ran down his top lip and in that moment, I had never wanted to be a water droplet so much.

And I think he knew this.

So maybe, maybe, that was why I'd accepted when he asked to hang out later that night. Just as friends, I told him because the thought of it being anything but, excited me — and that scared me.