The Memoirs of Theolon

Entry 6

I wonder if my friend ever thought of me after that. I never saw him again, anyways.

Sorry for leaving you like that, by the way. I had to take care of something.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't care, just tell me more about your morbid love life."

Again, your funeral.

He wasn't even that surprised, or shocked or anything. It was like he expected it.

I had scrambled away, and I nearly fell into the creek that we were sitting nearby. I can still remember that little stream, water clearer than his eyes. Babbling, talking at me, it was happy. It made me happy. For an inkling.

He had leaned in, and patted me gently on my shoulder. A mouthed "sorry", it didn't even seem like he meant it, and then he had left. Walked away on dry leaves.

I wish his footsteps were silent. Then I wouldn't have been able to hear my anguish.

I had run back home, tears dripping, snot running like the little baby I was. Both my parents were home; I didn't dwell on that at the time, although now that I think of it, it was a bit weird.

I ran into the cheerful little log cabin, opposite of my premonition, spotted my mother and crashed into her side. She had been startled, I remember because she dropped the wooden bowl of broth she had prepared. I remember how I had thought, idly, that my father would scold me afterwards.

She had waited for me to stop bawling, and then she sat me down with my father at our puny little timberwood table. She stood behind my father, with her burlap dress - peasant's wear.

I still remember how flint-hard the gold eyes that were facing me had looked. He had black hair, jet black and rich - he didn't look like the serf he was, he looked like a king.

My mother had held me, comforted me, but it was only instinct. She had the same look - disapproving to the end.

I was still hiccuping, but they had waited, and the tension in the tiny, one-room house had gotten higher and higher. I didn't notice it.

Father had asked something, why I was crying. He didn't ask if I was alright. I didn't notice it either.

I had to tell them, I realized. I had to tell them.

I remember looking straight into my father's eyes. He had hardened, changed into a stone statue, anger cracking from him. Probably because of me, his poor, pathetic, son who fucked other men. He could probably sense it, I like to think that he was just waiting for me to tell him. Just so that he could get the best satisfaction from my reaction.

Satisfaction, reaction. Ha. More like the opposite.

"Papa, I'm gay."

That was the only and last time I called him that.