Anywhere, Any Time, at Any Cost

Chapter 1: Where it all began

I've always known I was different. Well maybe not from everybody else, but definitely from every girl at my school and in the community we lived in. You see, I'm gay. And I've known it ever since I can remember.

It all started in kindergarten, when I was about five years old. I was shopping with mom and saw a couple kissing in their car. Back then it seemed ridiculous to me and disgusting, but it wasn't a big deal, because, come on, almost every kid finds kissing disgusting. But then I came across two women holding hands and I asked mom:''Mommy, why are they holding hands? Are they together?''

Mom just shrugged thinking I was curious, and answered with a yes. But when I said:''I want to be like them when I grow up.'' She knelt down to me and explained how some couple are the same sex.

''Well, I wanna be just like that.'' I said and my mom reacted very surprisingly. She didn't tell me to shut up or that it's just my imagination and I'll change my mind by the time I grow up. No, instead, she stroked my cheek and said:''Honey, you can be whoever you want to be when you grow up. Whatever you feel, allow yourself to feel it. Express yourself however you want, baby. Know that I will always love you, no matter what.''

She was a truly loving and kind mother, the best I could ever had. Knowing she would always love me, made me even more sure I wanted to be like those women I saw. But back then I didn't fully understand her and maybe wanting to be like those girls was just a way to avoid those terrible kisses that I thought only boys and girls share and that are full of sticky saliva.

But as I grew up I realised it wasn't just that. I was never attracted to men, like I was to women. I didn't understand it, but I knew it. By the time I was 12 every girl was chasing a hot, sexy guy and I felt really weird for being different. I didn't know how to blend in with a crowd that was nothing like me. So I became quiet and shy, in other words, the school weirdo, but at least other students left me alone. But that didn't last long.

To make things worse, my secret came out. I befriended one girl, whom I really liked and I thought we would become friends and maybe even more. As it turned out she was just a lying bitch, determined to make my life a living hell. She stole my diary in which I wrote all about my strange feeling for girls, and none for boys. And so just like that, one day everybody knew I was gay. Even though I didn't fully understand it myself, now I was surrounded by judgemental, mean teenagers, that threw new names at me every day. I was the degenerate of the school so I kept to myself and tried to silent those inexplicable feelings and attraction for girls, but the more I hid it, the more I felt it and hated myself for it. I was young and I didn't understand why everybody hated me just cause I was a bit different.

My darkest nightmare came true when my mother died the next year. I lost my only protector, the person who loved me the most. She was the only one who understood and supported me and I was devastated when I heard the news. I locked myself into my room and poured my pain into my journal.

My dad was heartbroken too and I knew he loved me. But he neither knew, nor did he understand like mom did. I loved him and I knew he was concerned about me, so I tried to stay strong and continued putting up with the bullying and mockery at school and told him nothing about it nor about my gay feelings. Instead I found another escape in cutting myself, because I blamed myself for everything and I hated myself.

A few months after my mother's passing, when I was at the lowest point, although so young, something happened. That's when I met him.

Elliott Young first walked up to me when I was 13, sitting in the school park by myself, like always. I knew who he was, everybody knew. OK, maybe he wasn't the most popular guy in our generation, but he was pretty popular in his circle of friends and around the school. For a 13 year old boy, he had a pretty big reputation. That's why it shocked me even more when he came to me. I though it was just another prank my schoolmates had decided to play on me, to make me even more miserable and depressed. You see, people like Elliott didn't just talk to me because they actually wanted to, and if they did, they never had good intentions. Never. But Elliott was different.

He sat down beside me and just started a conversation and even though it was small-talk I somehow felt that he was true and honest. But I kept back, with my walls still up, not ready to break them for the first person who walked up to me and wanted to be my friend.

I was scared of even more pain, so I kept my guard up even the next couple of times he came to talk to me. Just him. And when I asked him what he was doing, he simply said:''I'm talking to you. Isn't it obvious?''

When I rolled my eyes and asked him why, he said:''Because I want to be your friend.''

I asked him why again and his answer scared me a little, but it gave me new hope that I had already lost and had been in such need of.

''Because I think I see beyond those walls you put up to protect yourself.''

He hit me right in the feels and I just stared at him. That was the point when my walls started to break. HE started to break them and some time later my last walls broke completely as they came tumbling down, but I knew I didn't need them anymore. He had pure intentions, just wanted to be my friend. Well at least back then.

We became good friends, best through the years. He became my protector, my guardian angel as he kept me safe from all those mean insults that students threw at me.

He wouldn't let anyone or anything hurt me, but he didn't know I was actually hurting myself. But I felt better, because finally I had someone to confide in, someone to trust and to lean on. I was very grateful to him and I loved him for what he did. I loved him like a best friend.

The pain had lessened, but I still felt it and I kept hurting myself. When we were 16 he found out and of course he was shocked that I would do something like that to myself. But he understood when I explained it to him. I guess he heard the pain in my voice, at least I know I did. He made me promise to him that I would never do it again, and he checked me a lot after that. I stopped for some time, but then the pain surfaced again, and I was so obsessed with hurting myself by that time, that I slowly started doing it again, this time more carefully than before and rarely, too.

But I still did it, because even though I had a loving best friend and a father who only wanted the best for me,  the pain always found a way back into my heart. Besides, I might have been greedy, but it wasn't enough. Even though Elliott protected me from the abuse at school it still reached me. And even though he told me not to mind it and forget about it, I just couldn't. I heard it and it hurt me more than ever.

That year I thought becoming 'normal' like everyone else, was the solution to my problems. So I didn't look at other girls anymore, I didn't write anything in my journal, I completely stuffed my feeling for girls and tried to talk to guys and be attracted to them. But it sent me on a downward spiral of pain and suffering.

I went to a party once to try to communicate with boys more, just to have some guy's tongue shoved down my throat. It tasted of onions and my first 'kiss' was terrible, just as I had imagined it. I came home crying, but Elliott was there to comfort me and tell me it was alright.

After that I started hating boys and thought they were just a bunch of morons who wanted to see me suffering. Except for Elliott, of course, he was all I had and I loved him. He helped me through everything and if it hadn't been for him, I probably wouldn't have made it.

I wanted to know how it really felt to be with a girl, not just be attracted to them and watch them. So I went online and started talking to girls at lesbian chat sites. It was the only option I had, as there was no one like me in my community. Like I already said, I was different from everyone else.

And then I met Eveline online.