CHEST TO CHEST (BxB)

THE BEGINNING / I called him beautiful

He's so beautiful.

"Lee, what movie?" he asks, crouched over the rack of discs, his head turned back to look at where I'm sunk into the couch.

I blink at him, and shrug my shoulders, pulling the blanket tighter around me so I don't do something stupid. Like touch his hair, or his lips, or that mole on the back of his neck that peeks out from under his collar. "You choose," I say, knowing that he'll pick Jurassic Park even though we've watched it three times in the past week.

His lips turn up in a grin and he picks up the disc, brandishing it at me. "Good?" he asks, and even though I've never really liked the movie I nod because I know he does. It makes him happy and whenever he's happy, so am I. He slips it into the DVD player, and clicks a few buttons before coming back to the couch and crawling under the blanket with me.

I know it's wrong and I know it's bad but I just want him closer, and closer and closer. The movie starts, but I can't stop staring at his face, and the freckles that dot his cheeks. I want to ask him how many he has, but he probably wouldn't have ever thought about counting them. He hates them. I want to show him that they're beautiful, that he should love them, I want to show him that I love them.

"Lee?" he asks, his voice soft as he tears his eyes away from the film to meet mine. "Why are you always staring at me?"

Immediately, I freeze. I didn't think he would ever notice; he never notices anything. He's never paying attention. I pull my knees into my chest and watch him, every move he makes, every breath. I tell myself he doesn't know, and if he knows he doesn't care – that he won't understand what I mean when I say, "Because you're beautiful," but from the way his eyebrows slant downwards, I know he does.

"What?" he asks, and then, shifting towards me, reaching out a hand to pull mine from over my face, "I didn't hear you."

The tears are starting to pool in my eyes because I know what this means. This is my death. I'm not supposed to think that he's beautiful and there's no way that I should be admitting it. I've never thought before I speak and now it's my death. "I – " I start, and then get caught on the seriousness of his grey eyes. I could never lie to him.

"You're beautiful."

He lets go of my wrist, and nods. "That's what I thought," he mutters to himself, and then turns his attention back to the movie just long enough to pause it. "Girls are supposed to be beautiful," he informs me.

"But so are you," I sniffle.

He takes a deep breath. And then another. "Why are you crying?"

"Because you're not supposed to be beautiful."

"But I am to you?"

I nod, wiping my eyes, my bottom lip trembling. I don't want to lose him, I think I'm going to lose him, I think he's going to leave me here alone alone I want him to stay I want to count his freckles and watch Jurassic Park with him for the rest of my life. Don't leave me, I want to tell him, but the words have stopped working.

He takes my chubby hand in his and holds it tight. "Thank you," he says, "I thought the only person who thought I was beautiful was my mother." And then he laughs. And he smiles. And he slides closer to me on the couch, and he doesn't let me pull away from his grip.

He presses play on the movie and we sit, our fingers wound tight together.

"It's okay," he says, when it's over. "I think you're beautiful too."