Temptation

-16-

            It wasn't the first time that I'd felt like this. I'd been stuck between Sarah and Kaden but I'd first hit puberty, but it was different then – Neither of them loved me back. Sarah was popular and had more friends than I could count. Her hair was always shiny and her nails always sharp and decorated with tiny flowers and gems. Her backpack had her name on it with glitter, which all of the other girls admired. I had, too, but, for the sake of masculinity, I'd pretended not to.

Kaden was my best friend, but clearly straight – Once, he stole his older brother's playboy magazine and we'd drooled over it together. That friendship had ended when he was teaching me how to skateboard and his leg had brushed up against my thigh and my dick, with a mind of its own, had popped straight up, and, thick jeans and all, Kaden had known. He gave me this look of such disgust and repulsion that I'd gone home and prayed to never feel that way about another boy again.

When I was seven, I'd chased a kid around the playground – I couldn't remember his name by now – And when I caught him, I'd kissed him. A group of boys had cornered me out of sight of the teachers and sneered "faggot," lips curled back and flecks of spit spraying out all over my face. Once they'd finished their jeering, they'd socked me with a black eye that lasted for days. The next day I'd swore on my life that it had merely been a dare. I'd kissed a girl named Stella to prove my point. I asked her to marry me, and that had been it. I still found boys attractive, but I felt the same way towards girls, so I figured that it was a choice, and that everybody felt that way. I just had to make the attraction to females louder, and then I'd never have a problem again.

I thought I'd really found the solution to my problem with Sophie. I'd found a girl who really loved me, and one who I really, truly loved. No other man or woman could pull my attention off of her and her gorgeous body and taste in music and the way that she always cut her toasties into squares. When we lay back on her bed and shared a pair of earbuds, I no longer remembered the part of myself that nobody else liked very much. She offered me a sense of escape and relief, and maybe that was part of the reason as to why it was so hard to let her go.

I was almost certain now that Andy liked me back. I could feel it in his kiss and the way that he touched me, and I yearned so badly to melt back into him and never have to come back up, but I wasn't seven anymore. I knew that to make choices like that was to put myself into danger. A world in which we could love each other safely was not the one that we lived in.

Things wouldn't be the same. I would be looked at and treated differently. I would have to admit my dirty secret, and I didn't know if this shameful fling was worth all of that. I didn't know if I was simply indulging in him because I had gone so long without tasting a person with the same body parts as mine. I didn't know if I was willing to give it all up for him. I didn't know where to take it from here.

I was fine with just fooling around, but there were already too many feelings attached and I couldn't commit. If Sophie came back around, I would take her back. I would take her back for myself, because I loved her, and also for my reputation.

I knew that I was turning hot and cold faster than the slightest tilt of a shower knob, but it was time for me to turn the water off.