Two Boys in Love

CHAPTER 1

I don't remember when I first saw Adam. When I started sixth grade in Mrs.Tronik's class, I was so busy trying to get used to my desk and my new school and my new class that I wasn't really paying much attention to anybody, and I was for sure not in the market for a friend. My Mom and I had moved to Lakeland, Florida from Towson, Maryland just one week before school started, right after Dad left. I didn't even know where we were going until after we got in the car. I had spent the two weeks prior staying with Dad in his little apartment he had moved into while my Mom was institutionalized after a nervous breakdown in which she tried to kill herself. Apparently after my Dad told her about his girlfriend he had been seeing and that he was leaving us for her, she broke one of his liquor bottles and attacked him with it. She just barely missed his stomach and groin, and then she tried to slash her wrists with it. I heard all the melee upstairs in my room and hid under my covers. I heard the police show up and then the ambulance to take her away. That very day he had moved completely out of the house into a one bedroom apartment. He explained to me that "sometimes grown ups drift apart" and "it is for the best because neither of us are happy" and that I had nothing to do with it and blah blah blah. All I knew was that he totally changed my entire world in one day. I never even knew they were having problems. Two weeks later Mom showed up told me to pack my things, told Dad to go fuck himself, and we were on the road.

A little about myself. My name is Byron Welleham, I am eleven years old, 5 feet tall, skinny but muscular, and tow headed with full lips and deep set hazel eyes. I was once told by a talent agent my eyes had a "gazing intensity". I was a very good looking boy and Mom had tried to get me cast in commercials and what not a year before, but nothing ever came of it, especially after it turned out I wouldn't be able to play baseball if I got work. As much as I liked baseball and athletics, I wasn't feeling very motivated to participate in either at my new home. I was very quiet in my new class and was not very responsive to attempts by others to befriend me. I was also seething with anger and hostility, which apparently the other kids could sense. I was also quite strong, and had done twenty pull-ups in PE one day, so everyone pretty much left me alone. One day this girl Jenny whispered something in this other girls ear while looking at me. I gave her such a nasty stare that I could see a flash of fear over her face and she turned away. I was definitely not one to be fucked with and I was waiting for any excuse to punch someone out. I would eat lunch by myself and during recess I would sit to the side in the 90 plus degree heat and 100 % humidity and read a book and just try to be left alone.

One day I was reading and a shadow suddenly loomed over me, I looked up and saw Adam Fitzgerald, one of my classmates, standing there and holding a soccer ball.

"Do you want to play soccer with us?" He asked in his high pitched voice and articulate speech. "We need another person to have two complete teams."

I wanted to be left alone and I was about to let him know it in uncertain terms. However, as I looked at his face, he seemed almost concerned, as if he was reading my very soul and seeing the heartbreak and turmoil within. "No thanks, Adam. I'm just going to sit here for a while." I said.

He shrugged, bounced the soccer ball off his right knee three times and caught it, smiled at me, and turned around to go back to the game. I watched as he walked away. He was shorter than me by a couple of inches, and had a stubby sort of build. He was medium blond with a bowl cut that went down to just over his ears. Something I had noticed earlier, and had noticed again now, was that he had the bluest eyes I had ever seen on anybody. He also had really red lips too. I went back to my book. After about a minute, the shadow returned. I looked up and Adam had come back to where I was sitting, this time without the soccer ball. He sat down next to me on the hill.

"Why aren't you playing soccer?" I asked.

"We had an extra person since you didn't want to play with us so I volunteered to sit out." He said. "It's ok, I play soccer professionally so it doesn't really matter."