INVICTUS

XIV

Crying out, for a salvation

Written in the stars

Burning bright in your blood

I was happier than I had been for a long time. Even though my parents knew that I was gay, I never told them I was with Salih. I didn't want to endanger his secret. Our secret. It was a conspiracy executed with passionate kisses and rough desperate embraces in moonlit graffiti stricken alleyways. It was the cool air and stargazing, the sodden earth below us, caressing our feet.

I had gotten used to the thick wall that separates me from feeling other things. But there were now cracks in it and for the first time I could, feel, I could see, I could hear beyond. I wasn't healed, but I was healing.

Term 2 started, marking term 3 for year 12s. Salih and I decided that we should at least come out to our friends. I know it's usually a bad idea to do this at an All Boys Catholic school, but we know our friends. We could trust them.

So after second period we sat down at our usual place, under the big eucalyptus tree. We let them talk first, to ease them into the mood. After a few minutes I spoke up.

"So uh...Salih and I just wanted to let you know that..."

I felt my confidence waning. I looked at Salih for help.

"That we're gay and we're gay together."

Seth drops his sandwich to the ground.

"So you weren't already dating?" He cries.

"What you thought that...who else thought that we were dating?"

All their hands shoot up except for James's.

"Salih put your hand down." I reprimand.

He gives me a sly grin and puts his hand down.

"I thought you guys were keeping it on the down low," says Amrinder. "So I didn't say anything."

"I didn't think that." Says James.

"Of course didn't" retorts Seth. "You're as clueless as Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter wasn't that clueless." Says Amrinder.

"Mate," starts Seth. "That boy didn't even know he was a fucking wizard."

~~~

I sit across Salih's bed looking out at the sunset as he draws me. He's been drawing me more often now, its calming the silence between us were you can hear nothing but the scratch of pencil against paper. He hasn't shown me any of his sketches yet.

I was staying at his house tonight, simply because I could.

"Okay done." He says.

"Can I see?"

"Not yet," he says.

"You know you're going to have to show the world one day."

"Not yet though." He says.

I lie back on his bed and close my eyes.

"Just wanted to let you know." He says. "I dropped Eco."

I jolt up.

"What? But you're really good at it."

"I never really liked it as a subject." He says casually. "I end up in the Principal's office almost every week, because I can't control my tongue around her."

"If this is about me going to tell a professional-"

"It's not but you need help..."

"I'm not a nutcase, I'm not going crazy! I don't need help! I'm healing!"

"I didn't mean that...I just don't think it'll be enough." He says. "Besides are you going to let her do it to some other-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay fine. I'm sorry."

I feel the tense silence surround us. I hate having them. By dinner we forgot about our little argument. At least I think he did, I didn't quite. By the time we get to bed I am dead tired soon I feel myself drifting off. But like most nights, the memories, the nightmare it was always the same. I was paralyzed, naked, cold. As she would come closer making sweeping movements to a music only she could hear.

Who will believe you? she asks

No one! No one!

I am shaken awake by Salih, seeing his familiar face I almost cry tears of relief. It wasn't real. It wasn't real.

I feel his arms wrap around me, a soft silent kiss on my forehead, the warmth of his bare skin against mine calms me.

"Help me forget." I breath out.

"You know..." he starts, his tone soothing. "I can map out the stars, and I don't even have to look out the window."

I'm intrigued.

"Go on." I tell him.

His finger brushes against my cheek. "That's the Southern Cross."

I couldn't see but somehow I knew, he was joining up the dots the freckles on my cheek. He keeps going.

"There's Orion's Belt." His fingers trail down to the freckles on my neck. Then they move to my shoulder. "That's Canis Major, there's the Big Dipper."

His finger run down my arms and up my stomach mapping our more Cygnus, Leo, Aries, Taurus, Scorpius, Andromeda, Little Dipper and some I'm sure he made up. He's fingers are at my chest, he traces an S, just above my heart.

"That is the Salihus Sarfrazus." He whispers. "Because that's where I belong."

Smooth little motherfucker. I think. But I'm smiling, I'm calm. I feel safe. That night I dream that my body was made of stars. And I shone brightly with them. But Salih didn't need the stars to shine. They already shone brightly in his eyes.

~~~

Last update for today.

-Alekos P.