prove me wrong

• 22 •

"Tyler, is everything okay with you?" My mother asked, frowning. "You look so happy." Wow, now my mother was even worried when I was happy. I nodded. "I have to go," I said. "Are you going to Josh?" She asked, and for some reason she seemed to be nervous. She fumbled with her fingers at a piece of ginger that she had taken from the vegetable basket, just to look busy. I had a strange talent for analyzing and interpreting people's movements. I nodded, but there was nothing else left for me. It had been more or less surprising that she had believed me a friend, that more would be too much for her. She nodded. "As I said," she continued, "I'd like to meet him." "Why?" I asked suspiciously, her behavior made no sense. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she still thought Josh was pulling me down. "Well," she said and suddenly the piece of ginger seemed to be particularly interesting. "I know what I said." She gave me a quick look. "And I still do not know exactly what I think of him, but somehow you seem more alive, happier, most of the time, but even if you're sad, you're more alive." I felt like I was falling into a kind of rigidity. "Let's see," I said, as I had done the previous time. My mother took a deep breath, as if she wanted to say something else, but I was slow enough from this strange conversation. "I have to go.. later." I said quickly, jumped up and left the house a short time later.

I was nervous. Very Nervous. I knew that I needed to clarify our relationship with Josh. Respectively, whether we had a relationship now or not. It was not like I had much experience with relationships. But I really wanted to try it with Josh. Josh came to the clearing for about half an hour. I saw him long before he was there, and so I sat silently cross-legged in the grass and watched him clatter through the branches. And then he stood in front of me. He seemed nervous, just as nervous as I was. "We should talk," he said curtly as he dropped crimson into the grass in front of me. It was funny, I thought, as Josh's face gradually took on the color of his hair. His eyes kept shining on my lips for a fraction of a second, even that did not escape me. "Well, we should," I agreed, starting to nervously spin my fingernails. "So," he said, "are you ... you know ... gay? Well, I mean, the fact that I kissed you and you replied, twice, even presupposes that a bit, but. .." I think that was the first time Josh did not know what to say. "I do not know it myself," I interrupted gently. "I have not felt anything for anyone, neither girls nor boys, but you are different." Josh smiled lovingly and seemed speechless again. "And you?" I asked carefully, because I had not asked Josh anything like that.