Love, Cyrus-(Tyrus)

Chapter 1

It's a normal night in, filled with history homework and the usual distraction of social media. A night like many others, I don't except my life to shift so quickly after one FaceTime with Buffy.

"Cy, have you seen the new post on JeffersonScandals?" Buffy asks excitedly, her face lighting up my screen.

"No, why?" I say, not bothering to look up from my homework. "I swear if you tell me about another slimy hookup, I'm hanging up on you."

"About the closeted gay kid at school." She says rolling her eyes.

I bolt upright in my bed. "What?"

"Who do you think it is?" she asks as I rush to my desk and open my laptop to the school's Tumblr. "I bet it's Andrew Miller. I get this vibe from him. I don't know. He screams gay panic to me."

"I... I gotta go. Kovu just knocked over the lamp into my bookcase." I say in a hurry.

"Aww, poor kitty! So curious." Buffy squeals.

"Can I call you back later?" I hang up before she can answer. I scroll down to a picture of a swing set with the sun setting in the background.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck on set of swings. One minute I'm flying through the air towards the sun the next gravity plummets me back towards the ground. Again and again, every day. Most of my life is pretty great, except no one knows I'm gay. I guess I have stuff.

-Lemon Boy"

This post throws me into a frenzy. My heart is hammering in my chest. I have to know him. It's like he took the words right out of my head. I quickly open a tab to create a new email address. I stare at the open page struggling with what to write. How exactly do you talk to a stranger over the internet without coming across as a creepy serial killer? I run a hand through my hair and blow out a breath. Keep it simple, Cyrus. Don't be weird, don't be weird. You got this.

FROM: inaveil.ofgreatsurprises

TO: lemonboy918

DATE: Aug 19 at 7:31 PM

SUBJECT: Hi

Dear Lemon Boy,

I just read your post on JeffersonScandals. I'm just like you. My life is perfectly normal. My parents are child psychologists. And, no, they don't "shrink" me. They're actually pretty cool about letting me come to them at my own pace about things. And my friends, well two of them I've known my whole life. Or at least since second grade. One of them I just met a few years ago, but it feels like I've known him forever. We do the normal friend thing. We veg out on baby taters, watch a little too much tv, and hang out at the Red Rooster shuffling through music and dreaming of college. So, like I said everything is normal, right? But nobody knows about this part of my stuff. This HUGE part. It's just like you said about the swings. I'd like to add that sometimes it feels like when someone gives you an underdog. Some moments are so perfect that when I realize no one knows it feels like everything is out of my control and the earth is going to swallow me whole when gravity takes me.

I can't think of a name to sign this with so I'm just going to leave it here. I hope to hear from you.

***

I wake up the next morning after a sum total of five minutes of sleep. I couldn't stop freaking out after hitting send. I've reread my email over and over. I hope it's not weird, but after the fifth time I regretted it. I should have proofread the heck out of it first instead of impulsively sending it. I should have come up with a freaking name at least. Then, of course, I worried about him not writing me back. Or it somehow getting out that I wrote it and the whole world finding out.