You've Got This, McCoy

Curiosity Almost Killed My Feelings

In the morning at school, our play fighting subsided into discrete cuddles. Apparently not discrete enough, for as A.W. was nuzzling into my hair, my face sandwiched between his broad hands as he chuckled softly, I could see seniors looking over at us.

I heard every word of their sentences.

One stood out: 'The gays really are everywhere.'

The gays? Me? Him?

A.W. heard. That might have been considered the downfall of us. Because as I stepped back and away from him, he looked over his shoulder at the group already moving on, shooting daggers into them that didn't even seem to faze the upperclassmen.

My reservations grew.

With every side eye he realized was directed at us, some curious, others accusing, his anger grew, his anger he'd thought he'd been controlling.

I was not present when he had the first fight, but I was the one left to clean it up, hauling him down to the nurse, the color of red-tinged bruises a familiarly heart-aching sight on his skin.

"What did they say?" I asked quietly as he stalked ahead in front of me with two tissues wadded up in his nose. I did not try to hold his hand. I did not try to be near to him, and he knew it.

"They were spewing some shit like 'God hates fags' you know?" he grumbled.

I didn't ask who threw the first punch. It was generally him. The last time that word had been used, it had. But we weren't– We weren't them, you know? I was unable to draw a connection between me, him, and the people our peers talked about as of yet. I think it was a defense mechanism, some way to cope with people's' perceptions. All I said, trying to lighten his mood was, "You'd think we were down south with that kinda talk, huh?"

That night, him tucked up into my side, my fingers tracing his bruises lightly with cold fingers, my chest hurt. It hurt, and though I could not put it into words for him, a somber mood hung over us.

We spent the nights less often after that.

We touched less after that.

After his third fight in two weeks, I was afraid to even talk to him too much so that when I did see him away from prying eyes, I fell into him, so deprived of everything he held onto within me. The night air bit into my cheeks, but at least no one would be out with it so cold tonight. No one besides us. My hand was in his pocket along with his own as we walked, talking about the upcoming math test, kicking at bits of dirty smudged snow on the sides of the icy roads. This problem seemed bigger than both of us, and the conversation soon turned to things we had not been able to say before.

He did not want to stay hidden.

I did.

I said the fear was paralyzing me.

He said staying here in this limbo-type state was crushing him. And it was true. I could see that.

I don't like to remember what happened next. I don't have the exact details to give.

What began as a conversation ended as a screaming match in an empty Family Dollar parking lot, the both of us storming off in opposite directions.

I don't know if he went right home, but I didn't, able to let my tears go without him around, barely feeling their warmth on my numb cheeks. My head and heart were pounding in different rhythms, and my breath did not come regularly. As I stopped beneath one of the old train bridges, I pulled out a stick of gum, cussing him out under my breath for having me throw out my cigarettes. The wrapper shone brightly despite the fact I'd hidden myself here in the dark, and I crumpled it up into a ball to shove in my pocket, rolling it between my fingers like a tiny stress ball. I leaned back against the chilling concrete, wishing the cold would seep into my bones and numb out my hurt because there was I couldn't see any coming back from this with him...