Eight grade year; it was the beginning of something else. Not growing up, not a change in how I live, or a change in my grades or anything of the normal sort. It was the second beginning to pain, anguish, regret, and defeat. It was the day when I was introduced to Nicholas, or just Nick, as everyone calls him. One of my good friends, Rayanne, had drawn a particularly obscene picture of Nick and our friend A.J. I knew of A.J. because Rayanne talked about him here and there, but I didn’t know who Nick was.
“Just a friend,” Rayanne told me. It was the truth, and nothing more. I instantly had a crush on him, it was like love at first sight, only not. I’d made myself never say anything like, “I love you,” when I was a teenager, I vowed it to myself so that I’d never sound like just another teenage idiot. And so, instead of breaking my vows so soon, I’ll say that it was Crush at first sight.
Speaking to him was out of the question, I found myself unable to speak in his presence and whenever the courage surged from inside me, his chocolate eyes melted me back into a deep silence. Even when he was near, my sentences to anyone just sounded jumbled and unintelligibly formed. Nick was straight to everyone, so I never made a move towards him for fear of falling. This was how I lived my eight grade year.
Freshman year; the silence was overwhelming at times. I didn’t talk to Nick for all of first semester, for the most part. I just kept silent, and hoped that my teenage emotions would hit low tide during the ebb and flow, maybe even be still like a pond in the winter. When second semester started, I found that I had a Study Hall with Nick, and that we were just one row and two seats away from each other. It was then that I decided to sit with Nick at lunch, as we shared the same lunch period that year. I had some other friends there, so it didn’t seem so odd or out of place that I suddenly sit there. I stayed there for a while, and that’s when I hear it.
“I’m gay,” Nick said. I thought he was just kidding, lying, or trying to make fun of me somehow. I didn’t believe him for weeks, but after a while, people told me it was true, and I believed him, and that’s when I really let him in. The walls were down, the truth was out, and a lighter stood by a candle somewhere, waiting to click on and light the wick.
At the end of the year, we had finals, as is normal for a High School. We both finished with our finals that day around noon, and our parents weren’t coming to pick us up until around two, as we were too young to drive just yet. I asked him if he would like to go see my favourite teacher at the Middle School across the street, Mrs. Rochte. He said yes, and so we went together. It was there, in the silence of the halls that he kissed me for the first time, by the water fountains outside the library.
“Happy late Birthday,” he said to me. That was Freshman year, a lit candle and a worn out lighter.
Sophomore year; it seemed like the wind was fierce around the candle. The flame fought for its life and at times seemed extinguished, but it always popped back up, even after Nick had a relatively long-term girlfriend that year. Her name was Becca, and we were friends, but I couldn’t help but see her as an obstacle. I never made a move to remove her, because Nick was happy. So I sat and waited, with confidence in the fact that High School relationships never lasted. My hypothesis seemed correct, and Becca eventually broke up with Nick, I was delighted and depressed at the same time, because while Nick was single now, he was in tears at times, and if he was unhappy, I was also unhappy. The time came that the flame popped back up and Nick asked me out, and so we were already officially, “dating.” This euphoria only lasted one diseased week. I say diseased, because it was obvious that Nick was unhappy at the end of this one week, and so the end came as I so abysmally predicted it to. And so this was Sophomore year; pain.
And finally it’s Junior year; the year was full of silence. Empty, hallow, truth telling silence. The candle was cold no, and blank. I sat there trying to use a worn out lighter to light the wick, but nothing ever happened. Occasionally the lighter fooled me by creating a spark or two, but nothing enough to light the candle. Finally I was just lying there curled up in a ball in my room with a metaphorical, worn out lighter and an equally metaphorical and worn out candle, slowly and constantly clicking the trigger of the lighter that would never ignite, and a candle that was equally unlightable. Junior year was deathly silence, and boundless hope. It was now that I broke my vows, and I told Nick in the midst of the silent fog that I love him, and he accepted this as truth, and nothing more.
Senior year has yet to come, and I can only hope that it brings more than more deadly silence and pain, but rather victory and love. For now, this is the temporary end to my story, a memoir of pain, sorrow, and hope.