The classroom was small. Too small to fit fourteen students comfortable, so when my biography class teacher, Miss. Reynolds, told us we could go off to work in other areas of the boarding school I attend I was eager to take her up on her offer. The assignment was simple. Each member of the class was supposed to write down a short story about a favorite holiday memory with their families. At this point I had already decided that I wanted to be a writer, so I knew this would not be difficult for me.
As soon as Miss. Reynolds had stopped speaking, the room had irrupted in a sea of chairs screeching and laptops being put back into bags. I too got up and began packing up my computer; I was headed out the door when he spoke to me.
“Where are you planning on working?” He asked me.
“The art building.” I replied.
“Can I join you?” He responded.
“I would like that.” I said. My first instinct was to correct is grammar, but I did not want him to think I was trying to belittle him. I think at this point I had already figured out I loved him; he was oblivious though, as always.
“Cool.” He said and gave me this big goofy grin that I remember now, even three years later.
I held the door for him, but as he walked out, he ran his sandal into the door frame. He tripped over his own feet and went flying face first into the pavement.
“Oh my god, are you ok?” I asked dropping my laptop bag and walking over to him. I reached my hand out to help him up.
“I’m fine, just embarrassed.” He said grabbing my helping hand and letting me pull him back on his feet. His hands felt so hard a calised, probably from all the gardening he does.
I looked him over to assess the damage. There was a cut on his elbow and a single scarlet drop was rolling down his suntanned arm. As the drop trickled down, it parted ways at the single mole had had on his left arm, splitting into two separate rivers of blood. It looked kind of like a divided highway in a way.
“God, you’re bleeding!” I said.
“Yeah, I know. He said playing cool. I could tell by his facial expression that he was wincing under his mask of masculinity.
“Come on, there is a first aid kit in the art building.” I said, picking up my laptop bag.
He reached down to pick up his blue and grey back pack, but I beat him to it. I slung it over my shoulder and we started walking towards the building. When we got to the door, I stopped.
“Maybe you should open it this time.” I said smiling at him.
“Very funny.” He said, squinting his eyes at me.
The art building is always freezing due to the automatic AC that comes on every day from Noon to Five. I zipped up my jacket as we entered. We walked silently into the painting and arts side of the building. There were three dusty, old, white shelves containing ancient paints. Most of them had been dried up by now after many uses by people who would forget to put the caps back on. We then walked into the small hallway that combines the arts side with the ceramics side.
This room is basically a hallway. The walls are a revolting shade of peach that has been splattered with various different colors over the years to create a mostly brown backdrop. The room smells like mildew and orange room freshener. The room freshener was meant to distract from the scent of the mildew, but it did not fully work. The only piece f furniture was an old, broken down, maroon couch.
“Have a seat.” I said and he sat down while I went into the other room to grab the first aid kit.
When I took it off the wall, a spider crawled out from the space it used to be. I was glad that it hadn’t been on there when I brought it to him. He is so afraid of spiders that he would have freaked. I brought it back to our hallway and sat down next to him on the couch. He already had is laptop out and was about to start typing up his story.
“Hold out your arm.” I said and he did so.
I opened the kit and started rifling through it.

“Did you know that this couch is called “the sex couch?” He asked me.
I just looked at him. “You’re kidding right. This is like the least comfortable thing that I have ever sat on.” I replied.
A drop of blood dropped from his elbow onto the couch.
“That’s probably not the only bodily fluid that’s on here, if you know what I mean.” He said, laughing at his own joke.
I returned to my search of the kit and I found an antiseptic wipe. I opened it and grabbed his arm again. I really didn’t want to hurt him, but I knew that in the long run, it would be better to sterilize it.
“This may hurt.” I said looking into his bright blue eyes.
I ran the wipe along the scrape and he jerked back. A drop of blood fell onto my jeans, creating a wet spot just above the knee. I tightened my grip on him and finished wiping the blood up. I then pulled a small band aid out of the kit and opened it, my hands shaking. I removed the cover strips, and gently placed it on his elbow.
“Thanks.” He said and I closed up the kit and set it on the arm of the couch.
He began typing on his laptop once again. I got focused on my own story about how my parents used to throw me Easter egg hunts every year. Once I was finished I looked over at his screen. He only had a sentence written down. It said “My favorite holiday memory is when my dad and I went out on Christmas morning to cut down our tree.”
“Need some help?” I asked him.
“That would be great!” He said.
“Well what do you remember about picking out the tree?” I said
“I remember that my dad and I got into a fight about which kind of saw to you.” He replied, a line fell across his face, as if this was an age old fight that he still held a grudge about.
“That’s a great start.” I said encouragingly.
“Yeah, I wanted to use a chainsaw, I thought it would be faster. That pissed him off because he and his dad had this tradition where every year on Christmas morning they would go out together and cut down a tree using and old fashioned bone saw.”
“Haha, sounds like your dads a traditionalist.” I said.
“Yeah, I then refused to help him and sat in the car waiting for him to finish cutting it down.” He added.
“What happened after that?” I asked, actually starting to get into his story.
“He came back to the car an hour later and loaded the tree onto the trailer. We stopped at a gas station so he could get a beer and he came back with two. I’m always going to remember what he said to me. “Son, this is no day to be fighting with family.” He then handed me the beer and we drank together on the way home.” He finished. I swear he started to tear up near the end of it.
“That’s a really sweet story.” I said, and I brushed a leaf out of his long brown hair.
He smiled at me and in that moment all I wanted to do was make him happy. I wanted us to make a memory of our own on this so called “sex couch.” I do not mean that I wanted to have sex with him, but I wanted to help him. I wanted to protect him from and pain that might come his way. I wanted to always be there for him and I wanted him to always be there for me, but right now I could settle for just some small talk and laughter lying down together on the sex couch.