Middle School

Chapter 15 - Homecoming

I knocked on the door.

“Go away! Leave me alone!”

So I opened the door, which resulted in a scream of rage.

“Shhhhh,” I said. 

That stopped him. He had his back to the door with the covers pulled over him and a pillow over his head. How he heard me, I’ll never know, but he stopped. Mid-scream.

He took the pillow off his head and turned just the top of his body to look. His face was all blotchy, his eyes were the color of a baboon’s bottom and his hair was all over the place. I smiled. He looked wonderful.

“What the fuck are you smiling about?”

I’d never heard him use that word before. 

I walked over to the bed. Then I got up on it, and yanked a pillow away from him, and put it against the headboard to rest against. I had to twist a little to the side to see him, and then I was looking down at him.

“You’re still smiling. I thought you were hurting as much as I am,” he said accusingly.

“Chad, will you listen to me for a minute? Without saying anything, until I tell you that you can? Can you do that, even if it’s hard?”

“What’s gotten into you, anyway? And why are you so cheerful?”

“Shut up and listen, will you? I need to tell you something, and I can’t if you keep interrupting.”

“Okay, but it had better be good.”

I’d never heard him sulking before, either. I was tempted to tease him, but he was hurting and I could stop his pain, so I ignored his tone of voice, even while thinking it was cute.

“Well, I don’t know whether it’s good or not, but it’s the truth. You’ll have to settle for that. Can I start now? Without being interrupted?”

He struggled up so he was sitting next to me. Everything I could see, which was his head halfway down to his chest, was bare. I slid away a bit so I didn’t have to cramp my neck looking at him. When he was settled, he said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

“I spoke to my parents this morning. They told me that I have an offer to go to Madison next year. And that it’s okay if I want to go there.”

He opened his eyes wide, and then the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen lit up his face. He started to talk, but I shushed him.

“I’ve got a lot more to say. Just wait. You’ll have a turn later. This part might not be so good, but I’m going to say it anyway. Chad, I’m gay. I haven’t wanted to admit it to myself, but I am. Gay. And, I’m in love with you. Now I don’t expect you’ll be very happy to hear that, but I’m telling you right now, we’re going to make this work. I know you’re straight. I won’t perv on you, I’ll try not to let it show, but I’m in love with you so much, and I want you to know it. I’ve been falling in love with you for quite a while now, and I’m through trying to keep you from finding out. We’ll be going to high school together, I hope with everything I have in me that we’ll be best friends throughout the time we’re there, and even afterwards, and I’ll do everything in my power not to let my feelings interfere with anything. I might slip now and then, you may see how much I love you in my eyes, but I’ll try.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. Your turn.”

I’d watched him as I was saying that. How he reacted was the most important thing in the world to me. The thing was, his face went through so many emotions so quickly as I was talking, I had no idea what he felt. I was soon to find out.

“Marc,” he said, and then stopped. He stopped because he’d reached out for me, knocking the covers down to his waist in the process, and then we were hugging. Of all the things I’d hoped might happen, this was the best.

I was surprised, however, when I felt him shaking. I thought maybe he was laughing, but when I was able to see, it was the opposite. He was crying.

Oh, no! Maybe I’d misinterpreted his reaction. Maybe he hated me. Maybe—but what the heck. Just ask him!

“Chad, what’s the matter? Please. Tell me. You’re scaring me.”

“Oh, Marc,” he gasped, trying to breathe, sobbing and smiling at the same time. “You never did get it. Never. No matter what I did or said. Listen: I feel the same way. I don’t really know what love is, but I think that’s what I feel. I think about you every day, almost the entire day. When I’m not with you, I want to be. My whole life revolves around you. So if that’s love, well, then I love you. I LOVE YOU!”

“You love me? No. You can’t. You’re straight. You mean you love me as a friend?”

“I’m gay, Marc. I don’t tell anyone, but I am. I kept trying to make you see, I kept leaving hints, and you never saw them.”

“You’re gay, and you love me?” It wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. I couldn’t quite get it. It didn’t make any sense. I’d conditioned myself not to hope. Now, hearing this, I wasn’t believing it.

He was grinning. “Idiot! I’m going to so whip your butt at Madison. I’ll be valedictorian, you’ll be helping the janitor clean up the place after the ceremony.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You! You’re dumb. Everything I’ve done has been to show you I was gay and that I loved you. Not once did you catch on. I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want you to know, but I sort of did at the same time. I couldn’t stop myself from hinting at it.”

“What did you ever do that was a hint?”

“Well, let’s see. I flashed you in the locker room once, practically stuck my dick in your face. Then I talked you into getting naked with me every day for a while, and often popped a boner. I guess that was too subtle, huh? Oh, and then I stared at the statues in the museum, stared at their dicks, and then, THEN, told you that anyone that looked away from them right away was probably normal. So what did that say about me? There were a lot of other little hints, too. You didn’t catch any of them.”

“But you couldn’t have loved me! You told me how to get a blowjob from a girl, and then almost forced me into doing it! You wouldn’t have done that if you’d loved me! And, if you did love me, why didn’t you just say so? You must have known from everything I was doing that I was in love with you, and been pretty sure I was gay. I wasn’t exactly doing the greatest job in the world of hiding it!”

He was silent for a minute, just looking at me. And I realized, for the first time, I could really stare back at those eyes now. I could take the time to look into them. I did, and all I saw there was something I hadn’t seen before. Was it love? Could it really be for me?

“I can answer that, Marc. I hope you understand. I hope you aren’t mad.” He paused then, and when he resumed, it was much softer. “You see, that day in the locker room, when you were looking up at me and I was being a real snot and flashing you, hoping I could interest you, I looked, really looked, into your eyes. And what I saw there was what I’ve seen in other people’s eyes. I usually see it from girls, but there have been a couple of boys, too. I know that look. It means the person is thinking too highly of me. When I talked to my mom about it, she explained to me that people, and especially kids, will idolize some people who are very handsome or talented, like rock stars. She said they lose all perspective about who the person they’re idolizing is, and just make him into something he really isn’t, something she called bigger than life.

“I know I was lucky in the looks department, but I’m just another kid, just like you. It makes me nervous, having people think I’m something I’m not. And I thought that’s what you were doing. It looked to me like you were idolizing me. I didn’t want that from you. Because I already liked you. I had a crush on you, and maybe I was already falling in love with you.

“I wanted you to like me as me, just a boy, just like you. So I decided to make friends with you and see if you were maybe gay, like me, and maybe we could be more. But it wouldn’t work if somehow you thought I was this person who was above you or better than you, someone you idolized and thought wasn’t at all like you were. If we were friends and you fell in love with me, it would be with me. Just me as I am. It would be real. That’s what I wanted.”

I interrupted him. “I did do that. I was idolizing you.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I saw. And don’t interrupt.” He said it with mock severity, and I laughed, but didn’t say anything more.

“So when I saw that in your eyes that day, and thought there might be a chance that we could be friends, and maybe more, that’s what I set out to do. To just be friends. And as we did that, I was so happy, but I kept hoping that you’d come to feel what I was feeling. I didn’t know if it was love. I just knew I loved being with you, and wanted more.” 

I didn’t want to stop him, so I didn’t speak, even though I wanted to. Instead, I just reached down and took hold of his hand. I squeezed, and he did too.

“I thought about telling you I was gay. But then realized I couldn’t do that. If you were still idolizing me, not looking at me as I was but as your vision of me was, and you wanted to be with me, I could see you deciding you were gay just because I’d said I was. I thought you might be, but you didn’t seem to know yourself, and I didn’t want to influence your thinking. So I didn’t say anything about me. I hoped you were gay, but if you were, I wanted you to figure it out for yourself and then tell me that. Because, until you did that, we’d never be what I wanted us to be.” 

He wriggled up further so he was sitting higher, making it easier to talk.

“When Brittany came along, it was a chance to find out more about you, whether you were gay, how you felt about girls. If she gave you a blowjob, if she started doing other things with you, any straight boy of thirteen would be latching onto her and never letting go. It was scary, pushing you towards her, but I needed to know. That’s why I asked to go on the date with you. I wanted to see how you were with her. And, I knew that a little bit of me wanted to stop you two from doing what you were planning just by being there.

“It didn’t work out like I thought. It was just a plan of mine, to find something out. I didn’t realize what it would do to me. I didn’t know how I’d feel. I got jealous, and I mean big time. It hurt me, hearing you in the other room, obviously enjoying what was happening. I had a hard time dealing with it. It really hurt.

“When we went to bed together that night, I was still hurt, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized you weren’t gushing about her. You were happy with the blowjob, I could tell, but not with her. And you even said you’d rather it had been with someone you cared about. That really helped. I thought about doing something with you right then. Telling you everything I felt. You seemed eager, if I was reading you right. But I was exhausted, and still a little upset, and you still hadn’t decided if you were gay, so I just went to sleep.

“But thinking about it later, realizing you had no enthusiasm at all for her, the more I thought about that, the more I started to really hope.”

He stopped then for a moment, and looked directly into my eyes. When he spoke again, somehow his voice sounded deeper, more sure of himself. 

“I’ve loved you for a long time, Marc. I never get tired of looking at you. Look at all those girls at the dance that were falling all over themselves to dance with you. They see it. I see it too. You’re so beautiful, and you don’t even know it.

“I know you don’t see it. You wouldn’t look and act the same if you did. But you are. You’ve got lots of different looks, depending on what’s going on and going through your head. I know them all. The best one, to me, is the way you look whenever you’re faced with something new. You look so worried, and with that worry comes this look of vulnerability that makes me just want to reach out and hold you, and tell you everything’s going to be all right. But I don’t have to do that, because, very quickly, whatever it is that’s got you so worried, you’ve conquered. You do that all the time. You think you can’t do something, and you try, sometimes a couple times, and then you do it. After doing that, some kids would look all cocky. You never do that. You just accept it that you can do it, and are fine until the next new thing you come up against. Then I get to see that look again.”

I wasn’t used to getting compliments. It felt funny. I squirmed a little. It didn’t stop him at all.

“You’re even more beautiful to me on the inside, where it counts. You’ve got this really great sense of humor. The way you say things, they’re almost always funny. It’s not sarcastic or mean humor either. Never. It’s just the way you put words together, the way you say things, it’s funny and you have me smiling and laughing all the time. I love that!

“You’re smart, too. That’s important to me. So many guys our age don’t talk about anything that’s important. You do. You read books. You read the newspaper. You work at your schoolwork. You’re going to go to college. All those things are important. And I feel the same way. It gives us a bond. We’re both smart and motivated. We couldn’t be the friends we are if we didn’t have that in common.

I squeezed his hand again. I really wanted to stop him. What he was saying was making me uncomfortable. He didn’t stop, however.

“You challenge me, too. I need to be right when I say things or you call me on them. You challenge me to know what I’m talking about, not to make things up, or be lazy in my thinking. I’m doing even better in school now than I was, I’m better prepared, and it’s because of the time I’m spending with you and the homework we do together. I’m working harder because I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want your opinion of me to suffer. 

“You tease me, too. I tease you back. That’s so much fun. You even attack me, and then are afraid I’ll feel your boner. That’s so cute! I never have to worry about mine because I know you’ll stop. I always wished you wouldn’t do that. I always wished you’d let me feel it, and you’d feel mine. Maybe if that had happened we would have got here a lot quicker.”

I was sitting next to him on his bed. He was talking about boners. The boy I loved, who loved me, was talking about boners. The boy I loved, who was naked down to the waist and probably lower. I felt myself reacting to that.

“Remember that time in gym, when Turner almost broke your shoulder? We had to go to the nurse, and you were trying to talk to me in the hall? And I just wouldn’t? You remember? Well, I couldn’t. You were hurt, and I wanted to hug you so badly, to wrap my arms around you and say it would be okay, to make you feel better. You’re so huggable! But I was afraid if I talked to you right then, after I’d helped and all, and you were looking so helpless, and you wanted to talk, that if I’d stopped and talked to you, I would have hugged you, wouldn’t have been able not to. And I might even have kissed you. So I just walked away. And felt like shit.

“It was after that when I decided I just had to get to know you. I was already feeling strange and getting new feelings for you, powerful feelings I’d never felt before, and I think, trying to remember, it was more lust than love. But as I got to know you, those feelings changed. That lust is still there—” he grinned at me, and I felt myself start to blush “—but now the stronger feeling is love, and it just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

“I really didn’t know what it was, then. Now I do. I’ve been in love with you for what seems like forever, Marc Pullman. Forever.”

I started crying. Tears were pouring from my eyes. I didn’t pay any attention to them. I grabbed him, and we hugged again, and just lay there, hugging, for the longest time.

I finally let go and sat up. “Do your parents know?”

“That I’m gay?”

“Yeah.”

“I told them just about the time I found I was feeling all these new complicated feelings for you. I was confused, but I’d already known I was gay, and I thought I needed to tell them. My feelings for you were a big part of the reason. So, I told them. They said they’d already guessed it.”

“Do they know about me? About you loving me? I can still hardly believe it. Why should I be so lucky?”

He grinned again. I could tell him now what that grin did to me. I could be honest with him now. It was just beginning to sink in. The freedom to be me, and to be with him—I was just beginning to understand what it meant.

“Yeah, I told them I thought I might be in love with you, and was waiting for you to realize who you were.”

“Should I be embarrassed when I see them, then? I’ve never been anyone’s boyfriend before. Hey, we are boyfriends, aren’t we?

“You’d better believe it. And there’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

“But they might think we’re having sex up here?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to ask them if that’s okay.”

I blushed. “The only sex I’ve had is with Brittany.”

“You’re way ahead of me, then. I was really jealous of her, getting to do that with you. Even if it was my idea.”

“I only did it because you talked me into it. I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. At the time, I enjoyed the feelings, but afterward, I realized I didn’t want to do that again, not with her. It was icky, just thinking about it.” I paused, then grinned. “But, you know, if you really wanted to . . .” I raised my eyebrows at him, and he laughed.

Then his eyes got the devilish look I loved so much, and he said, “Well, if they’re thinking we’re up here having sex, and they’re not bothering to come up here to investigate . . .”

And he wiggled his eyebrows, too, and then reached for me. 

I had no worries about him feeling my boner this time. I wanted him to. I wanted to feel his, too. So when he reached for me this time, I didn’t roll away. I rolled toward him, and we grabbed each other, and accompanied by giggles and gasps, moans and sighs, our new life as boyfriends began.

The End