Chapter Five
His room was quite ordinary, except of the fact that his door was originally decorated; he had lots of song lyrics typed and glued on the door. I immediately went to see what kinds of songs he had there. He reached the spot before I did and hid the door from me. "Sorry," he said, "some of that is quite personal, and it may cause you ask questions I don't want to answer."
"What about your parents?"
"Oh, they know all about it."
"Okay."
So we were sitting on his bed, quiet all of the sudden, and I was stealing glances to his direction every once in a while, suddenly aware with every inch of my body how close we were to each other. He smiled, almost unable for me to see, and turned to me. "You know what - I think you can see all those lyrics."
"But you said…"
"I've changed my mind."
There were some usual love songs, some rock ballads I used to sing with my brothers as a warm-up, some pop candy-sweet songs I sing in the shower… And some of them were printed colorfully, while all the others were black. My eyes caught the "Free your mind" song by En Vogue, a few others that talked about equality and open-mindness, and one that I wasn't familiar with, about how you should rise above the prejudice and when your life is the way you want them to be, never look back. I read it twice, trying to reach deep deep down of the meaning of that song and the others; but I couldn't.
"You seem pretty busy with that equality subject, against prejudice and all," I said, turning to him. "Why is that? Or is it too personal of a question?"
"I am ready and willing to answer any question from the mouth of a person I allow read those lyrics. And I am pretty sensitive about that subject, because I require it from the world and demand it to be a way of living, not something to be fought for."
"Why?" Now it almost ached for me to know the answer, although somehow I could already see it in his eyes; but you have to hear it coming out of his mouth to make it official.
"I just don't like people thinking they can more than me, for reasons I cannot change. We all are God's children. We all equal. Prejudice is wrong."
"Why are you so heated about it?" I demanded to know, I almost begged him, standing right in front of him and gazing into his brown eyes.
"Heavens, Zac, don't be so eager," he laughed, to relieve my tension. "I actually don't think you need to ask me that. I think you can see the answer by yourself." He smiled at me, suddenly raising his right hand to show me the ring he had on his middle finger. It was with a pretty big rounded plastic piece on it, colored the colors of the rainbow.
"You're gay," I breathed out.
"And I think you knew it when came to me. I think that is the reason you came here. You wanted to know for sure. Why?"
"I don't know."
"I think you're curious."
"About what?"
"You tell me," his voice lowered to a whisper. I stood, unmoving, and we looked each other in the eye for a long, long time, before I sighed and took a step forward. I placed my hands on his shoulders, still not moving me eyes from his. I leaned closer to him, and then the next moment disappeared from my consciousness; the next thing I knew was, my lips were pressed to his. He didn't move away from me. He kissed me back. I gave my whole desire into that one kiss, long as an eternity and yet, short as a blink. Then I looked at him, trying to see by his eyes what his reaction was.
"You've just told me," he said, smiling at me, holding my hands. "I guessed it a long time ago, when I saw you standing out there and looking at my window."
"How did you know?"
"Didn't you hear about it, how gay people can feel somebody has those feelings? Well, it's quite true - of course, if you always had a bit of intuition. I can see you right through with all that has to do with what had just happened on this spot."
"How?" He amazed me; he made me wonder, was he for real or was he a creation of my own imagination, commonly known as rich and wild, to the point of being sick. He really seemed to know better than I did what made me kiss him.
"Because a number of years ago I was just like you. A confused boy, who has no idea about the storms inside him."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Zac," his voice softened. It wasn't a stiff whisper any longer. "I mean that you should go home and rest, and think about what had just happened. What did it mean to you. Would you like to repeat it or would you like to forget about it. In any case, you know where I live. You're invited."
I got out of the house the way I got in - the tree. I stood underneath its wide branches and admired its greatness; then I walked back home. This time I didn't rush the way I rushed on my way to Chris; this time I dragged my feet, dreading the coming home and facing the all-usual reality of an evening in the Hanson household. I felt as though I could fit into that any longer after this sudden coming to Chris and finding out he was gay and then kissing him. It was just way unusual, way not the way I thought of spending my birthday's evening. Given the oddness of my behavior, I almost regretted my refusal to sex with Enid.
Enid! Shit! What the hell have I done, kissing Chris? It's called simply cheating, and together with the fact Chris is a guy, that gives Enid just about enough reasons to kick me to the curves as easily as her trash can! What am I going to do about Enid? There is no way for our relationship to go on if she finds out! Now I walked fast, nervously thinking of any excuses for my absence, in case she called me while I was with Chris…
Luckily for me, she didn't call. I guess she spent a nice, quiet evening with her parents; mine only asked me where have I been for the last seven hours, not pushing me too hard to answer - giving me a break only because it was my birthday.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
I heard it ringing in my ears until I fell asleep.
So much for a fucking birthday.