sb.i

His bedroom was his refuge. It wasn’t unassailable.
Far from it; his room could be breached at any time at any whim of his father’s,
but it was the best place to lay low, the one place for solitude (apart from
the dark, dank, spider webby crawl space, which was dominated by his father’s
nostalgia), the one place he could nestle the headphones on his ears, turn on
the blue lamp, and escape from the shit that was his life.

He loved K— with the artistic part of his heart, but
he’d found out a week before that she thought he was “a fag.” He had no idea
what to do with that. He loved D— with the lustful part of his heart, but
that confused him about K—’s reaction to his sexuality because, well, maybe
she was right, but he loved both of them, so how could he be “a fag?” He loved
a girl and a boy? But did it matter? He wanted to spend time with K—, to make
her part of his life, to make love to her (of course), but to spend time with
her, to listen to her, to tell her what he thought, to write for her, and all
he wanted to do with D— was play RPGs and suck his giant cock. He’d seen that
cock in the shower at the pool and couldn’t understand why everyone in that
shower room hadn’t wanted to drop to his knees and suck that thing. It was
beautiful. It was huge. It would scrape the back of his throat. Couldn’t he
love them both? Or at least desire them both?

Where he was, who he was, was confusing, and it wasn’t fair. It was too
fucking complicated, and his father must be suspecting who he was because the anti-“fag”
rhetoric had been crazy lately – all islands and AIDs and nuclear holocaust.
So he’d been closed in his room for three weeks when he wasn’t at school or
practice or playing D&D. He’d been listening to the Police and Duran Duran,
and he’d been wondering how to escape while moths slipped through the crack on
his screen and flitted around his ceiling bulb.

Could he call K—? Should he tell D—?

He pushed his glasses
onto his forehead, draped his forearm over his eyes, and just wished his Dad was
dead. That’s when the whispers began.