A perfect world, take one

Today he walked up to me, a little faster than usual. It seems that time really has worked its magic – that frightened look in his eyes has receded a little, though he does look a little at my friends. He sways on his feet and clears his throat, universal symbols that indicate he wishes to speak to me, preferably in private. I think a little on my reply, making sure to smile before he gets suspicious. I sit down and casually move my backpack from the seat next to me, patting it a little to make sure the message comes across especially clear. He winces a little, but sits all the same, making sure to acknowledge some of my friends by name. I notice the way some of them tighten their expressions a little, but relax as they smile in return – a nod, even if they can't bring themselves to say his name.

He kisses me on the cheek, and my smile grows a little wider because we both know that public affection has never been his forte. He moves his hand and grasps mine, squeezing before he asks if I'm free on Friday. I make sure to brush a lock of his hair behind his ear before I ask what time he'd like me there. He smiles after a beat, the rush of comprehension and pleasure making him almost too adorable to resist. Wary of kissing him on the lips in front of, well, everyone, I satisfy myself with a quick peck on the cheek and promise to bring the hot chocolate. Its been a while since he's smiled full way – I'm glad I could bring it out.

A perfect world, take two

We're sitting side by side, the ice-cream melting down our fingers as we lick quickly, trying to see who can finish their cone the fastest. With an enormous crunch, he puts away the end in some unknown crevice of his mouth. Looking at me, eagerly attempting to keep in pace with my bites, he gives an enormous cheer for himself, before moving on to yell for me. My cone disappears to a steady chant of my name, along with multiple words that, along with having a sense of being made up on the spot, only vaguely rhymed with each other. I glance to the side, cross my eyes and stick out my tongue before placing my hands on my hips. Glaring, I stare down my nose and inform him that, despite his foolish notions of grandeur, I have in fact won the title of Ice Cream Queen. He rolls his eyes and grins a little before placing the hastily assembled paper crown on my head with much pomp and splendor – I highly doubt that the smell of vanilla chocolate chip will ever leave the pores of my scalp.

He kisses me once on the nose, because I apparently have managed to deposit my ice cream everywhere on my face, then continues on to my lips, before stopping. I smirk, knowing that his bet this month has proven much more difficult than he imagined when making it. Going for a week without kissing on the lips is becoming steadily harder for him to maintain.

I make it easier and lay my head on his chest, allowing him to stroke my hair while he finds something productive to occupy himself with. I listen to his heart thump as I think of all the effort it goes through to provide blood to every single cell in his body. Never before have I been so grateful that a heart continues to beat.


The best of friends

I'm faster than him, but his legs are much, much longer – too much time hasn't passed before he's catching up and overtaking me. I pump a little faster and use my last burst of energy to pull through, a little ahead of him, before falling, tumbling to the ground in an ungainly mass of legs, arms and hair. I stare up at him, shock and then embarrassment flooding my features as I realize too late that, unlike my best friend, my boyfriend might not want his ego shattered on a regular basis. He notices the flush, before falling to the ground in what looks like a highly caricatured pantomime of what just happened to me. After a couple exaggerated rolls in the dust he locks eyes with me and laughs. And laughs. Five minutes later, he wheezes for me to come closer because he doesn't think his diaphragm can withstand any more pressure. I roll my eyes before lifting his shirt and rubbing his stomach, in an attempt to soothe any part that may have been injured as he mocked my misfortune. Realizing what I was doing, I pulled back, once again understanding that what is applicable to my oldest friend might not be for my new boyfriend. He catches my hand and puts it back in its place as I resume the old pattern I used to trace when we were small and his belly was round instead of the group of abdominal muscles that make the female population swoon in ecstasy. Round and up and down and side and down and oh. He's breathing better now, but he's caught my hand and staring at our fingers. He's pondering something, and I know that even as my boyfriend he'll still keep quiet until he wants to talk. I'm prepared to start a new conversation on anything really when he interrupts what would have been a highly enjoyable debate about the meaning behind the existence of penguins in Africa.

What's wrong with you? Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that I have no idea how to act as your girlfriend instead of your girl friend. The answer is so obvious that I decide to tell him so. The look of shock is unexpected as is the snorts he's releasing, along with an even stronger attack of the mocking laughter. He calms down eventually, closing his eyes as a chuckle escapes every now and then.

He looks down at me, smirking, confident in some secret knowledge that I'm not privy to. I'm about to demand he tell me, before he leans down and whispers into my ear himself.

I don't want you to act differently. I fell for my best friend, not my girlfriend. I'm turning the words over in my head before he adds But I still want to kiss you. Disregarding the prime example of the male attention span I go back to his earlier statement. I fell for my best friend.

So you want to be friends with benefits? Because come on, he fell right into that one.

No! I mean yes! I mean... he's flustered now, unsure of which connotation he should stick with. I laugh and smack his head a little, confident that the loss of brain cells won't really affect much. I'm so pleased with myself that I tell him that too. He groans and asks if he can get his polite, soft spoken girlfriend back. Just for that, I hit him again.

The worst of enemies

We lie on the grass, heads together, feet apart as we talk in low voices, whispering amidst the wind in the grass. I tell him that maybe if my dad didn’t hate him, if my mother hadn’t been engaged to the man he called a father, then perhaps this wouldn’t feel like blasphemy.

But she was, and it does, so there’s really nothing else we can do. I love my father, even if the boy next to me hates his own, and just talking with the him feels like a perversion of everything I’ve been raised to believe is right.

“Don’t lie”

“Eat your vegetables”

“The Hammonds are evil. Especially that spawn of Joseph Hammond”

It wasn’t very hard at first, in a town as small as this one, preconceived notions segway nicely into the only impressions you have. When I met “the spawn of Joseph Hammond” on the first day of kindergarten, I’d already been taught to rue the day his father had been born. The spawn never stood a chance.

And now, years later, we’re lying down together wondering where the world went, and how to fit together the pieces who we are, and who our parents think we are. Lives of hatred don’t go away despite the fact that “the spawn of Joseph Hammond” wants to run away, that if he had been the spawn of anyone else but Joseph Hammond then my father would have taken him out fishing, and maybe taught him how to hunt.

But no matter how many papers are signed changing his name in the eyes of the law, the boy next to me will always be Joe Hammond’s, even if he were to become my man instead.
Which is why we’re in the grass away from everyone’s presumptions, saying goodbye.

“I’m going away you know. I’m never coming back.” He says this as if I never knew.

“I know. Maybe I’ll come see you. We might be able to work it out.” I’m lying, but neither of us is willing to destroy the small bit of hope we can grab on to while in the other’s presence. We both know that the second he crosses the town’s border we’ll never see each other again, because I love my father more than I could ever love him.

Sometimes, the truth hurts.
He looks away, getting up after finishing up all he had needed to say. We rise, and I give him a hug, pecking him on the cheek. I whisper good luck in his ear, because no matter what we both know, the one thing we understand is that we will always mean something to the other. We both understand that my home will soon be getting a subscription to the newspaper he’s gotten himself a job at as a reporter, and that wherever he is, he will be looking for pieces of my art on display.

Maybe he’ll even buy one, once he makes it big. Maybe, I’ll even paint one just for him. He’ll know it when he sees it.

But for now, he hasn’t written an article, and my paintings are bits on canvas hidden in my attic. For now, its just us for the last time, and when I touch his cheek, the unspoken passes between us. The subscription will be delivered to my doorstep free of charge, just like the painting I will slave on for months will be mailed to his.

We say goodbye, and as he walks away, I hear him whisper to the wind that “we could’ve been great, you know.”

I do. I really do.