Bright Things Come to Confusion

Bright Things Come to Confusion Part 3 of 4

We stood staring at each other for what felt like forever, neither of us saying a word. The silence grew between us until it became an insurmountable wall. Good job, Seth. You really screwed this one up royally.

I'd just about given up when Cole brought the wall crashing down with just one sentence, "I think maybe we should start over."

I nodded vigorously, eager to agree to whatever he suggested. "Should we sit back down?" I asked tentatively.

He answered by walking back over to the swings and settling into the same one he'd chosen before. He didn't swing this time, just silently watched as I sat next to him, his eyes never leaving me for a second.

"I've wanted to hear you say that for so long," he said after a moment. "It almost seems like it's just a dream."

I don't know what came over me, but I found myself reaching over and pinching Cole on the arm.

"Ow!" he yelped.

"It's not a dream," I said with a giggle.

He grinned suddenly, his face lighting up in that now familiar way. "Wow," he said with a happy sigh. "You really like me?"

I grinned back and nodded shyly. We were a couple of giddy schoolgirls.

He laughed out loud. "I can't believe this! I thought you hated me because you'd heard that I was gay."

"I was afraid to get too close to you because I thought you'd figure out I was gay."

He laughed again.

I had a million questions and I just couldn't hold them in anymore. "People know you're gay?"

"Yeah, I thought everybody knew. I've not exactly kept it a secret."

"I had no idea."

"I figured Brooke would have told you, if nothing else."

"Brooke knows?"

"Yeah, we both go to Student Pride."

"What's that?"

"It's the gay/straight alliance at school."

"We have one?"

"You're learning a lot tonight, aren't you?" he said with a grin. "It's a great group. You should come some time."

"Wait! Slow down. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. You're only the third person that even knows about me."

"Hey, it's cool. Everyone should come out at his or her own pace. That's like rule number one at Student Pride."

"I don't know if I want to come out at all. Nobody bothers you?"

He shrugged. "I guess that would depend on your definition of bothering. I get called names sometimes, but that doesn't really bother me. I've been pushed around a couple times, but I went to the principal both times and she took care of it. We're very lucky that they have a pretty strict non-harassment policy at our school. For the most part, no one really cares who I like."

I'd never even considered that it might be like this. It amazed me that this had been going on right under my nose and I'd been so caught up in my misery that I'd missed it all.

I got lost for a minute in my own thoughts. When I looked up again, he was simply staring at me.

"What?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"You're so cute," he said in a gentle voice.

"Me?" I yipped.

"Yeah, you."

"No way. I'm skinny and goofy and my hair never wants to do anything I tell it to."

He laughed. "I love your hair; it's so adorable. You're so adorable. Do you know how many times I've forgotten lines because I get lost looking at you?"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Wow. I never even imagined. I've always thought you were the most beautiful boy I've ever seen." I blushed as I said the words. It felt so strange to be talking about this out loud, especially to Cole of all people. He didn't say anything for a minute and I found myself terrified that I'd gone too far.

"I pretend that I'm saying my lines to you," he said quietly.

"What?" I asked in surprise.

He stood up and turned to face me. The moonlight fell across his face like a spotlight. He began to speak softly, his voice slowly gaining strength as he recited his lines from the play with an intensity I'd never heard from him.

"Things growing are not ripe until their season," he said, "So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason. And touching now the point of human skill, Reason becomes the marshal to my will and leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook Love's stories written in love's richest book."

My breath caught in my throat as the familiar words took on new meaning spoken directly to me. By the time he finished, my heart was pounding a tattoo that almost drowned out his voice. He slowly began to move towards me, each step closer caused my heart to beat even faster. He stopped in front of me, so close I could feel his body heat in the cool night air. I looked up at him, my heart in my throat. He began to lean in towards me, seemingly in slow motion. I was completely lost in his gaze. His lips slowly descended to mine.

It was my first kiss and it was from the boy of my dreams. I let go of the chains to pull him closer.

And suddenly, we were falling.

We hit the dusty ground with a thud, my legs still caught awkwardly in the swing and Cole landing heavily on my chest.

"Oof," I grunted.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry," Cole said as he struggled in vain to disentangle himself.

All at once, the situation struck me as hilarious and I started to laugh. After a few seconds, Cole joined in. The laughter built until we were howling and Cole once again collapsed against my chest. Eventually, we laughed ourselves out but we continued to lay like that for a while, catching our breath, his body creating a pleasant pressure against mine. I had no complaints.

Finally, he pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at me. "I can't believe this is really happening," he whispered.

"Do I have to pinch you again?" I asked with a smile.

He smiled back, then slowly leaned in for another kiss. This one wasn't interrupted by gravity and it proved to be much more satisfying.

After a minute, he gently broke off the kiss. I gave a soft moan of disappointment; I didn't want it to end. I was happier than I'd been since Dad had walked out of our lives and never come back. I hadn't thought I'd ever be this happy again.

"This probably isn't the best place to do this," he said with a chuckle.

"I don't care," I said and tried to kiss him again but he pulled back with a laugh.

"What if somebody catches us?"

I hadn't thought about that. Suddenly I became very aware of the fact that Cole was lying on top of me in the middle of the playground. "Yeah, okay. Good point," I conceded.

Cole managed to stand up, then took my hand and helped me get untangled from the swing. He pulled me to my feet and we stood staring into each other's eyes, our bodies almost touching but not quite. I realized he was still holding my hand and looked down. He followed my gaze.

He cleared his throat nervously. "So, um, since you like me and I like you..." He paused and took a deep breath. "Would you like to be my boyfriend?"

I felt my eyes widen. Wow. I wasn't sure I was ready for that yet. I began to stutter, "Oh wow...I mean...whoa...I didn't expect..." I took a deep breath of my own and forced myself to speak coherently. "Can I think about it and get back to you?"

Immediately, hurt flashed through his eyes. He let go of my hand as if it had burnt him and stepped back. "Never mind," he muttered. "It was a stupid question."

"It wasn't a stupid question," I said quickly. "It's just that this is all happening a little quickly here. A couple hours ago, I didn't even know you were gay. Hell, a couple days ago, I could barely admit I was. I just need time for all this to soak in, you know?"

He gave a jerky little nod, but I could tell he was still upset. I stepped closer to him. "Cole, you know I like you. Kissing you was incredible. I've never felt like that before. This is all just really new for me. Please try to understand."

He visibly relaxed. "I'm sorry. You're right." He took my hands in his again and held them against his chest. "Take all the time that you need. Just please say yes after you think about it."

I laughed and leaned in against him. He let go of my hands and slid his around my back, holding me tightly. It felt very right.

"Kissing you was pretty incredible for me, too," he said into my hair. I tipped my head to one side and smiled at him. He quickly leaned in and kissed me. Not a long lingering kiss, just a short sweet buss. "I guess I'd better get you home," he said after a few minutes of just standing there holding me.

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess so," I said reluctantly.

Neither of us moved.

"We're going to have to let go eventually," he whispered.

"Yeah, just not yet," I whispered back.

His arms tightened around me. We stood like that for a few more minutes before I gently pulled back. He let his arms slide around me until his hands rested lightly on my hips.

"So much changed tonight," I said as I looked into his eyes.

"All for the better, I hope," he said with a lopsided smile.

"Definitely."

He spun me around by my hips and gave me a gentle push in the direction of Leah's house. "If we don't start walking we're never going to leave," he said.

I laughed as I reached back for him and we walked down the street hand in hand. As we approached Leah's though, I dropped his hand.

He glanced over at me questioningly.

"I'm not ready for anyone else to know," I said simply.

He grimaced. "I want to scream it from the roof." He laughed at my startled expression. "But I won't," he added quickly. "I'll wait until you're ready."

I smiled and he unlocked the passenger side door. As I climbed in, I thought about how different it was getting into his car now than it had been earlier that day in the school parking lot. He now knew I was gay and I knew he was too. And not only that, but we had kissed! It seemed so unreal to me.

As he pulled away from the curb, the questions that had been pushed aside earlier in the evening began to resurface.

"Have you had a boyfriend before?" I asked him.

"Yes. Twice," he said softly.

"What's it like?"

"Well, my last dating experience was a disaster."

"Oh, I'm sorry..."

"No, it's ok. I'm past all that. He was a jerk. He cheated on me so I dumped him. It hurt at the time, but I'm ok now. Live and learn."

"What about the other one?"

He smiled sadly. "You might say that one is bittersweet."

"What do you mean?"

"I really liked him; he was sweet and funny and cute. We had a lot of fun together. It was nice having someone who really understood me. He was great. But he was terrified of anyone else knowing about us and that wasn't so great. Sneaking around and lying got old really fast."

"So what happened?"

"It got to be too much. We started fighting about stupid stuff and eventually we broke up."

I thought about that for a minute. "Wouldn't you just be getting into the same thing again with me?" I asked.

He glanced over at me and shrugged. "I don't know. Would I?"

"I'm not ready for people to know."

"You wouldn't have to tell the whole school."

"I don't know if I'm ready to tell anyone."

"You told me."

"That was different."

"Brooke knows."

"Did she tell you?" I demanded, ready to be furious with her if she had.

"No," he assured me quickly. "At least, not exactly. At our Student Pride meeting earlier this week, she said something about a friend who was having a hard time with accepting that they were gay. I didn't associate it with you until you told me tonight."

"Oh," I said, slightly mollified, but still a bit miffed that she'd mention me at all.

"You need to stop being so defensive," he said gently. "There are a lot of people who would be supportive of you if you'd let them."

"I'm not used to letting people get close to me."

"I've noticed. But is that how you want to live the rest of your life?"

My answer came quickly. "No."

"Then you have to start letting people in. I hope you'll start with me."

I turned and studied his face in the light from the dashboard while he drove. He was so beautiful. It was hard for me to believe he wanted me. It all seemed too good to be true. I was afraid that if I allowed myself to believe I could be that happy, that something horrible would happen to me. I wasn't supposed to be happy. That's just the way it was. Right? I'd been miserable for so long it was all I knew.

"Is it possible to be afraid of happiness?" I asked almost under my breath.

His mouth tugged down at the corners. "I think so," he answered thoughtfully. "And I think it's all that stands between many people actually being happy. Like, it's right there within reach, if they were just willing to take a risk and let it happen."

I sighed. "I think I have a lot to think about tonight. No matter what happens though, I hope we can be friends."

"Me too," he said, giving me a small smile. "And if I'm still hoping for more than friends, well, you'll just have to deal with it."

I laughed. "Baby steps," I told him.

He laughed too. "As long as we're moving in the same direction."

He pulled into my driveway and suddenly I became nervous. What was the protocol here? We weren't boyfriends, but we had kissed. Would he try to kiss me now? What if Mom happened to be at the window? I quickly reached for the door handle.

"Seth?" Cole said quickly. "I really...I really enjoyed tonight. Think about what I said, okay?"

I nodded; hand still on the handle, ready to make a run for it if he made any sudden moves.

"I'd really like to kiss you goodnight, but it's pretty obvious how you feel about that," he chuckled. "So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Cole shall restore amends," he said, paraphrasing Puck's closing speech.

I smiled and felt myself relax. I took a quick look at the house, and seeing no one at the windows; I took Cole's hand in mine and leaned in for a short kiss. He didn't let go of my hand right away, giving it a gentle squeeze before reluctantly relinquishing it as I swung open the door.

"Talk to you soon?" he asked hopefully.

"Count on it," I said and was rewarded with another of his illuminating smiles.

I practically floated inside. I couldn't remember ever feeling like this. I coasted on my natural high all the way to my room, where I dropped backwards onto my bed and just stared at the ceiling. When I was around ten, I'd become obsessed with astronomy. Dad had bought me a telescope and then helped me paint my ceiling black with painstakingly applied tiny stars of glow-in-the-dark paint. The light in the center of the room represented the sun and we painted in all the constellations we could fit. I'd been a stickler for accuracy and it had taken forever to finish. Since Dad left, I'd thought a few times about painting over it, but had never actually been able to bring myself to do it. However, it wasn't the galaxy on my ceiling that I was seeing now; my mind was far above it, lost among the real stars.

"Hello, Earth to Seth," a voice rudely brought me back down to Earth. Without getting up, I turned my head to find Kane standing in my doorway, a bemused expression on his face. "Welcome back," he quipped.

"Bite me," I said with a dopey grin.

"No thanks," he shot back. "I'll leave that to your boyfriend."

"What?" I gasped, sitting up with a jolt. "How...I mean...I don't have a boyfriend!"

Kane started laughing. "Chill out, Seth. I was just kidding."

My heart was in my throat as I glared at my little brother. "Well, it wasn't funny." I had hoped to sound stern but it came out rather whiny. It made Kane laugh all the harder. I continued to glare until he'd calmed himself down.

"So, how'd it go tonight?" he asked once he'd regained his composure.

"What do you mean?" I asked defensively.

He rolled his eyes. "The play practice? You were a nervous wreck before you left. Or was that just because what's-his-name was driving you?"

"Cole, his name is Cole."

Kane smiled mischievously. "So it was Cole you were nervous about."

I growled warningly.

"Oh come on. I want to know what happened to make you act all goofy."

"Nothing happened. And I was not acting goofy."

"Yes you were. Something obviously happened and I want to know what. Please tell me?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Please, Seth?" He gave me his puppy dog eyes and I felt myself giving in. He didn't use them often, but when he did, I just couldn't say no. "I'm your little brother!"

"Fine," I surrendered huffily. "But come in and close the door."

He grinned triumphantly as he shut the door and bounced up onto the bed next to me.

"So what happened?" he asked eagerly.

"Practice went really well," I started off slowly. "Everyone knows their parts really well now and we all feel a lot better about the play."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Kane interrupted. "Can we get to the good part now?"

I gave him a playful shove. "Who's telling this story?"

"Obviously not me or we'd be to the good part already."

I laughed. "Okay, okay. After practice, Leah had rented a movie and invited everyone to stay and watch it. I didn't want to but Brooke did, so Cole offered to drive me home."

"Mmmhmm," Kane said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. I felt my cheeks heat up and knew I was blushing.

"Anyway," I continued. "When we got outside, Cole asked if we could take a walk."

"Mmmhmm!" Kane said again.

"Look, are you going to keep interrupting with your little comments?"

He giggled. "Okay, I'll stop. I promise."

"As I was saying, he asked if we could take a walk and I agreed, but I was really nervous. So we walked to this little park at the end of the street and he asked me why I was avoiding him. I said I wasn't." Kane snorted and got a warning glance. I took a deep breath. "Then he asked me if it was because he's gay."

"I knew it!" Kane shouted, jumping to his feet.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all. What happened next?" he asked, practically bouncing up and down in his excitement. "Did you kiss?"

"Kane!" I gasped in shock.

"What? Did you?"

"I...he...we..."

"You did, didn't you?" he crowed.

"Shh!" I hissed.

He jumped up on the bed again, bouncing up and down the whole time. "Seth and Cole sittin' in a tree," he started to sing.

I grabbed a pillow and shoved it over his face. "Will you keep it down! Jeez, you're going to have Mom in here if you don't stop."

He went limp and I removed the pillow.

"Sorry, I'm just excited for you," he said with a grin.

"A little too excited if you ask me."

He suddenly became serious and sat up. "Seth, you don't understand. You've been there for me for so long - always trying to make sure I had everything I needed and that I was happy - but nobody was there to make you happy. It's just really great to see you find someone you like and who makes you feel good."

I felt a little teary all of a sudden. I grabbed him and pulled him against me for a tight hug.

"So," he asked after a second. "How was the kiss?"

I laughed and pushed him away. I wiped my eyes and decided to just give in and go with it. "It was incredible," I sighed happily.

"Did you use tongue?"

"None of your business."

"Did you?" He pulled the puppy dog eyes again.

"Yes," I admitted with a blush.

"Did you guys do it?"

"Kane!" I cried. "I can't believe you asked me that! Of course not!"

He giggled. "I was just kidding. But seriously, are you guys, like, boyfriends now?"

"No," I said slowly, drawing the word out. "He asked me, but I said I needed to think about it."

"What's to think about? You like him, he likes you...seems simple enough to me."

"That's just it, though. It's not that simple. Maybe if we were straight it would be, but we're not."

"Well duh. Thanks for that newsflash. Why isn't it that simple?"

"Okay, look. If you want to date a girl, you can just ask her out and if she says yes..."

"What do you mean 'if'?"

"...if she says yes, you can walk down the halls at school holding hands and no one will even blink. But if I say yes to Cole, then we have to be really careful. There are a lot of people out there who don't like gay people. They could make life really hard for us, or even hurt us."

"Then don't hold hands at school."

"There are other reasons too."

"Like what?"

"I've barely accepted that I'm gay, I don't know if I'm ready to jump right into being someone's boyfriend."

"You won't know unless you try."

"And what about Mom and Dad?"

"Huh?" That brought him up short. I'd begun to think he had an answer for everything. "What do they have to do with this?"

"I need to know what happened with Dad. If Mom really kicked him out because he was gay, then she'd really freak out if she found out I was. It was hard enough to pretend to be straight all these years when I didn't have any friends. How much harder will it be if I have a boyfriend?"

"How are you going to find out about Dad?"

"I'm going to try and find him."

Kane's eyes grew round. "How?"

"I don't know exactly. I guess I could start with the phone book."

Kane was out of the room in a flash and back with the phone book almost as fast. We quickly flipped to the C's and found Connelly. There were several in our calling area, but none named Adam.

"Maybe he didn't stay in the area," Kane ventured.

"Or he has an unlisted number," I mused.

"So what now?"

"I don't know. Any ideas?"

"Do you know where he went when he left here?"

I thought back. "He was next door when I was waiting for the bus the morning after," I said.

"With Mr. Grant and Mrs. Lydia?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe they would know where he went."

"The question is where did they go?"

The Marsh's had moved into the house next to ours a few months before Dad left. They'd quickly become friends with Mom and Dad and were over here quite often. After Dad left, Mom suddenly stopped spending time with them. They'd moved out of the neighborhood within a year.

We turned back to the phone book and this time, we struck gold. Grant Marsh was listed in the phone book living in the next town over. I copied the number into a notepad and tucked it into a safe place. I couldn't call now, it was too late, but I'd call the next chance I got.

"It's late, kiddo," I said, glancing at the clock. "You'd better get to bed."

"It's a Friday night, I don't have to get up early in the morning," he argued.

"What do you want to do? Stay up all night?"

"I want to keep talking to you."

"About what?"

He grinned. "I want to hear more about that kiss."

I threw a pillow at him, which he easily dodged. "No way, José," I said as I felt my cheeks flush.

"Aw, come on," he wheedled. "You're my big brother. You're supposed to tell me these things. How else will I know what to expect from my first kiss?"

"Well, unless you're planning on kissing a guy, there won't be much similarity."

He made a face. "Okay, fine. But what are you going to do about him?"

I sighed. "I don't know yet and I really don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Well, in that case, I guess I will go to bed," he said. He started for the door but then suddenly scooped up the pillow I'd thrown at him and gave me a solid whack across the face. "Hopefully, that knocked some sense into you," he said with a wicked grin. He was out the door before I could react.

A few seconds later, the door reopened just wide enough for Kane to stick his head in. "For the record," he said in a serious tone. "I think you should go for it." He closed the door again, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

To be continued...

More about the author:

Josh Aterovis, a twenty-something artist-author, was born and bred on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and lives there with his partner, Jon. Aterovis is a Latin pseudonym meaning "black sheep."

Whenever anyone asked Josh what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always said an author. It got him plenty of strange looks, but he never really expected it to come true; it was just one of those things a kid says. In 1999, Josh's wishful dream became reality when he began to write a story and post it on the Internet. Bleeding Hearts resonated deeply with readers, who encouraged him to seek publication, and in 2001, the story was published by Renaissance Alliance Publishing, Inc. Named the Best Whodunit of 2002 by the Stonewall Society, Bleeding Hearts became the first book in the Killian Kendall mystery series.

Reap the Whirlwind, his second book featuring amateur sleuth Killian Kendall, is available as of May 5th, 2003. Josh has completed four books in the series and is currently working on the fifth. He has won numerous awards for his writing and for his web site, which also features his well-received art gallery: www.steliko.com/bleedinghearts.

Email feedback to Aterovis@aol.com