SHORT STORY: THE BOY WHO BLOCKED HIS OWN SHOT

As painfully forsaken as the whole situation made me feel, I can't help but look back on it with the utmost reverence. There were so many things that could have been different, could have been better. That's behind us now. Time spent regretting is time wasted. All that matters is the present. The present is all we have. But in order to live in the present, we must first understand our past. Such is the reason for my writing this.

To describe him would be a difficult task, but I'll give it my all regardless. You couldn't capture him in a photograph. No, it wouldn't be the same. He was short, but not too terribly short. Somewhere in between short and tall. The contours of his body were neither feminine nor masculine. Somewhere in between feminine and masculine. Black, silky hairs rested atop his scalp. His skin was pale and white with an insipid glow. The reddish blush of his cheeks brought out meager color to his complexion. I would most certainly be bold enough to say his lips were like two ashen flower petals painted with a tinge of pastel-red. His eyes were brown and cat-like; bright and wide and curious. No one else, I'm sure, saw him the way I did.

Perhaps, so many years ago, when I first laid eyes on him, the feeling was there, hidden beneath my insecurities. We first met back in sixth grade. My friends we no longer my friends, rather they were people who used to know me. I tried to hold on, but everyone else let go. Well, that's life, I suppose. That loneliness, that despondence, only made my insecurities thicker and stronger till they were an impenetrable wall. So, for the first few years I knew him, while my feelings were still bottled up, he was just someone I kind of knew. There are two vivid memories I have of him before the feeling broke through those insecurities.

The first was a comment he made back in sixth grade, after we'd established that we were acquaintances. At that point I had a crush on a girl who decided that I was just someone she used to know. Sixth grade was my most sensitive year. I was sitting with a friend (who was willingly becoming less than a friend), working on an English project. We had to bring in pictures of our childhood. He saw us working, and saw a picture of me from my single-digit years.

“That skinny kid was you?” he remarked.

My friend, who was pretty big himself, replied in my stead. He shook his head and shot a piercing gaze at him. “Don't go there, Jake,” he said with scorn in his voice. Jake shrank back and walked away.

The second was similar to the first, only instead of emotional pain there was physical. I'm a little rough on what exactly happened, but I remember enough. We were walking in the hall, going from a class to the computer lab. He told me about a game, if I'd heard of it. I hadn't. He asked if I wanted to play. I shrugged and agreed to. The next thing I know he backhands me in the groin, laughing devilishly. Whatever humor he found in the act was nonexistent to me.

Yet, despite all of this, I ended up falling in love with him anyway.

Seventh grade was a pretty good year. Still not aware of my feelings for him, I had a crush on a girl. The last girl didn't work out so well. Early on in seventh grade, I said that I liked her and she was too nice to reject me. A warning to all girls out there: by being too nice to reject someone, you're actually being even meaner. We “dated” (and I stress those quotation marks) for a few weeks before realizing that we barely even hung around each other, let alone talk.

But, despite all my heartache, I had a friend. He was far more outgoing than me, and just as much more rambunctious and, it has to be said, obnoxious. He helped me get past Girl #1 and onto Girl #2. Nothing happened with the latter, I'll say that right now. She was just another girl. Without a friend, seventh would have been terrible, but with one, it was pretty darn good.

Eighth grade. I made two more friends. Actual friend friends. The kind that won't leave you cold and alone the moment they see something better. The kind you can trust with your secrets. The loyal, faithful sort of friend. With those three best friends, a cornucopia of lesser friends followed. Small friends, tall friends, little friends, big friends, shy friends, crazy friends, annoying friends. All sorts of friends.

To make it even better, I became better friends with Jake. He was at the very top of that lesser friend category, ready to break through into being considered a “best” friend. We laughed and talked all the time. I still remember some of the inside jokes. Although I didn't ache for him yet, he was a friend.

Freshman year started slow, and it would continue slowly from that point onward. I liked Girl #3, and that whole charade ended in a complete recap of Girl #1, only worse. She tried to kill herself due to some family problems. The girl was only there for half a year. (Last time I saw her she was full on Goth.) It was about this time that, one day, I saw Jake. I looked in awe at his pale skin, his brown cat-eyes, the black hair laying itself gently down on his head, the gray and green hoodies he always wore, that peculiar voice, which I'll describe more in detail as we go along, that resonated in my head long after he had ended speaking. There aren't enough adjectives in the world to backup the word “love.” I was completely, utterly, magically, happily, hopelessly, madly, badly, crazily, obsessively, heartbreakingly, neurotically, dreadfully, joyfully, sadly, gleefully, strangely, confusedly, mysteriously, bizarrely, eccentrically, despondently, desperately in love with him.

This is the worst part, and I must apologize in advance. This is the only time in my life that I hated myself. The stupidest fucking thing I've ever done. To this day I can't forgive myself.

In school, I would see him, then shake my head and stare in disbelief. No! I would shout in my head. No, no, no, no! After making a rash decision, I convinced myself that, in reality, I hated him. I hated him so much that my mind tricked me into loving him. So, when I saw him, I would be mean. I would hit him and pester him. But all this rudeness, all this disrespect, only made me ache more. Finally, months of this, I texted him and told him that I would stop. There's something called and Indirect Proof in Geometry, where before you can prove that something is true, you have to prove that the opposite is false. Such was the case here. I hated him, but after hating him for so long I realized that this was only making it worse. No more denying it. I loved him.

So I picked up the broken pieces of our friendship and tried to put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Oh, how bad I felt. He didn't deserve it. No one deserves disrespect, but they receive it nonetheless. He ended up forgiving me, but that guilt in the pit of my stomach has failed to dissipate.

Nearer to the latter half of that year he slept over at my house. Both times I told myself that I would tell him. We did usual friend things: played videogames, watched movies, stuff like that. He fell asleep pretty quickly. Heavily, too. I won't deny it or feel ashamed to admit it: I watched him. His ashen flower lips were parted just a little. You could barely hear him breathing. You could see those brown cat-eyes peaking out from under his eyelids if you looked at him from the right angle. Both nights pretty much played out in the same manner: talk about school, videogames, movies, then fall asleep. I was so mad at myself for not getting up the courage to tell him.

He had the strangest voice. Even now I can't find a suitable word for it. He didn't have an accent or a lisp, but it was a sort of very slight speech impediment. For lack of a better explanation, his Y's would kind of sound like W's. I loved it. I couldn't imagine loving anyone without a voice like his. And I guess I never did, in the long run.

I never heard that voice, never gazed into those eyes, never touched that pale skin for the whole of the summer. The first day of sophomore year he went up to me and asked where a classroom was. I told him and, once he was gone, cursed under my breath. Shit! I thought. I like him even more now!

Sophomore year will forever be embedded in my brain as my admitting year. I finally cracked and told one of my friends about him. He, being the hilarious kid that he was, made lewd gestures with his hands, but ultimately was cool with it. Next I told the second friend (I had three in all, remember), who said “Well, whatever floats your boat.” My third friend, arguably the best of the best in that department, talked with me about it, about love in general, from dusk till dawn. True friends come around only every so often, but three all at the same time? As sappy as it sounds, I was pretty well off friend-wise.

Allow me this paragraph to describe to you the little I know about Jake. He loved videogames, though he used to play soccer before they unleashed a hoard of Mexicans against the scrawny white kids. He was atheist, and I actually gave him my only Nietzsche book in the hope that maybe he'd use it to support his beliefs. (I hope he still has it.) He liked cliché fantasy books, which he and I argued playfully about the quality of on the rare occasions we walked together through the high school's halls. His sister was a complete whore. He once got drunk at a Halloween party his sister took him to. (“Guess what I did this weekend?” he said to me. “What?” I replied. “Got drunk.”) While I'm also on the subject, I may as well add that he preferred hard liquor. Beer and wine coolers didn't do it for him. He came from a weird family. His grandparents were Jesus-freaks. He owned two fat, female dogs. His mom was a lunch lady at the high school. His dad was more or less the prime source of income in the household. He took depression pills, since he didn't know that I would have gladly made him less sad myself. He hung around with the nerdy-but-preppy kids, though to me it always seemed like he was out of place. (Or is that just the way I want it to be?) He adored cats, as well as cat-like behavior. He liked gloomy days, nighttime, and twilight. (Some days I fantasized about what it would be like to spend a gloomy, twilit night with him.) He thinks Fight Club is a classic movie, which I love to think about since I was the one who first watched it with him. This little quirks and interests and tidbits of information are no longer just little quirks and interests and tidbits of information. Rather, now they're the only thing I have that proves he ever existed.

There's a song called The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot by Brand New that reminds me of him every time I hear it. In order to understand what I mean, allow me the opportunity to reprint the lyrics right here.

If it makes you less sad I will die by your hand.
I hope you find out what you are,
I already know what I am.
And if it makes you less sad
we'll start talking again.
You can tell me how vile
I already know that I am.

I'll grow old and start acting my age.
I'll be a brand new day in a life that you hate.
A crown of gold, a heart that's harder than stone
but it hurts a whole lot and its missed when its gone.

Call me a safe bet,
I'm betting I'm not.
I'm glad that you can forgive,
I'm only hoping as time goes on you can forget.

If it makes you less sad,
I'll move out of this state.
You can keep you yourself.
I'll keep out of your way.
And if it makes you less sad
I'll take your pictures all down.
Every picture you paint
I will paint myself out.

It's cold as a tomb
and its dark in your room
when I sneak to your bed
to pour salt on your wounds.
So call it quits or get a grip.
You say you wanted a solution,
you just wanted to be missed.

Call me a safe bet,
I'm betting I'm not.
I'm glad that you can forgive.
I'm only hoping as time goes on you can forget.
So you can forget.

You are calm and reposed, let your beauty unfold.
Pale white like the skin stretched over your bones.
Spring keeps you ever close, you are second hand smoke.
You are so fragile and thin, standing trial for your sins.
Holding on to yourself the best you can.
You are the smell before rain, you are the blood in my veins.

Call me a safe bet,
I'm betting I'm not.
I'm glad that you can forgive.
I'm only hoping as time goes on you can forget.

That first line, that “If it makes you less sad” part always kills me. I just want to run up to Jake and tell him that I'd do anything for him, that I'd love him regardless of everything, that if he wanted me to I'd leave everything and run away. Just let me make you less sad. Let me spend gloomy, twilit nights with you. Let me throw those depression pills away. Let me drink hard liquor with you. Please, let me make you less sad.

It's been years and years and years, and he's never left my mind. After high school we both kind of just disappeared. I went to one side of the world for college and saw that he was gone when I returned for the holidays. He wasn't dead, he was just gone. His parents moved away, and of course his cell phone number was changed.
Through the years I had a few girlfriends, no boyfriends. They were all very nice girls. Smart or athletic or funny or all three. But they weren't Jake. That's the one thing no one else could ever be. At age nineteen I finally had the opportunity to sleep with my girl, and while what we were doing was certainly enjoyable, it couldn't compare to even the thought of Jake. As she moaned and spouted murmurs of pleasure, I couldn't help but think how her voice was nothing in comparison to his. The tan skin stretched over her skin was nothing like even a square inch of Jake's cheek. Her eyes weren't bright or wide or curious or cat-like. She was so sure of herself, which in turn made me sure of herself. I didn't want that! I wanted to be awkward and clumsy with Jake. I didn't want to see the sun, I wanted everyday to be gloomy and twilit. Is this what I'm destined for? Am I destined to belong with less than I ought to be?

What if it were different? What if, right after graduation, I boldly ran up to Jake's door, burst inside, ran up to his room, and admitted everything? He wouldn't be scared. Surprised, maybe, but not scared. He knew me too well to be scared. Maybe he'd have to sleep on it. Then, I'd go back to my house and wait, staring at the screen of my cell phone. He was going to sleep on it. That's fine. I can wait. But, it gets better. He'd show up in the middle of the night. Everyone else in the house would be asleep. The night outside would be dark and gloomy, just like it should be. I would kiss him, I would finally feel what it's like to kiss him. But after that? Then, I would live with him. I would make him less and less and less sad. Once, during sophomore year, he said to me “I guess I'm nicer when I'm sick. I just want someone to talk to and hold me.” My mind burned. Wait, what? Did he just say he wanted to be talked to and held? I want to talk to you and hold you. I wish I could talk to you and hold you. Maybe I will someday? This would finally be my opportunity. We would watch Fight Club again, resting all snug and warm against each other all blanket covered. I would be selfless for him. If he asked for chocolate ice cream I'd go to the freezer and get chocolate ice cream, and if he told me that I took too long and that he didn't want it anymore, I'd apologize and say that I should have known that he wouldn't have wanted ice cream anymore. He held onto himself the very best he could, but now I would be there to make him less sad.

But that's all another fantasy. Or are they both fantasies? Possible futures? Am I really still a sophomore? I could invite him over on a gloomy day to play videogames, then in the middle of the night admit everything. Maybe then the fantasy would become fact. Maybe then I'd be complete. There'd be problems, of course, there's always problems, but at least I would be able to deal with them with Jake.

That's all fine, but where am I? Am I here, or am I there? Am I in the future or am I in the past? Where? What? How? Why? The questions will always be there. All we have are our fantasies, and all that we can do is do our best to make them real.