I had a best friend named Zack from fourth grade to sixth grade. We had so much fun together, just fooling around and being boys. During the summer we'd have sleepover at each other's places, switching every day. I met him after he was introduced as the new kid by Mrs. Marchant, my fourth grade teacher. She asked me to show him where all the bathrooms and the offices were, just to get him to know the school a bit better. Since that day, we were inseparable...
...Until he had to move. That day in sixth grade was very sad. He was almost avoiding me all day until he told me had something important to tell me. He said that his family was moving to Sandy. That nearly crushed me. I was losing my best friend, and even though we only knew each other for two years, he and I were like brothers. It just so happened that he moved away... and Jonathan came into the picture.
Jonathan was a boy in my sixth grade band class. Nobody knew who he was because he was home schooled and only came to school for band. After doing the sixth grade thing of going around and trying every instrument before choosing the one we wanted, we both became sax players. I got to know him through there, and it was there when I found out that he was home schooled. We became friends, but not as close as Zack and I were... just yet.
That summer we did summer band together, and we were ecstatic to know that we'd get to know each other more. I met his parents that summer and he met mine. It was sad when Jonathan went on a trip with his family to California. He was gone for two weeks, but he took the trip annually, so I had to get used to it. When he came back we hung out like no other... literally, like no other.
As seventh grade started, Jonathan and I were still friends, but it became hard to deal with the friendships I had going on at school as well as with Jonathan. I'd be in the band room with all my friends from school and Jonathan would expect me to focus all my attention on him, as I was practically his only friend there at the time. I couldn't decide which to put more attention on, and it eventually became harder as I started to develop feelings for him.
That next summer after seventh grade, my good friend Destinee and I became really really close, and I brought Jonathan with me. The three of us were joined at the hip. You always found us with each other. Trouble started brewing as Jonathan and Destinee started to like each other, and I knew it, but they had no clue about each other. They asked me things like "Do you think Jon will ever go out with me?" and "Destinee's so cute. I'd kind of like to ask her out. Will she say yes?" And here I was, stuck in the middle. I wanted Jonathan for myself, but I knew I couldn't ever have him. At the time, I told them to stay away from each other and I made some excuse regarding their parents.
During eighth grade, the band had took a trip to St. George, six hours south of where we lived. I had a room with Jonathan and our friend Cole. We were excited to spend a lot of time together in St. George, and rooming with each other wasn't going to be a problem. It wasn't planned, but somehow we knew that we wanted to talk to each other in private about loads of things, but with Cole there, it wasn't going to be easy, or so we thought. Cole fell asleep quickly, and that meant that Jonathan and I were practically alone in the hotel room, him on one bed and me on the other.
We played the game of truth, which is basically the truth part of truth or dare. We asked each other some serious questions and some not-so-serious questions. I eventually fell asleep. The next morning I woke up with a horrible feeling in my stomach. It was something that I had never felt before in my life. I thought maybe the air in the room was stale, so I went outside and I took a few deep breaths. Jonathan was still sleeping in his bed, half naked. I walked around outside for a bit and the sick feeling subsided. I walked into the room, and Jonathan was in the shower. Cole was still sleeping. So I just lounged around until we were supposed to leave. Jonathan came out of the shower in just his towel... and the feeling came back. He asked me what time we were supposed to go, and I told him I was going to go check, even though I knew the answer.
I went outside and I took some major deep breaths: "What's going on? What am I feeling? Oh, man, I feel so sick... and I threw up. "Ugh... seriously? What is this? And I realized.... I had developed deep feelings for Jon. What I had been feeling was "butterflies in my stomach" but they definitely felt more like hornets. I couldn't believe it. My sexuality was definitely in place and I felt it then more than ever.
My friend Mandy was walking about and asked me what I was doing outside and I couldn't help myself. "Mandy, I think I like Jonathan," were the words that blurted out instead of explaining what I was doing outside. She was in complete and utter shock. She couldn't believe that I had just come out to her... and I couldn't believe it either. She was one of the first people I came out to.
I went back inside and told Jonathan when we were going to get on the bus. He was dressed by then, but those feelings did not go away. On the bus ride home, I couldn't stop thinking. Thinking about Jonathan, my feelings, about myself... it was all very new and confusing to me. Some of the kids on the bus noticed. My friend Kristina asked me what was wrong and I told her... and she was just as surprised as Mandy. I asked her what I should do and she said to just keep it under wraps for the moment. Then I told her that I wanted to tell Jonathan. She told me to definitely keep my mouth shut. She said it would ruin my friendship with Jonathan.
I figured she was right. I talked about it to a few more friends and they said the same thing. Then I talked to my friend Alyssa. She told me that I was better off telling Jonathan now than later. "I'd tell him if I were you. It might make your friendship better. You never know."
"You never know." She was right. But I wanted to know. I was sitting at the very back of the bus and Jonathan was in the front. I gathered my courage and started walking towards the front of the bus, with my stomach feeling worse and worse each step I took. About half way I figured I was making a mistake, but seeing as how I'd already gotten half way there, I decided to go all the way.
I got to Jonathan's seat. We chatted for a bit about random things.
I said, "Hey... Jon. I have something I need to tell you... and I totally understand if you don't want to talk to me afterwards..."
He interrupted. "Dude, there's nothing that'll make me stop talking to you." His gorgeous brown eyes looked at me while his luscious red lips asked me, "What is it?"
"Jon... I like you."
Silence.
"Yeah, I know. We're friends."
"No, I mean... more than a friend...
More silence.
My mind raced. Was he upset? Was he disgusted? Was he okay with it? I had no idea. I wanted to leave right then and there, but I couldn't move. On the inside I was shaking nervously, but on the outside I was petrified.
Then he said, "It's okay. It could happen to anyone. It's understandable." Understandable, my ass. It's as if he knew what I was going through, which he clearly didn't. It was still quiet. I couldn't move. I wasn't even looking at him anymore, but rather the floor of the bus. I felt like throwing up again. Then after a bit more silence he asked me, "So... are you gay then?"
At this point, I knew what I was, but I hadn't come to terms with it. So I said, "Yeah, I guess I am." I wasn't expecting what he said next.
"Dude, you are? You mean, you like guys having sex with other guys? That's so gross, dude. That's wrong." He didn't know how I felt then. I wanted to die. I had just humiliated myself in front of my best friend by confiding my biggest secret with him... and he finds it offensive. He saved himself, though. "But... that's only my opinion."
I had no choice but to ask him, "Is this going to ruin our friendship?"
"No... I don't think so." At that time I wanted to give him the biggest embrace, the largest and most meaningful hug, but I reserved myself. Inside I was bursting with joy for the fact that Jonathan was still going to be my friend after this. I couldn't stand losing my best friend again.
Alyssa had the best advice. Since that day, our friendship grew stronger. He was much more himself with me and I myself with him. I had the best summer of my life. It was like being friends with Zack all over again, only better. We had sleepovers constantly, we'd stay up and talk about everything that came into our minds. His mother was always the super-conservative religious type, so Jonathan hadn't been exposed to Harry Potter or anything "beyond that." I introduced him to hundreds of things whether it be television shows, movies, music, books... It was amazing. The only bad thing that came out of this was that Jonathan and Destinee finally got together, and I did get a bit jealous, but I quickly got over that.
Since I told Jonathan about me he was definitely more comfortable around me... too comfortable. We had a sleepover one time and we decided to sleep outside on his trampoline, but he wanted to bring his Gamecube out as well. The extension cord didn't reach that far, and instead of being men and moving the trampoline, we just slept on the grass, as far as that extension cord would reach. It was a very warm night, so Jonathan stripped. He stripped in a teasing manner. He took his shirt off and threw it onto me. Not that I was staring, but he knew I was aware of what was going on. I loved it when he did that.
As I started nearing high school, I asked Jonathan to convince his parents to let him attend public school again. His parents eventually agreed and we had a great time being freshmen together. Jonathan's parents found out about Destinee and they demanded that he stopped seeing her, but it didn't happen that way. His mom even went and talked with the band director and yelled at him for letting "something like that" happen.
Jonathan became a bit more rebellious during this year in high school. I couldn't deal with having Jonathan and then my other separate group of friends, so I introduced him to the friends I've had for a while. They accepted Jonathan a bit too much, so much that he started to change. He started hanging out with a guy I considered a friend back then, Colt. Colt wasn't the best person on earth, so to speak. He was the epitome of a dumb boy head, and it was rubbing off on Jonathan.
Jonathan sent me an email (because email was the thing to do back then) with the subject "10 things to say to a guy when..." and it was all sayings concerning penis size, such as "That's it?" or "Is it in yet?" Well, it just so happened that Jonathan's parents monitored his computer usage and found that email and thought I sent it to him. His father, also conservative and ultra-religious, comes to my house and spends some time talking to me, mainly about my sexuality. He said that he can't stop me from being friends with Jonathan, but he would like for me to stop sending that type of things to him. He also started talking to me about how I was going to hell and how I was going to get AIDS for being gay. I couldn't find the words to talk back to him, but I knew this had something to do with Jonathan becoming a real teenager, and seeing as how I was the one to ask him to go to public school, his parents blamed me.
Jonathan just got worse and worse, even to the point where Destinee couldn't stand it. Some of Jonathan's friends from his church youth group led double lives: one as a religious goody-two-shoes and another as the anarchist druggie, and they, too, were affecting Jonathan in a bad manner. I tried to talk to Jonathan about it, as my best friend, but he just took it as if it was his father preaching to him.
Our freshman year came to an end, and so did our friendship. Jonathan and I hardly talked after that. It was kind of upsetting when I found out Jonathan dropped out of high school and moved out from his parents' house. His parents, I guess have had some marital problems and eventually split. His father became a wreck and his mom moved into another house. I knew this for sure when I found the for sale sign on his old house. Once that house was bought, it was heavily renovated, which made me upset. So much happened in that house that the owners don't know about, and they went ahead and changed it. It's not like I could do much about that though. The house changed, the parents changed, and Jonathan changed, as did I.
I lost contact with Jonathan soon after that, only finding out what he was up to by word of mouth. Moving to Park City, losing job after job, the tattoos and piercings... I rarely saw him. Every now and then we'd find each other at the grocery store. I went my life without seeing Jonathan for about two years, and I hadn't thought of him. But that one time I saw him at the store, I felt those overactive hornets in my stomach again. I didn't understand why, either. I thought those feelings would have gone away seeing as how I didn't spend any time with Jonathan. I figured that maybe I just repressed them to the point where I thought they were gone.
After that, I didn't see him until this year's graduation, and we know how that went. He went to jail for five months because he had a bomb. I just recently found out that his friend Caleb, a guy we both went to school with, was in the whole bomb situation. Not surprising, but I still cannot believe that a guy I was best friends with would create such a stupid thing.
Then... just a couple of nights ago I had a dream. It was sometime around Christmas or Thanksgiving, but there was frost on the grass and the morning were chilly and brisk. I woke up on my couch to find that for some reason I was getting gifts. My mother got me a kitty and a teddy bear, which I was grateful for. That kitty was like my best friend. We'd play with each other and we'd never get sick of each other. I took the kitty outside while he was laying on my shoulder. I wasn't at my house anymore, but rather an extensively large mansion made of some sort of dark wood. Outside was an open field with a trampoline nearby as well as a shed. It was early morning, around seven-ish. I went to the trampoline and I noticed an abundance of blankets and I decided to leave the kitty there as I went out to explore. I must have not explored for so long because it seemed like one minute went by before the sun started setting. I went back to the trampoline and I found the teddy bear there along with the kitty, but the kitty quickly disappeared. I got on the trampoline and in the blankets, as if I was getting ready for bed. Then a hand came from behind me and traveled across my chest and pulled me close to the body behind me and a voice said, "Do you like your present?" I turned around and saw Jonathan. He was in the same place the bear was. I just flash him a smile and nod in acceptance. There he continues to ruffle my hair in a caressing manner and we manage to get close enough where I could smell the sweet breath from his lips. He inches his way closer and closer to me to the point where our lips touch... and keep touching. This lasted until the morning, where we got out of the blankets and off the trampoline, but not after putting our clothes on. Jonathan was shivering, as the day was again cold, and he asked where his hoodie was. I told him he must have left it inside, and as we walked back into the large mansion we held hands. Somehow time passed inside the mansion and the next thing I knew we were laughing like old times. We never did find his hoodie, but he was fine with it. He told me if I ever saw his black hoodie with gray lettering to return it to him....
And I woke up. It was one of those awakenings where you don't know where you are and nothing makes sense. I thought I was still on this dream trampoline because of my blankets looking like the ones in the dream as well as a black hoodie with gray lettering. I picked it up and noticed that it was mine, as it read "Southern Utah University." And that definitely woke me up. Those hornets were back again.
It wasn't too long afterwards when I saw that Jonathan had added me as a friend on Myspace. I don't believe in coincidences, but rather inevitability. So this was somehow sensed in my dream, but awkwardly. I looked around Jonathan's Myspace and noticed that he hadn't changed one bit: from the Jonathan I ended falling heavily in like with to the Jonathan that caused our friendship to crumble. I accepted his friend request, but I don't know if I'll say anything to him. I don't have anything to say to him. I'm still attracted to him, and I don't think I'll ever stop... and that's what makes this difficult.
Topics:
-Other Jonathan.
-Colten.
-Kaden and Matthew.
-James. First boyfriend.