Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:41:34 -0700 From: Mark Smith Subject: the middle of the road I had known John my entire life. We had played together at his house when we were both very young, maybe 3. He had always been, and always will be, my first and best friend. But when we were both about 14 and just entering high school, I began to see him in a different way, began to see beyond the stereotypical male "buddy-buddy" viewpoint. I could see that John was a deep, caring, compassionate person. I saw the young man that wrote poetry, and wanted to go to a great college and have a career helping people through science. I saw the one I loved. It all began when I was back-to-school shopping with my mom at the local drug store. John walked in with his mom, and we all started talking, eventually deciding that John would have to come sleep over at my house that weekend. His invariably busy schedule meant that this may be the last time he could be around for a while, so I leapt at the opportunity. I drudged through the rest of the first week of school with that sleepover as the light at the end of the tunnel. By 12 o'clock on Friday, I was so excited I could barely move. I think I must have finished my classes that day, but the next thing I remember was getting in the car to go pick up John from his water polo practice. I remember the broad, beautiful smile he flashed us when we pulled up. He walked over and jumped in the front, as I had taken the rare risk of riding in the back with my annoying little brother to accomodate him. I'm sure he would have been touched had he known how much I hated to do so. The twighlight sun glinted off of his still-wet hair and he turned to look at me. "Hey," he said. "Let's dispense with the trivialities and get down to business, John: do you like pizza?" I replied I swear his smile went off of the edge of his face. We got home and talked about standard 14-year old guy stuff; girls, school, sports. He told me all about water polo. It sounded like something he would love. He was a true blue California boy; always in the water. As he talked, the only thing I could think of was how he would look in a speedo. We played computer games and looked at porn long into the night. At about 3 in the morning, I suggested we go for a walk down main street. He agreed, and after hastily scribbling a note containing something to the extent of "going out at 3. Don't call cops," we snuck stealthily out of the sliding glass door. Walking down the middle of the road, he shared with me amazing secrets about himself, things that I would never want mentioned had they been about me, but he never once told me not to repeat them. I couldn't believe he trusted me with such confidential information. As he talked, I looked deep into his dark blue eyes, saw the moonlight reflecting off of his scruffy, brown hair. My heart pounded in my chest. I wanted more than anything in the world to kiss him as we walked down the middle of the road in the moonlight. When he noticed that I hadn't said anything in a while, he stopped and looked at me. I couldn't speak. All I could do was gasp, searching for the right words to tell him how I felt. I was falling, I was flying off into space, I was dying. He moved close to me and put his hand on the back of my head. His lips grazed mine, and I almost cried for the sheer ecstacy of it. I was flying, a million thoughts filling my head at once. I was feeling every feeling in the world, joy, love, pleasure, pain. I needed him so badly. We moved to the side of the road, into a bunch of picnic tables tucked into an indentation in a wall covered in ivy. He laid me down on the table and glided on top, caressing my hair and moving his lips again towards my mouth. We kissed for eternity. Civilization burned down and rose again, the world ended, started again. There was nothing but us. "God, I love you" "I love you too" And so my life began.