Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 15:19:42 -0400
From: daredevillain862@aim.com
Subject: Travis & Connor-11

Unless you're a little kid demanding to stay up longer, there's almost
nothing in the world that feels better than crawling into a nice, warm,
cozy bed at night in your clean, warm-from-the-dryer pajamas. It feels even
better when you have a glass of apple juice on your nightstand. After a
long hard day of school, followed by hours of damn homework, it's nice to
just live in your dreams when you sleep.

Of course, I ALMOST got to that point. Just as I was getting into bed &
pulling the covers over me, my cell rang. I groaned, leaned over & got it
off my nightstand. Travis. Let's see. Drifting off into my dreams or
talking on the phone to my boyfriend. I grunted & picked up. I'd make sure
that I'd let him know that I almost chose sleep.

"What?"

"Hey. What's up?" he asked cheerily.

"Me," I said flatly.

I heard him laugh.

"What do you want Travis? I'd like to go to sleep."

"Well, I was thinking 'bout inviting you to come on my tour of BC & UMass
Amherst tomorrow. How 'bout it?"

"You called me at 11:30 to ask if I want to go out of state for your
college tour with you tomorrow?" I said, trying to sound a bit ticked.

"Yup."

"Why can't we talk about this tomorrow morning or something?" I asked,
irritated.

"Because," said Travis, "the tour IS tomorrow. Please come Connor," he
pleaded. Begging didn't help him at all.

"Why do you need me anyway?"

"'Cause if we're still together by the time college comes around, we could
maybe think about going to the same school."

I hadn't really given much thought to that before. I honestly wasn't sure
about how long Travis & I were going to be together & what that meant after
high school.

"What if we go to different schools?" I asked him.

"Then we go to different schools," he said simply.

"But could we at least think 'bout going to the same school Connor?" he
added.

"Yeah, of course."

Pause.

"...While you come with me on my tour?" he slipped in.

I groaned. I probably DID want to go. I just didn't want to talk about it
when all I wanted was to go to sleep.

"Fine. I'm sorry I'm kinda in a pissy mood. I just really wanna go to
sleep."

"Don't worry 'bout it. Sorry I called late. So I'll see ya tomorrow then?"

"Yup."

"Awesome. See ya," he said.

"Bye."

**********

Since I had my permit, I drove to Travis' house & offered to drive us to
the train station. His dad seemed a little bit unmoved, but his mom was
frantic, but trying to be respectful.

We drove to the train station & got three tickets to Boston. I had only
been to the Bay State once before & that was for a Mets vs Red Sox game. I
was a Mets fan, being from New York, more specifically NYC. I hated the
Yankees, but I was no Sox fan either.

Anyway, we eventually arrived at South Station. It was a little distance
from UMass Amherst & BC but it was still Boston. Because Ben had a hospital
check-up for his shoulder that day, Travis' parents had given us money at
the last minute to spend for improtant purposes only.

We used a good amount of the money to get a rental car to drive around
Boston. The streets were fairly similar to NYC, which is why most of the
time I was keeping my eyes on the road. Travis on the other hand was gaping
over everything.

Even though the streets were similar, there were more differences. While
there was no where near as many people in Boston as there were in NYC, it
was still unbelievably crowded everywhere. The buildings were smaller but
still towering over us.

After a long while of driving, we finally made it to the BC campus.

"Wow," said Travis, his jaw practically to the floor.

"This is pretty cool actually," I said.

We made our way to the area where we, along with many other people, waited
for the tour to begin.

***

When it was finally over, Travis & I got into the rental car & decided to
drive around & maybe do some sightseeing. We still had a couple hours
before the tour at UMass Amherst began.

"So what's in Boston here?" he asked me as we drove through Chinatown after
a while.

"I'm not really sure actually. I've only been here once before & it was for
a baseball game, so I didn't really get a chance to walk around."

"Well all them people seem to like walking around," he said, pointing to
all the people walking on the sidewalks.

"They're all just probably going to work, or on their lunch break or
something."

"Ugh. This is one of them things that I don't like about
cities. Traffic. It's everywhere. Why is there ALWAYS traffic?"

I shrugged.

"A lot of city people are assholes. So they don't know when to stop, turn,
go or anything. That's why there's so many crashes all the time."

"Well if I ever visit my old home, you should come with me so you can get a
taste of the sticks," he said. The sticks was a term for rural or
countryish.

"Really? That'd be awesome. I have always kinda wanted to-" I stopped
mid-sentence.

I slammed on my brakes to keep from crashing into a van that drove right
through a red light while we had the green light.

"JESUS!" I yelled, as I slowly started to moving forward again.

"What the hell was his rush?" I said. Travis, a little out of breath was
gripping the arm rest & the handle to the door. He was slightly shaking. I
didn't blame him. Not only was he not used to that sort of thing back where
he came from, but he was also in a car being driven by a new driver. He
took in a huge breath & exhaled slowly.

"That," he said, pointing to the street the other car had come out of as we
drove through the rest of the intersection. I didn't have much time to see
anything, but what I had seen was a huge number of people gathering around
something.

I pulled over after a few seconds. Travis & I unhooked our seatbelts & got
out of the car after I turned it off.

When we walked to the corner of the intersection, I looked at what the
other driver had been trying to get away from. There were huge crowdas of
people walking through the streets headed down that way.

When Travis & I started walking with them all, we saw what everybody was
staring at.

Coming up from what seemed to be a major road, was a small float.

"It's a parade," Travis said.

On the front of the float, there was a huge banner that said "LBGT" with a
gay flag underneath it. In front of the float were hundreds of people
walking.

"It's a rally," I said, correcting Travis.

The people walking in the very front were carrying poles that held up a gay
flag between them. I noticed that there were other carrying tons of
balloons all in rainbow colors. There were men & women marching. I also
noted how many of them were teens as well.

"You wanna join?" said Travis.

"Umm...sure," I said a little bit hesitantly. I was still a pretty big
closet case & here I was at a gay march for gay rights. But I had to admit:
it was kind of exciting.

When we walked forward & joined the rest of the people, we were handed tags
with a number in the low thousands on it. They must have been tags for how
many people there were. We were then told to write our last names
underneath the number so there was proof of how many people came. I wrote
down Truman & Travis wrote down Dole.

The two of us didn't stand in the front. Instead, we drifted a little bit
behind the people in the front where there was more space between all the
people but so that we were still together.

"This is pretty cool," I exclaimed to Travis as we looked around the faces
of all the walkers. Most of these people were gay also & it was amazing to
think how many people were here. There were a lot of teens also that were
walking. Some of them seemed very young, maybe 13, 14 years old. A lot of
them were pretty hot actually, to be honest.

"Hi," said this one girl who was maybe our age, a little bit younger. There
was another girl next to her, holding her hand. She seemed to get this sour
face when she saw Travis & I.

"Hi," we said back.

The 'nice girl' nudged her a little bit. She sighed & tried to smile at
us. Umm...

"Hi," she muttered out.

"Hey."

Nice girl smiled a sorry look off to us & they walked off ahead.

I smiled, knowing that all the people around us not only shared common
beliefs, but were also nice to everyone BECAUSE they had similar
beliefs. Well, MOST people seemed nice.

"Don't mind her. She's always got a pissy face whenever she's around men,"
said a voice behind us. We turned our heads but kept walking.

It was a boy about our age. He could have been slightly younger but a
little taller. He had light brown hair & a mysterious shade of dark green
eyes. I had to admit, he was pretty hot. In my opinion not as hot as
Travis, but still hot enough to fantasize about if I wasn't with Travis
already. I looked at his name tag. It said "Parker."

"Oh is that why she gave us that look?" Travis asked the boy.

"Yup. I still occasionally get it actually," he laughed.

"So what's going on around here?" I asked, stupidly.

"Well," he started, "if you can't tell, it's a gay rally. We're trying to
show the city & cities pretty much everywhere how many gays there are who
want equal rights."

"How many people are here?" Travis said.

"Probably a couple thousand maybe. Not sure," he said.

We looked around at all the people around us & the small float. There were
gay couples standing on the float, some kissing, hugging, holding hands,
etc. It was very...comfortable.

"So what are your guys' names?" the boy asked us.

"I'm Travis."

"I'm Connor."

He extended his hand out & shook both our hands.

"So where-" he said, but was then interrupted by two boys walking beside
him. He shook his head at them after the closer one said something & then
turned back to us.

"Sorry. So where you guys from?"

"New York City," I said.

"Big Apple huh. That's pretty cool. Are you two boyfriends?" he asked as he
started looking down at something on his cell phone.

"Yup."

"Cool."

"Well you seem like a pretty good looking boy. I would think you have a
boyfriend or something," Travis said to him.

"I do."

"Oh. Where is he?"

"Well, he's back home in Maine. He's kind of a shy kid," the boy shrugged.

"Ahh, I know what you mean. This one's a closet case, too," said Travis,
hooking his arm in mine. I rolled my eyes.

"Oh I don't mean like that," the kid laughed.

I felt Travis kiss my cheek. I smiled & kissed him back.

"My boy's not in the closet anymore. We actually both came out somewhat
recently, so we're nowhere near shyness, trust me. But he's very
quiet. Likes to keep to himself."

The kid next to him tugged his sleeve & said something into his ear. When
the kid shook his head again & said no, the other kid gritted his teeth but
let it go & started talking to the boy walking next to him. I assumed they
were a group of five, which included the two girls way up ahead now.

"I guess everybody has their own ways of standing up," I said. He smiled
warmly at me & nodded his head.

He then turned his head forward & sighed.

"You sound like him," he smiled, looking ahead into nowhere. He was
thinking of personal thoughts.

I felt Travis' arm reach around me & pull me into his side as we all
continued walking.

"Then it sounds like you have a pretty good boyfriend," said Travis to the
boy.

He chuckled for a quick second & nodded, continuing looking ahead.

The boy next to him tugged his sleeve again & said something that looked
urgent to the kid. He nodded, & both other boys on his side ran ahead. The
boy then took out a piece of paper, glanced at Travis & I, wrote down
something & then put it away.

"I gotta go guys, gotta catch up to them & then head on back home," he
said, starting to jog ahead of us.

We shrugged.

"All right. Bye!" Travis called after him. The boy kept running ahead &
waved a hand back.

Wait a minute.

"Hey!" I called.

He turned around, but continued running backwards.

"What's your name?" I yelled.

He cupped his hands & shouted out his name to us.

"J!"

After the rally, we visited the college & went home.


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