Homecoming

I don’t necessarily think what Connor did was bad as much as…badly timed.

I tell Alex this as we swing side-by-side in the moonlight, on the same night that Connor kind of "came out" to his family.

“I’m still shocked,” Alex shakes his head with a slight smile.

The fact that Connor made his confession didn’t shock me as much as how everyone reacted to it. It was nearly the opposite of how I would’ve expected. Connor’s mother immediately expressed a pleading look- as if she was silently asking Connor to just take it back. While Evan’s facial reaction couldn’t be more upset and Robert, he was just taken aback it seemed, almost disbelieving but in a ‘really?’ way.

Connor’s own reaction was the same he’d been plastering since homecoming- a faux confidence with a hint of indifference masking utter confusion and who knows what else.
I’ve already told Alex this.

“Has he spoken to you?”

Shaking my head provokes a groan from Alex though I don’t look at him. “I understand that he’s going through something Nate, but he just can’t keep making you feel like shit because he does.”

“I know,” I shrug with indifference.

“I mean really, Nate, are you listening to me? Do you see how he makes you?”
And I do. I realize my frowning and slumping as if it’s the first time, as if I’ve never noticed before. I sigh, more out of annoyance than sadness because Alex is starting to get repetitive with this lecturing thing on proper friendships.

“You’re not answering me,” He says firmly. I get off my swing with a roll of eyes, “Because all that doesn’t fucking matter, Alex.”

He looks offended and I’m reminded of the boy he says makes me feel like shit.

“Have you even ever had a real best friend?” As I start to walk behind him, he stops swinging and I cut him off before he can answer my rhetorical question, “I mean a real best friend, there’s a chance you don’t even know what that is. That how special out relationship is-“

At a breath, he takes a chance to dive in, “I know, I get that. I-“

“No you don’t!” I exclaim though I’m don’t try to. His eyes widen in surprise but he doesn’t say anything as he forces his lips into a tight line, waiting for me to explain. I take a breath and start to push him on the swing, mainly so I don’t have to look him in the eye.

“My mom died when I was in third grade,” I can feel the hitch in his breathing as my hands press into his back. “Sorry,” he mutters, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

“No. I mean thanks, but I’m not trying to make this some sob story. It’s just that I don’t know right now if I was eight or nine when she died because I just know that I was in third grade and that was the year I met Connor. I moved that year. I used to live two hours from here, but when my mom died, it was like everything that had experienced her did to. My dad, our house, my grandparents, the local store clerks, just everything seemed like it got covered in dust. It got sad and my dad moved us to pull me out of that. But just a change of scenery didn’t help. It was like that for months after we moved still. It was like that until just before school let out for summer, because that’s when I met Connor.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes due to their stinging and glazing over, provoked by the sudden wind.

“And the way his secretly shitty mode now pushes its way onto me is the way his amazingly genuinely happy and outgoing and charismatic personality pushed itself onto me then. The way my mom’s death brought a town-wide depression is the way his being alive brought on a town-wide enthusiasm. His personality was addictive in such a good way. Connor knew all the right things to say, even before he knew that my mom died and he just thought that I was the new kid his older brother called emo because of my indifference to everything that I’d brought from my previous town.”

I suppose Alex didn’t want to interrupt me to stop pushing when he just jumps mid-air. He sticks a landing and while turning, his and Connor’s differences have never been so prominent to me. The differences have never outshined their likeness like they do at this moment.

In the light his black hair is still not nearly Connor’s brown and his skin is still so pale in the darkness that he couldn’t stand next to Connor in the summer and not seem like he needs a tan. His eyes are smaller, constantly squinting with thought while Connor’s are wider with confusion and wondering of little things such as if he’s hiding this fact well. But it goes further, deeper than that.

Alex would not have been boy to bring me out of my depression. Alex is just Alex, he cannot be compared so much to Connor just because I want him to be, just because I want him to have all of Connor’s good parts and replace Connor’s bad parts with his good. Alex is just not Connor.

‘Break up with your boy toy. I’m not a fan of this affection.’

I glance at the text message that postpones Alex’s response.

‘Only the forced kind?’ I reply though it’s not the best moment.

‘Only the secret kind. Oh, and the unrequited. Night night, Natey.’

“The black mailer wants me to break up with you,” I look up at him and he’s staring into my eyes softly, forgivingly.

“I don’t think it’s just the black mailer,” he whispers.