Love Like a Sieve

He couldn’t comprehend how everything he’d ever wanted could be ripped away so easily.

His limited edition, golden-toed sneakers scuffed against the grass as he swayed slowly to each side, his hands halfheartedly gripping the sturdy metal bars. A lock of chestnut brown hair fell into the boy’s eyes, but his mind was too preoccupied to bother brushing it away. The park felt so strangely despondent at night without the warm rays of sunlight and the sound of children laughing. The glow a lone streetlamp played across James’s perfect features, catching the soft flecks of olive and golden brown in his hazel eyes. Those were eyes that, with just a glance, could make any girl weak in the knees, and he possessed a face that rivaled that of any Calvin Klein model, but even though all of this beauty came along with a certain power, James still couldn’t help but feel hollow inside.

Even though he had what most people coveted, he still felt incomplete.

All James had ever wanted in life was for people to love him. Growing up, his mother had been so absorbed in launching her cosmetics company that she barely took time to acknowledge the son she’d let fall along the wayside. It was only when he packed up to leave for California that she began to desperately cling to him as if she needed him more than the air she breathed. It hadn’t been difficult for him to leave her behind as she had left him so many times before.

They always say that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

His father was on the opposite end of the spectrum, a man with no spine, and all of his attention seemed to be focused on James. As his marriage began to crumble, he began to see all the things he despised about himself mirrored on his son’s features, and James couldn’t escape his criticisms. The more he heard those words, the more truth he began to see in them. And as he began to doubt himself more with each passing day, his desire to be loved grew stronger.

That desire manifested itself in his dream of becoming a pop star. James longed to have millions of adoring fans, to hear his name roll off of their lips as their arms swayed in time with his voice. To James Diamond, that was true love, and his mother was trying to snatch it all away.

Of course, they’d never really love James for James because they’d never truly know him, but they’d fall in love with the idea of him. They’d be utterly infatuated with the James Diamond they concocted in their minds, but that would be more than enough to satisfy him. A shallow, fickle boy only deserved shallow, fickle love. That was just the way life was.

So James Diamond became the boy that could only love himself. But there was always an exception that proved the rule true.

That exception was a boy with summer in his hair and eyes the same tumultuous green as the sea.

That exception was one of his best friends.

James had always envisioned himself falling in love with a Victoria’s Secret angel or Nicole Scherzinger, never with a stubborn boy welding a hockey stick, but what he felt for Kendall was a different kind of love. Though he admired Kendall’s qualities, he didn’t envy him in the way that he envied the girls he was attracted to. Kendall didn’t possess the soft, full lips or the curvy hips thathe obsessed over, but that never seemed to James.

Beauty ran more than skin deep with Kendall.

James’s sunkissed skin flushed beneath the dim lights as he watched the object of his affection emerge from the shadows, a gray hoodie thrown on over his blue checked pajama pants.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked as his muscular arms hugged around his chest. Clumps of golden hair peeked out from beneath the charcoal hood.

The merry-go-round tilted and squealed beneath Kendall’s weight as he took a seat beside his friend. The faint breath that escaped his lips blurred like smoke in the crisp night air.

“Trying to think,” James sighed, his stare trained on the toes of his sneakers.

Silent lapsed between the two boys, and James found himself drowning in the golden boy’s presence. He wasn’t supposed to be beautiful; all of his features were wrong and oddly proportioned. Though their hue was brilliant, his eyes were much too narrow in comparison with the broad shape of his face. His nose protruded outward too greatly, more like a ski slope than an object of desire. Unlike James’s perfectly chiseled body, the only defined muscles beneath Kendall’s fair and freckled skin were his hockey-sculpted arms and broad shoulders. But there was just something so humbling and so mesmerizing in all of Kendall’s imperfections.

James was drawn to the boy because he embodied the one thing that he didn’t have: inner strength. If James could only muster up one iota of Kendall’s strength, only the strength that kept his strong jaw line locked firmly in place, James would have enough courage to stand up to his mother.

“So…” Kendall’s soft voice trailed off. It was the only delicate aspect he claimed. “Are you still leaving with your mom tomorrow?”

“I guess so. I mean, there’s not much I can do. Once my mom sets her mind on something, there isn’t anything anyone can say that’ll stop her.”

“I can’t imagine this band…I can’t imagine life here without you.”

A faint smile formed across James’s lips. “But you’re the ‘fire’, Kendall. You always have been, not me.”

Kendall forced a chuckle as his hand wandered onto James’s, his calloused fingers lightly enveloping the stretch of tanned skin.

“You’re right, we could do it without you, but I wouldn’t want to.” His words were bold with fervor, and James wanted so badly to believe them, if only because Kendall did.

In that instant, James wished he could tell him that he loved him, truly and deeply, body and soul. His lips just didn’t know how to form the words.