I've Got Your Back

*Matthew's Point of View*

I rushed to the window and barely opened it in time before the contents of my stomach erupted angrily from within me. My body tensed and contorted as I retched again and again, all traces of the meal I had so carefully cooked leaving my body. Eventually when my body had finished its ruthless punishment I lay down on my bed, eyes watering and throat raw.

Don’t misunderstand me - I wasn’t disgusted by what had happened. Quite the opposite actually. And I think it was that, the realisation I had relished every second of it that made me feel so ill. I had vomited like that the day I received my letter. Fear does this to me I think; it knots up my insides and turns me inside out. And I am frightened. More terrified than I have ever been before. I just couldn’t believe what I felt when our lips left each other. It was not guilt or queasiness – the two feelings I had been prepared for. Instead I felt a strange but wonderful concoction of emotions: happiness, relief, warmth, lust and lastly the emotion that nearly knocked me flat on my back with fear – love.

I just can’t love him. Lust is one thing. Lust is manageable, it’s normal even. But to love another man; to notice that his eyes are the exact shade as ferns; to feel dizzy from his sent and want to breathe it in again; to commit the inside of his mouth to memory; to never want to stop holding onto him – that is a sin. It’s wrong. And I’m not about to commit my soul, or his, to hell just before I get blown to pieces.

Yet even now all I can think about is Luke. How I want to run after him and kiss him again. I want to talk to him and hear the melody play out in his voice. I want to be challenged by his controversial nature and then laugh with him over a shared joke. I want to trace his muscles under his shirt, to share his air, to see the lustful look in his eye that must have mirrored my own.

I want him.

But I know I can’t have him.