emerald.

I’ve never really experimented with drugs before, although Ryan’s has always made my head spin in a really weird and indescribable way, and that’s so fucking messed-up, I know, but I can’t help it. I don’t exactly know why I leaned in and I don’t exactly understand why he leaned in too and I’m not exactly sure why my lips tingled and his hand was fisted in my hair as he gasped and returned the kiss and I’m not exactly positive but I’m pretty sure his narcotics made me deaf to the world ever since that moment. The only song my radio’s playing is the melody of George Ryan Ross, everything else is static, and I couldn’t care less.

“Do you hear me, boy? Good folks are coming by, and I swear to the holy one, if you so much as hiccup you won’t sit straight for days. Busy yourself elsewhere.” Boyd, my father, who doesn’t even deserve to so much be called my care-taker, spits at me (it’s nothing out of the ordinary, I’m no longer affected by it, and it mostly sounds like white noise, or a garbage disposal choking on a fork) as I shrug and slam the front door behind me.

The meadow is only about twelve blocks from my porch and I silently thank the non-existent lord for this, and I also wonder where that path leads Ryan as he leaves every night. And then I see the entrance, a tangle of branches and twigs and leaves, plants straining their metaphoric necks to reach the sun, and I let them eat me up as I duck into them and I sigh in relief because everything is still here, it all wasn’t just a stressfully long dream my mind thought up. (Not that I really have that much imagination anyway.)

Taking my perch behind the leaves and breathing evenly for the first time all day, I pull my bag over my shoulder and onto my lap, biting my lower lip hard in anticipation. Ryan is the only thing I haven’t confirmed right now, and I wonder why he’s late, did something bad happen, is he real, did I frighten him away? Long fingers curl around my shoulder bone and I stiffen and I wonder if he brought the police and then it’s all out of focus because fingers turn into arms, stretching around my shoulders and pressing me to a body. Cops don’t give hugs. (My parents don’t either, in fact, I think I’ve only received two hugs ever, one uncoordinated cuddle from a relative who smelled strongly of vodka and cigarettes, I don’t get how she got through the doorway with my parents being the control-neat-tidy-Jesus freaks that they are, and the other from my kindergarten teacher when I cried about someone stealing my crayons.)

I held my breath until I recognize the plain black wristband on their wrist and I expel the air and my eyes flutter shut as I turn and hug Ryan back and he smells so good right now that my hands grip tightly onto his shirt, I think I’m not really arranging my limbs correctly at this angle, but maybe he’ll understand if I explain the whole lack-of-embrace thing. “My name is Brendon.” I whisper into his ear as he pulls away and takes me to the clearing, where I’ve never dared to step foot in.

Ryan smiles bashfully and I notice the blush on his face and how my cheeks are flushed too and I smile as well, licking my lips as I look down to our connected hands. “Hi, Brendon, I’m- uh. Ryan. But you know that, huh? Why- why were you sitting by the bushes?”

“Oh. Um, I’m so sorry, I-I know it’s kinda disturbing and I’m so so sorry, but I really needed some place to kind of…go. And then I found this place and you came and I’ve watched you ev-.” My rambling is cut short by Ryan smirking and avoiding my eyes, interrupting.

“I-I meant today. Right now. You’re welcome here…with me. You sorta always were.” A pause as he sets his bag down and spreads his legs out so his jean-covered ankle knocks with mine, “It’s okay, by the way.”



Ryan is staring at the sky and his fingers are nervously pulling out fragments of grass and he keeps licking his lips and I’m just guessing that he really wants to write because sometimes he gets these symptoms of withdrawal without that crimson notebook of his, where I can almost hear the thoughts barrel rolling in his brain, spray-painting the walls. I bet this weird kid has talent, and I decide to break the silence.

“Ryan, what do you write?” I try to keep my tone light and I study how his pasty cheeks are tinted pink and suddenly eye contact is being made and his hazel orbs are driving me insane so I nervously pull out some fragments of grass and lick my lips.

His eyes crinkle as he laughs at my question and that’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. “What do I write?” He’s almost asking himself this, because then his eyes avert to my hands and his smile shifts to a frown and I almost get mad because I don’t want that grin to ever be absent from my sight. “Stuff you’d never want to read, Brendon.”

“Well that’s highly doubtable.” I pout in defiance and feign annoyance and sort of hope that my charade doesn’t upset him, although it’s partly how I actually feel and I just want him to open up to me after being distanced for so long. (If I wasn’t as afraid of frightening him away, I’d probably pry him open with a crowbar.)

Ryan shakes his head at me, trying to completely drown in the sea of green, sink down into the earth, and I want to swim with him and never resurface because I’d rather not have to face the fearsome Boyd and plastic Grace again. “Alright, fine. I write poetry, Brendon, because I truly am that gay.” At least Ryan sounds happy when he says that and that just makes my curiosity that much stronger.

“Oh?” I say suggestively, waggling my eyebrows and extending a hand to entwine it with his and Ryan’s fingers are so long and they’re warm and it sorta feels like we’ve been talking forever but we only started yesterday. Everything is moving too fast and I might get whiplash from the motion. “May I read one, please?”

As if he has to make sure I’m legitimate, he leans up with his elbow as support and makes eye contact, another honey-and-chocolate mixture, and I’ve never tasted something so sweet. (My stomach is flipping from the flavor, but it will adjust.) “O-okay.” Ryan uses his free hand to rummage through his bag, pulling the crimson notebook out and handing it to me and I squeeze our connected hands as a promise that things can’t be so bad.

Watch your mouth, your speech is slurred enough that you might swallow your tongue. You’d want to give up the coast with just a little more poise(on) than that. Was it god who chokes in these situations, running late? Oh no, he called in. the hospice is a relaxing weekend getaway, where you’re a cut above all the rest, sickened, sad patients on a first name basis with all the top physicians. Prescribed pills to offset the shakes, to offset the pills you know you should take (it a day at a time). That’s when you stutter something profound to the support on the line and with the way you’ve been talking every word gets you a step closer to hell. And I just can’t help to say what everyone else is thinking. Let me state the obvious again. Prescribed pills to offset the shakes, to offset the pills you know you should take (it a day at a time). I am alone in this penthouse and she never fixes this, but at least she makes me forget.

“I don’t know what to say, Ryan.” (And I honestly don’t.) What I really want to do is curl up against this obviously struggling boy and stroke his face and keep him warm and read the rest of his notebook and learn about his life and have him ask me about mine and I want us to have enough time to create new memories, good ones, ones that aren’t like the ones I have from home. I want to throw parties, one day, at our house, and have tons of friends to invite, and I want it to be one filled with happiness; not alcohol and fakeness like they are at home. I don’t know what to say to Ryan, but I know for sure that the thoughts I do have are absurd.

I can’t believe he’d let me read anything at all, too, because I understand why he’d be wary of it, because now a secret is no longer strictly between him and a page, the bond has now somehow gotten me stuck into it too. It’s like I’m part of his life. This is scary.
“Heh.” Ryan says, but of course it’s sardonic, and I feel as though he interpreted my sentence completely wrong because now he’s taking his notepad back and averting his eyes.

I think quickly, producing a lame idea that maybe it’ll lighten the mood if I grip his wrist tightly and force him to stare at me. “Hey, it was so great, okay? Absolutely stunning, I just didn’t know what to expect and then when I read it all these thoughts went through my head and I guess I’m just wondering your inspiration and if it had anything to do with where that path takes you.” Gesturing toward the gap in the line of trees that holds the trail to whatever destination there is beyond, Ryan grows less tense beneath me, and instead of completely turning into putty, he regains frigidness and makes me drop my palm.

Silence ticks by, and I can almost hear a metronome occupying the space between us.

Finally, I decide that maybe I cranked the crowbar a little too hard for now, so I close my eyes and lay back in the emerald grass. (I don’t know exactly what Ryan does next, all I know is there’s something warm and a little wet on my cheek and then his presence, pushed up against my side, and I suddenly think, with my stomach and head in agreement, that I definitely could deal with all of this.)