The Dreaming Smile Above the Skin

As the days go by, everything feels so perfect mixed with a little routine. And that's okay. Him and me. Me and him. Nothing else in the world even matters. All I have is him, and it almost feels selfish. He has family, doesn't he? In the back of my mind I always feel as though I take him away from that. I want him to be fully happy after all, besides, it's almost around the holidays.

---

By the time the movie ends on a warm evening, I ask him, "So how's your family? Planning on seeing them during the holidays?"
He looks at me surprised and laughs, "Haven't heard from them ever since I moved."
I wonder why it's funny, "Maybe you should get back in touch with them sometime."
"Probably not." And he still acts like it's a joke of some kind.
I look at him with seriousness. He drops the smile.
"Ry, they probably won't let me back in after what I did."
"And what did you do?"
"Well my family is filled with extreme Mormons. After a while I dropped Mormonism. They got pissed and I didn't care. Dropped half way through my senior year for music. They were even more pissed. When the music thing didn't really work out, I went home and told them I was gay, and at that point, they didn't want me living there anymore."
I become surprised, "Really?"
"They knew about my scleroderma too." That's when the sad look on his face gets to me.
I pull him into a hug, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You're the one thing that keeps me happy. Enough about the past, right?"
"Yeah." I smile.
We release from the hug as he brings me in for a kiss.
Somehow I start to touch on what he has again. This scleroderma. Those rough patches and all. And yet even when my fingers fly past them every night, I've grown so used to it. He was treated well, so well that I knew this was him and that was that. He'll be fine in my arms and in the future I'll grow used to any hospital trips. Someone like Mr. Walker is perfect for making him better in an instant. Even with a small thing like this, it doesn't matter. It's one grain of sand on a whole beach. He's perfect in every way. He's mine and I'll never let him go.