Light Reaches Earth (boyxboy)

Light Reaches Earth

"Light Reaches Earth"

Asher Denton.

Day after day, I watch him come in and out of the building. Some nights, I watch him walk the halls of our group home in nothing but his boxer shorts and a low hanging t-shirt. Other times, I watch him do chores while laughing and playing with the other boys he knows so well. And I often wonder if I'm the only one that stares at him this way. His beauty just CAN'T be lost on the other boys that reside here....I don't care HOW straight they are. They've got to at least 'notice' him in some affectionate way, even if they're too scared to say anything about it. They know. They've got to know. Asher's just...this total jewel of a human being, you know? A walking work of art. He deserves to be stared at and admired. He earned that privilege by being so awesome.

"What are you looking at, Riley?" My best friend, Mark. We had just gotten out of line with our lunch trays, and were looking for a table. Hiding my attractions from him is beginning to get more and more difficult by the day. Especially with boys like Asher lurking around.

"Nothing, I'm just...I'm zoning out, I guess. That's all." I told him, still trying to catch a peek or two at Asher when Mark wasn't staring me directly in the face.

"I swear....you need your head examined for termites or something. You zone in and out of consciousness all day long. And it's getting worse, man. I've seen goldfish with a longer attention span than you." Mark was talking to me, but my eyes were still trying to take a few glances at my Adonis. His beauty could be so addictive. "Maybe you've got that 'A.D.A.D.' thing..."

"That's A.D.H.D., Mark. And, no, that's not it. I'm just thinking. That's all."

"Well, whatever it is, dude...you need to put a freakin' LEASH on it or something so you can stop being such a damn zombie all the time when I talk to you." He said. But I didn't allow his comments to distract me too much from my thoughts at the moment. I was a bit too involved in my position as a group home 'groupie' for the Asher show.

You know...the second somebody mentions a 'group home' kid, they instantly imagine that we're all extremely troubled teens that keep one foot in a prison cell and the other in the supposedly safe public streets of the city. But that's really not the case with most of us. We're just...boys who didn't get placed in foster homes when we were young enough to appeal to the majority of adoptive parents. That's all. Parents are looking to adopt 'kids'. Teenagers have a bad enough reputation as it is without it actually being someone ELSE'S to claim as a blood relative. So...once you pass a certain age and the adorability factor lessons a bit...we just kinda wait until we turn 18 so we can go out on our own. Maybe build a family and a home for ourselves to replace the loss of having one when we were younger.

They take good care of us though, the counselors and resident assistants. They teach us life skills and tell us how to prepare for the big bad world before it hits us right in the face. They give us shelter, food, stability...and all we have to do is a few chores a day and stay out of trouble.

The 'chores' part is easy.

Grabbing a few sodas from the group home cafeteria machine, Mark and I stuck close together. But even though I was making a valiant effort to pay Mark some attention...the very sight of Asher in the same room with us distracted me from every last uneventful word that came out of his mouth. I couldn't help but be completely absorbed by the strong narcotic quality of his fascinating presence. Just watching him walk past the sunlit window was a magical experience in itself. Asher had this neatly cropped, preppy styled, sandy blond hair that would lighten or darken depending on the weather and the time of year. It was never anything less than perfect. At least in my eyes it wasn't. And he possessed a set of big, light brown, bedroom eyes that seriously gave you the 'tingles' whenever they spotted you, even in a crowd. He was tall and slim with a deep voice that had finally made the big 'change', recently pushing its way through the roughest parts of puberty to relax at the SEXIEST pitch imaginable. Asher was only a year older than me, but he had this really cute sense of unselfish maturity about him that made him seem older than his 16 years. God...what I wouldn't give to bury my face in the side of that long, slender, neck just ONCE..."DUDE!!!" Mark said loudly in my ear. "Snap OUT of it! I'm trying to talk to you here."