Paradise Made

Fourteen: Xavier Micheals

 I'd grown up poor, in a mostly black neighbourhood in Philadelphia. My dad had never really been around, and it had just been me, my mother, and my little sister. I'd always been curious, and I think my mother had known from the start that I was going to break the cycle. I'd been born clever, though I'd grown up with her fear looming over me, that it wouldn't be enough.

A few times I did come dangerously close to wasting what I'd been given, but I always caught myself, stayed focused on the goal. And the goal had been SU. It wasn't terribly far from home, but it was a renowned university. I'd known since middle school it was where I wanted to go.

It was in high school that I learned I was bisexual. It wasn't so much a discovery, as a removal of restrictions. In my group of friends at the time, there had been a sort of domino effect. One kid came out, then the next. As soon as I had an example to follow, I'd realized how stupid it was to limit yourself, in finding love, to only half the population.

In my senior year, I began to have a little trouble in my neighbourhood. The boys I'd grown up with resented me. I'd stopped hanging around the majority of them when we'd moved to the big high school, and now I was heading off to university on a full-ride scholarship. Not to mention the fact that, in their eyes, I was gay. By the end I was scared every time I found myself walking home without a ride. I'd still had friends, of course, and the group that came after me was in the minority. But they still managed to corner me one night, taking my wallet and kicking me until I coughed up blood.

I didn't like the look on Pen's face, as I told him this part, so I quickly changed the subject, instead talking about my mother and little sister. If he could draw light energy from love, I could think of no better topic.

This year, when I'd fallen in with Clay and Sara, I'd never felt so at home. The three of us had been inseparable, and I felt closer to them than I ever had my high school friends.

“I don't care who Sara really is,” I finally realized, as my stream of consciousness blather began to trail off. “She's my best friend, and I love her. She's the same person she's always been.”

“You may...” Pen sometimes took large pauses between his words, as his breathing was hoarse and ragged. “...be onto something. I'll—uh—think about it later.”

His eyes were sliding closed and I shook his shoulder violently. “Wake up, man. Stay with me.”

I had no idea how long we'd been sitting there, but it felt like an eternity.

“No.” Pen pushed me away defiantly. “I'm going to sleep now.”

As he said the words, he stopped holding himself up, slumping limply to the side, blond hair against the floor.

“You can't,” I pleaded. “Not now.”

“The fire is out, Xavier,” he muttered. “The energy of destruction that once lay on this place. It is in me now.”

“Yes.” I began to laugh then stopped myself, flinching at how it sounded in the quiet of the library. “We did it!”