Isaac St. Cyr
May 5th, 2016
The Wish
Jackson is about to open the front door unknowing that that there is a surprise birthday party awaiting him in the kitchen. He turns on the light and jolts back when he hears all his family and friends yell, "SURPRISE" in unison. He smiles and laughs because he had never heard of a sixteen year old having a surprise party before. He kiddingly says, "I'm not a child anymore," and a walks over to his mother and gives her a big hug and a thank you. He stares at the sixteen birthday candles as everyone sings happy birthday. His friend Danny then says "Well make a wish." He thought for moment and knew what he wanted, he closed his eyes and blew out the candles.
His mother then took the candles out of the cake and cut it up into 15 pieces so everyone got a piece. They all ate and went outside to start a fire, by now all family and most of his friends had gone home and it was just Jackson, Danny, and Sarah sitting around the fire while his mother was inside with his baby sister putting her to bed. Sarah yawns. Jackson asks "You tired?", Time had gotten away from them and it was almost ten, Sarah nods and says, "Yea i should probably go home soon considering I told my mom I would be home at nine." Jackson and Danny say goodbye to Sarah, and she drives home. Jackson turned to Danny and asks, "Wanna crash here tonight?" He says yes and they walk inside.
They go upstairs into Jackson's room and sit down on the bed. Danny looked at Jackson and asked him jokingly, "What did you wish for?" Jackson looked at him for a moment and smiled. Jackson said, "Nothing." Danny knew he was lying from the look in his eyes, and replies, "Come on, you had to wish for something, what's the one thing you want?" Jackson knew what he wished for but it was embarrassing and he was afraid if he told Danny he would go home. Jackson stutters as he says,
"I-I wished for courage I guess."
"Courage for what?" Danny quickly replied.
"Courage to tell people something."
"Well what's that? You know you can tell me anything man.".
"Well, it's just that i'm... gay." Jackson's heart stops as he says this.
Danny just looks at him and says "oh, that it?" Jackson looked puzzled and said,
"What do you mean that's it?"
"Well i know that, I was just waiting for you to figure it out." The whole topic of being gay had never even came up in conversation between them. Jackson is silent at this point and does not know what to say. So Danny says, "Why don't we talk about this somewhere else, wanna sneak out to the beach down the street?" Jackson just nods. Danny grabs the rope from Jackson's closet and puts it out the window, Danny looks at Jackson and says "ladies first" and points out the window. Jackson just smiles and climbs out and Danny follows after.
Forever and always
Once they get to the ground they pull the rope down and hide it in the bushes so no one would know they were gone. (His mother never even went upstairs anyway because she had a bad knee.) They walk quietly to the road and start to walk down the street. There wasn't much talk until Danny broke the silence. About 10 min into the walk he says "I am too." Jackson looked at him for a second and says "gay?"
"Yup, i like four wheeling, football, beer, and boys."
Jackson giggled and said " I thought you liked Sarah"
"No, I mean she's nice and all, but I'm just not drawn to her, I don't have any sexual attraction to girls at all, I mean, don't get me wrong i've tried and tried again but I just don't like girls."
