Straight Boys

Straight-Six

Andrew's POV

It was weird in some ways, that Zachary Rogers was right there. He was there in that hospital room with me, with my mom, and he was seemingly not going to leave.

He made it seem like he was going to stay with me in that room forever if he could until my mom would wake up.

His heavy hand was comforting as he rested it in my messy hair. I would say it felt like that time Mandy Grace had her hands in my hair after we had hooked up and she was still in her blazer-chill phase, but it didn't actually.

It didnt feel like a girl was with me like my past self would have liked.

It felt like Zachary fucking Rogers was there.

It was weird because I had actually gotten used to his confusing push-and-pull attitude he had been selling throughout our whole developing friendship; so now that he was there for me, now that he seemed like he wasn't going anywhere, I was feeling things - foreign things - that no girl could ever make me feel.

Not Gretchen.

Not Mandy Grace.

And definitely not Mandy Hartfield, no matter how princess-y she was to me, no matter how much she could make a boy fall in love with her because of the way she was.

Because I think I was falling in love with Zachary Rogers instead. It came out of nowhere, really, like a freight train to the face, but it wasn't so startling. It seemed almost as expected - like I was supposed to fall for someone like him. It felt right to like him - to like a boy - because it made me feel true. I felt more like me when I was with Zachary and when I was realizing my feelings.

And so as I sat in that hospital room in a silently crying mess, trying not to crack anymore than the House of Usher had, and as Zach held me up with his gripping hand, I came to the conclusion that maybe I had always been gay.

Maybe I somehow knew I was gay, but I just didn't want to acknowledge it, so I drowned myself in the aesthetics of the female anatomy and this illusion that I liked them because I had to.

I know it was such a bad time to be thinking about my sexuality while in the presence of my comatose mother, but it was a good distraction. I couldn't stand it anymore. I just wanted to figure out one thing in my life - make one thing make sense and make it right - because God knows nothing was going anyway but the wrong way. I needed to fix at least one thing.

And it was the only thing that I had control over anymore. I couldn't control anything other than myself.

So, when I decided that it was time to go, I stood up and pulled along the only thing in my life that made sense - no matter how weird it was - and left the hospital. I grabbed Zachary by his wrist after he had dropped his hand from my head, and I took him away from the one thing I was too afraid to be around anymore.

Too afraid because it was the catalyste for all my regrets, my depression, and my own self-loathing hatred.

And I took Zachary out of the room, past the desk where that nurse from before sat watching us, down the front steps of the hospital and into the city. All the while he let me drag him. Zachary said nothing as I took him with me away from the hospital.

I needed a break.

Zachary Rogers was the only person I wanted to be with where no one else, nothing else could bother us, bother me; because I needed a break. I wanted to just sit and do nothing and be with Zachary fucking Rogers.