Read it and Weep

Sincerely, Kyle Broflovski

I realized it when I was eleven.

The way his muscles moved when he flexed them; the way his jaw moved when he spoke; how he sounded when he laughed. It all made my heart start to palpitate inside of my chest, and it made butterflies kiss the lining of my stomach. I stared at him dreamily from underneath the cloth of my hat that had begun to fall into my eyes.

So this must be what it feels like to be in love, I thought to myself.

I shook my head.

I froze.

No. I couldn't love someone of the same sex. I would be laughed at, and it would give Cartman more of a reason to pick on me, as if he didn't have enough. People would bully me, and what would my family think? Being gay was against God. It was wrong.

I'm not gay, I told myself.

I'm not gay.

I suppressed those feelings with minimal complication, and I quite honestly had forgotten about the realization of my sexuality until I hit the age of fourteen. Fourteen was when puberty hit me in a wide surge. Emotionally, physically, and sexually to narrow the surge down into a small variety. Acne dotted my face as if my face was a connect the dots worksheet that kindergartners would receive for homework.

I began to receive erections when the wind would blow just right, which was extremely embarrassing, but the embarrassment was reduced when I noticed it happening to a majority of teenage boys. They weren't too difficult to manage once you were alone, but hiding them was by far the most difficult task. After all, it isn't exactly normal to hold your backpack or sweatshirt right in front of your crotch. This wasn't exactly too much of an issue for a while. Yeah, it happened, but it happened to all of the boys.

It wasn't anything too major.

Until one day.

Stan had been sitting next to me at lunch, per usual since Wendy and him were broken up with yet again. It had been a Friday in the month of December and we had a week left of school before winter break which everyone was more than eager to get to. Eighth grade was kicking all of our asses, and we didn't expect our freshman experience to be any better.

Either way, I couldn't tell you what exactly had been the topic of conversation that day since our conversations tended to be fairly mindless and rather easily sidetracked unless it just so happened to be a rather serious event. However, something popped up within the conversation, perhaps the oncoming snow storm that was scheduled for that night, that made Stan groan.

"I forgot that my parents are going to be out of town tonight, and I don't want to be home alone with Shelly." He placed his head upon the cafeteria table in defeat at the thought of having to bear with his sister all night.

I took a bite of my sandwich and glanced around the table to notice that nobody aside from me was paying any heed to Stan's obvious suffering. Then again, hardly anyone in this cursed school noticed when someone was upset or troubled. "You could probably come stay at my house. Mom's out of town because Kyle had another hernia, and his mom needed help. Dad will be there for a little while, but he's going to leave around ten for work." I explained.

His head had shot up and his lips were lined with a smile of sheer gratitude. He had clasped his hands together as if he were praying. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! Shelly's having her boyfriend over tonight, and I really don't want to hear what activities they have in store." He punctuated his sentence with the sticking out of his tongue along with a sound that could only be described as gagging. I laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder.