Summer of '07

Self Discovery

Chapter 17

July 2007

~TRAVIS~

I think once the start of July kicked in, my summer quickly started to take a turn for the worst. Ever since that night with Heather and Elijah at the lake, I hadn't been able to look at Elijah the same way as before. It was like he was a different person now who made me uncomfortable every time we had a one-on-one conversation. It was really hard for me having to come to terms with it all, mainly because I didn't want to believe that I could be attracted to another guy. I never thought that I might be gay, but ever since that night all the clues have been pointing in that direction. At first I thought it was nothing and that my desires were only stemming from the idea of having a threesome with both Heather and Elijah... but then I started having weird dreams at night that didn't involve Heather at all, but only me and Elijah. Every dream I had involved the two of us either just making out or engaging in other sexual activity that left my penis rock-solid by the time I woke up in the morning. I remember waking up from one of my first dreams where I kissed him for the first time in the dark, and being so sad when I realized that it was just a dream. Now every time we interacted, I felt a strong sense of sexual tension that was obviously only coming from my end. Elijah isn't attracted to me and he never will be, I would always tell myself whenever I began thinking of him in a sexual way.

As opposed to most people however, I think it took me a relatively short amount of time to truly admit to myself that I was gay or bisexual—I hadn't really decided on nomenclature yet. I wasn't fond of the idea, fearing what my friends and family would think of me. I feared what people at school would think of me, even the ones I didn't really know. I know it sounds pretty stupid to worry about what other people thought about me, but when you're an insecure teenager in high school, it can be pretty hard not to care. People talk and word gets around and before you know it, you're ostracized from all the people you thought were your friends. I never wanted to be ostracized from everyone I knew and turn out to be a loner again like I was in the eighth grade. So far, high school had been fine and I didn't think I ever had to worry about being ostracized ever again. So I kept quiet about it. I didn't tell anyone about how I really felt. I guess that officially made me a closet case, but it was fine. I knew that I'd rather live in the closet than risk social isolation. Maybe after high school I would be able to tell other people how I really felt. Though I knew I could never tell Elijah. After the way he responded when I tried to kiss him the other day, I knew he wouldn't be fine with it. Our friendship would be over in a heart beat and he would want nothing more to do with me. We may have grown close over these past three years but if he knew that I had a crush on him, it wouldn't be pretty.

I actually found myself surprised that he hadn't picked up on any of the clues that I had inadvertently dropped, like my insistence on having a threesome with him, or even my insistence on kissing him in the woods. I mean, that was kinda obvious so it puzzled me how he just brushed that off as a joke when he should've known damn well that maybe I was trying to tell him something. Though it's not like I was actually trying to make it obvious. If anything I didn't even realize how fucking obvious it was until after the fact. But if he couldn't pick up on it, then I guess that's for the best.

I spent pretty much my whole week just overthinking it all, as I completely bailed on all of the scheduled camp activities. I did however end up attending the Fourth-of-July festival that was going on near the lake, where I ran into Heather and Elijah. The three of us hung around for a bit and eventually found a nice little spot for us to sit back and watch the fireworks as they lit up the sky. Despite everything that was going on with me personally, I surprisingly found it in myself to actually enjoy the moment and the time I was sharing with the only two friends I ever even had at that fucking camp.