My only regret is that I repressed it for so long. I surrender my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too short.
-Armistead Maupin
The cool blue sky irradiated Jaromir Aaren's room. The lucent light gave a soft winter scenery through his clear windows. Jaromir laid on his bed. Covered in wrinkleless gray and white blankets, he indulged in the world of the tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
Lady Macbeth Scene VII
"That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man..."
In that moment Lady Macbeth question Macbeth's pride of a man. What makes you a man? Killing? Hunting? Or maybe is Infidelity? I'm not completely sure of the answer either but I don't think I need to understand the answer. Because for me a man is someone who does sports, dates girls, watches football games, talks about sports cars, doesn't cry in sad movies, hates being told what to do, establishes dominance everything that your naturally born with as a boy. Your never tough to be sensitive. But that's just nature that's just what the man was created for. But as a kid that wasn't me.
In my childhood I played mostly with girls because my house was always filled with girls, my mom and my sisters. My dad had dies before I was born so I didn't have a father figure, but I didn't yearn for one either. My mom and my sisters were my best friend. In kindergarten I was more comfortable siting with the girls. My mom taught me being sensitive was ok and crying was just another way of letting go of pain and emotions. I would cry in sad movies, I would cook, dance, sing and read. As time went on, I learned things about myself like the fact that in 3rd grade I fell in love with the boy who sat next to me in English class. He was small much smaller than me and fragile. His jade eyes were mesmerizing and the way the sun flickered its golden rays against his colorless platinum blonde hair almost as a DaVinci painting. All his bright feature gave color to his pale apricot skin.
He always smiled and was always polite. He was my first and ever love.
At the time I didn't know what it meant to feel the way I did but the way I felt appeared to be safe for me. I never told my mom and at a point I almost did. I was my happiest, I felt myself so when did I start feeling depleted.
After my dad's death my mom never felt the urge to date that was until my 9th birthday that she met a man named Alastair, that soon became her husband.
Alastair and my mom were happy and in love. We became a happy family that was until my mom and Alastair became religious. Are first day at church was one I'd never forgot.
I sat in the first row I hadn't notice but the boy that I had grown to love more and more sat on the 3rd row he seemed sad and lost. He was next to his father who seemed to have been crying for days. My attention had gone back to the pulp until the pulp started taking about Adam and Eve and how the woman was created to be loved by the man solemnly for that reason and how it was a sin for a man to be loved by another man or a women be loved by another woman. In that moment it the fantasy that I had created for myself was soon shattered into broken glass.
The love I had prospered for that boy was now an extortion of reality. In the eyes of others, it was a sin.
For the first time in my life I felt as if I was no longer safe. The warmth of the sun was turned into a blazered. The flower that had sprouted in my hear for another boy had to be cut down.
So once the pulp was over and everyone had gotten up to leave, I passed the boy who smiled weakly at me, a smile a didn't not reciprocate. And as quickly as a predator captures its prey in the forest, the happiness I felt perished.
After that I promised myself to suppress that part of me, the part of me that made me. I had to deny who I was. Who was I kidding? The world isn't peaches and cream. I was a boy soon to be a man how could I abandon what a man is supposed to feel, think, do and act?
I was a boy who had to love girls, not boys. After inducing myself in that fact, I stopped being sensitive and hanging out with girls. I forced myself to play a sport, volleyball, I started making male friends only and eve kissed a couple girls along the way. My mom and Alastair seemed to notice my sudden change in behavior which led them asking if I was alright, but I never entertained their question. I always answered, what I knew they want to hear, better said what I was forcing myself to say, yes. I suppressed who I knew I wanted to be which made me unhappy so to escape my reality I submerged myself in books.
If only I was told at that time that trying to mold myself into being what people think a man is does not make you a man just as Macbeth thought killing King Duncan would make him a man to only be killed by his own regret and pride.
Jaromir folded a piece of the chapter he had left on. Closing the book and placing it on the white rounded nightstand, he looked up at the ceiling thinking about the first day of high school. He wants happy nor either was he dismal. If not, he didn't prize what he knew would happen. He'd act like the tuff joke, he'd master faking, get girls attention, be the popular guy he always seemed to fit in the frame of.
He turned to his black wired lamp and turned it off. Thinking about the boy who he had once saw as his world, deluged in a sweet sleep.
"Oh god Jaromir wake up your late for your first day." Jaromir's mom exclaimed historically while uncovering him from the blankets. Jaromir groaned getting up and rubbing his tired green eyes.
"Come on honey you have to hurry up."
He rolled his eyes and grabbed the green towel she had placed on his bed and headed toward the bathroom. After his cold shower he opened his small walking closet and slipped on his dark green and white striped joggers, a grey loosed shirt and his white branded snickers. Unbothered to comb his black jet hair, he grabbed his backpack and headed outside were his mom and Alastair were waiting.
He got in the expensive black car and they drove away.
I placed my elbow on the door and rested my chin on my palm.
"So, honey are you excited for your first day." My mom asked pushing her chocolate bangs from her face.
I shrugged not feeling the mood to answer.
"Son you should use your words when answering," Alastair sighed.
"You're not my dad so don't call me son," I barked only to process what I had said.
"Jaromir Aaren, apologize this instant," my mom said sternly but not loud.
"Sorry," I mumbled keeping my gaze on the window. It was hard sometimes to deal with me, but I never mean the things I say but for some reason it's an impulse that I had developed. As if being nice or vulnerable for a second would expose or emerge who I am and what I am and that thought alone scared me.
We had arrived at the entrance, "I love you honey hope you have an amazing day!" my mom chirped happily. "I'll be picking you up champ," Alastair said with a week smile.
"Whatever," I whispered getting out of the car and walking towards the door. I opened it and walked in. The halls were empty. I guess the school bell rang already. I walked down the hall.
"Don't worry I understand his health is a priority." I heard a man's voice say as I pass a halfway opened door.
"If Angel needs to skip Mr. Martinez class then don't worry, he already knows about his condition and I'm sure he'd be happy to give him whatever material he missed." I peek through the door and see what I'm assuming is the director of the school taking to a tall black- and grey-haired woman and a pale boy. The door squawks a little, but the adults didn't seem to notice. Suddenly the boy turns around and looks at me slightly in shocked but then dissolves in a weekly smile. I quickly step away and head to class, that because of the conversation I just witnessed, who I'm guessing its Mr. Martinez class?
I enter the room and interrupt what he was saying.
"Another tardiness and the semester haven't even begun," Mr. Martinez says with amusement but not enough to be a joke.
He right down a detention slip and I grab it rolling my eyes when suddenly at the back of the class something, no someone catches my eyes. I colorless haired boy with the most beautiful jaded eyes.
Jaded eyes...
I quickly sit down to the only sit left and to my luck it's in front of the boy. I look around and my eyes land on him again. He looks so much like... No, it can't be. But what if?
I turn my attention back to the teacher who seems to have given instructions to which I didn't pay attention.
Who what have thought that some were along the lines, the person who I passed in the hall that gave me a weak smile would help emerge the person who I had neglected for so long?
The question I asked myself in that moment wasn't How he did it? Or Why he did it? If not, the question was Am I ready?