#101 - Speak?

Today’s words: Asylum, iPod, Night, Showcase

Word count: 821

Completion time: 50 minutes

Summary: Ron had no idea how to initiate a friendship, so how was he going to start a relationship with someone he’d never spoken to before?

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Every lunch or break time that Ron had between lessons would be spent watching Brandon. What were people saying to him? How was he reacting? What kind of things made him laugh? He wanted to make him laugh...but he was no good at jokes, and he didn’t understand why the things that people were saying to him were funny either.

It felt like he was looking through glass walls at everyone but they couldn’t see him because he lived in a different world. People thought he was strange, but to be honest, he thought that everyone else had recently been released from an asylum. His wires weren’t connected differently, theirs were. Everyone else was so...different, even Brandon. So why did he intrigue him so much? Maybe it was because he wore an Adventure Time t-shirt once, or that he’s good on a BMX, or maybe because he makes his own lunches from scratch. He was only sixteen, how could he cook so well?

Every break time, Ron would turn on his iPod, put some soft jazz on and just observe. He found out pretty quickly that people don’t really talk to you if you’ve got your earphones in, even if no music is playing, but jazz made him feel at ease so that would usually be playing. It felt good to live in his own head, but Ron desperately wanted to make friends...but how did people do that?

At night before bed, he would stand in front of his bedroom mirror and initiate conversations with himself. He said a few things, imagined how Brandon would react, and beamed at his reflection before letting it fall into an irritated frown. It took Ron another year before he admitted his true feelings – he wanted to get together with Brandon.

“How can I make this happen if I can’t even talk to him?”

Ron thought about romance movies: usually people flirt a little even if they’re not proper friends, they ask them on a date, then they kiss. It sounded pretty basic, but he may as well have been trying to figure out the meaning of life.

The following week at college...

“I like your top.” Ron began the first conversation he ever had with Brandon. “It’s...nice.”

He smiled and looked down at the t-shirt he was wearing. “Thank you...? Hey, have we met before, or...?”

“No. Well, we go to the same college, but, we haven’t spoken yet. I’m Ron.”

Brandon tilted his head. “...Brandon.” Ron held his hand out and Brandon took it, shaking it gently. “So what’s up? How can I help you?”

“Help...” he silently pondered the question. There were several ways that Brandon could help him, so it was lucky that he asked. “You could go on a date with me, that would help me out. Only if you want to.”

Brandon opened his mouth to speak but didn’t know how to word it. “Um...is this a joke?”

“No. Why, was it funny?” he looked at him expectantly but couldn’t figure out what he was thinking.

“It’s ‘Ron’, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen Ron,” he leaned down and put his mouth close to Ron’s ear. “I don’t know how you found out, but I am not cool with a showcase of my sexuality hanging in every corridor of this institution. As far as you know, I’m not into guys, I’ll never be into guys, I date girls, do you understand? I don’t like guys. At all.” He stood upright again and smiled. “Are we clear?”

“Not really. Found out what? Are you straight? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know how to tell you...I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“Like I said, as far as you know, I’m straight.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Fucking hell!” Brandon sighed, pushing past Ron. “Stay away from me, don’t talk to me again.”

Ron stood in the same spot for several minutes, trying to decipher what had happened and failing.

He was used to being on the sidelines, but that was usually by choice, not because someone said to stay away. Was it possible to stay even further away than he had before?

People would always moan about unrequited love but he had no idea that it would hurt as much as it did. What made it worse was that he couldn’t wrap his head around what he had said to offend Brandon. It was as if everything he said had a 95% chance of being laced with poison. Was it wise to open his mouth at all?

From then on, any time he saw Brandon, he immediately turned his head and raised the volume of the music to drown everything out: Brandon’s face, Brandon’s words, and his feelings that refused to ease their grip on his chest every time he took a breath.

He was poisonous, a danger to society...maybe he was the one who should be locked away from everyone else, not them.