Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 22:32:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alex Ander <flowersandcoffee@aol.com>
Subject: Only For You - Chapter One - Young Friends

	I've never tried writing one of these before, but my classes are
out of session now and I've got free time and a desire to practice writing,
so I figured I'd give it a shot. This one is a true story; mine, to be
specific. The typical warnings apply. Character names have been changed, to
protect the identity of those involved. If you like this, then you might
consider telling me so (flowersandcoffee@aol.com). I would very much
appreciate it. The story is a stand alone, but if it's very well-received I
might consider expanding. Thanks and enjoy!

-----

	We're at the playground behind the elementary school, the sun is
going down but the heat is still heavy and oppressive. I'm wearing a grey
tank top that hangs loose on my bony shoulders and some slim jeans, my feet
shoved in a black pair of Vans. My hair is a long brunette mess strewn all
about, barely gracing my shoulders, slightly damp with summer sweat. My
stomach is twisted by nervousness into a dozen knots. My lip is trembling a
bit.
	Erik is walking ahead of me, the deep tan of the back of his neck
visible beneath his mop of golden blonde hair. He's got a blue sleeveless
shirt on, and some white athletic shorts. He's barefoot, walking along the
asphalt. He hasn't said a word since we left. Neither of us has, and it's
becoming too much for me.
	We pass by a family of three, two cookie-cutter parents dressed
sharply with their little daughter, playing hop-scotch and laughing. Jaime
walks a bit faster as we pass them by, and even though he's two inches
shorter than me I still have to stretch my legs to keep up. We head into
the vast grassy field beyond the playground, and keep walking another
minute or two until we're far detached from the rest of the world. Those
minutes drag on mercilessly, and I'm about to burst, when finally he
speaks.
	"You look really nice today", he mumbles without turning to face
me. I almost miss his voice, he's speaking so quietly. He isn't even
looking at me, but my cheeks burn all the same at his compliment.
	"Thanks", I whisper. I'm not even sure if he can hear me, but it's
the best I can do.
	He turns around, directs those two sapphire blues eyes in my
direction. They catch mine, lock on and push into me with an intensity I
simply can't bear. My cheeks bloom red and I drop my gaze to my feet, but
still I can't help but squirm a bit under his gaze. I loathe myself a bit
for being so weak, and I loathe him for being able to do what I can't.
	"I think we just have to talk about it, you know?" he says softly,
a bit louder than before. I nod my head in tiny motions, chew on my bottom
lip. "I mean... what happened, it wasn't... er, well... it wasn't bad."
	"I...", the word slips from my mouth, but the rest that should
follow it just fade. I end up just shaking my head twice.
	He steps toward me, gets close until I can see his toes beside my
sneakers. His feet are pretty small compared to the rest of him. His mother
always jokes that he has ugly toes, but I've never understood why. Like
every other part of him, they seem beautiful to me.
	"Look at me", he whispers, but I can't. I shake my head a bit.
	"Please?" he asks, but still I can only manage a small shake of my
head, my tumbles of raven colored hair bouncing as my head turns back and
forth.
	Finally he places his fingertips gently onto my chin, and I swallow
a gasp. With barely any pressure at all, he directs my eyes back up to his,
and I'm powerless to resist. When we're this close, staring at one another,
it's almost impossible to breathe.
	"Erik, I'm sorry...", I begin, but he puts a finger to my lips,
silences me.
	He dips his head forward slightly, closes his eyes and tilts his
face to one side, and his lips connect gracefully with mine. A tiny moan
escapes me, almost inaudible. I press a bit into his kiss, feeling my each
nerve in my body fire off as if struck by some primordial electric
pulse. My knees are starting to falter when finally he pulls back.
	"Don't be sorry."
	"Erik..."
	Silence. The two of us are standing en face, struggling to
enunciate what we want to say. There's tension hanging heavy in the air,
weaving invisible paths all around us, bind us together as surely as it
keeps us apart.
	I'm staring hopelessly into his face. He's beautiful, frighteningly
beautiful. Big sapphire blue eyes, smooth golden skin unmarred by even a
single blemish, and a strong jaw. It's the face I've been gazing longingly
into for more of my life than I can even remember, the face I woke up next
to the morning after my first sleepover, the face that's been with me
celebrating every single birthday. I want so desperately to look away, but
once those sapphire eyes have grasped hold of mine it becomes impossible to
resist. That's how it's always been.
	I want to tell him. Someplace inside of me, in the corridors of my
mind or depths of my heart, the words are there. I know exactly what to
say. The words are screaming inside of me, screaming for release, but they
get caught on my tongue before they can escape my mouth.
	"What... what are we going to do?" I finally manage to ask. It's
pathetic, not at all what I'd tried to express, and I reprimand myself
internally for such weakness.
	"What are we going to do?" he echoes, his forehead creasing in
confusion. "What do you mean? Why should we have to do anything?"
	I feel so idiotic. My cheeks are rosy with embarrassment. A gust of
wind races up from behind him, blasts the mane of untamed deep brown hair
from away my face, exposing me in a way I'm not at all comfortable with.
	"Alex, you're my best friend. And, well... I don't think this has
to change anything between us if we don't want it to, you know?"
	Those words hit me hard. After what's happened, after all that we'd
shared not even twenty four hours ago, he doesn't want anything to change?
	"Oh Alex, no please..", he begins, and suddenly I'm made aware of
the tears that are beginning to sear a path down my cheeks.
	"I'm so sorry", I say, choking on the words. I turn to run, but
barely make it a step before he grabs my wrist.
	"Alex, stop!", he shouts in vain. I've already stopped moving. I
drop to my knees in the grass, let the tiny viridian blades tickle my bare
arms whilst I weep quietly. He looms over me, his face an uneasy mixture of
sadness and confusion, his hand extended to me but not quite all the way.
	Time passes by as though it were a concept entirely parallel to the
two of us. I don't know how long I'm lying there crying in the grass. I
don't know how long Erik is there standing over me. When finally I've
recomposed myself and gone silent then sun has fallen halfway beneath the
horizon, casting a burnt orange glow over everything.
	"Why are you still here?" I finally ask, after a long time saying
nothing.
	"What?!" he exclaims, an obvious twinge of undisguised hurt in his
voice. "Come on Alex, you're just being a jerk now."
	"I'm being a jerk", I repeat with a scoff, to the wind rather than
to him, or even myself.
	"Yes. You're being a jerk", he repeats. There isn't any anger in
his voice, nor any trace of impatience, only a slight hurt. It robs me of
my angry feelings and the small bit of strength they offered me, makes me
feel guilty.
	I stand up, turn to face him. My eyes are still a bit puffy, but my
cheeks are dry. He eyes me with hesitation, with slight sadness, and also
with something else, love. It was wrong to throw such harsh words his way,
because after all, he is still here. Despite my foolishness.
	"I'm sorry, Erik. I just...", once again the words are taken by the
breeze before the sentence is half finished. My eyes fall back to my shoes
again and I bite my bottom lip out of frustration rather than nervousness.
	Why can't I communicate? He's my best friend!
	"Alex", he begins, taking a step forward and running his fingertips
along my upper arm, electrifying my skin with the slightest touch. "I've
known you since I can remember knowing people at all. You're my best friend
in the world."
	He leaves his hand on my left arm, effectively paralyzing it. I
still can't understand how the smallest touch, something that for all our
lives has meant so little, has suddenly become so overwhelmingly
powerful. I lift my right hand and place it over the hand he's touching me
with. The corner of his mouth curls the slightest bit toward what could be
a smile. He moves a little closer to me, rests his forehead gingerly
against mine and I put both hands on his chest, snuggle into him a bit
more, desperate for proximity. It feels heavenly.
	"I wish I could stop being such a baby about this", I mumble. He
chuckles, just a bit.
	"You're not. We just need to calm down a little, okay? There's no
reason why this has to make things crazy. You're still the same Alex you
were yesterday. And I'm still me."
	"But...", I begin, before he cuts me off.
	"Nothing has to change", he replies. He slips his arms loosely
about my waist. We're forehead to forehead, nose to nose. My hands are
still on his chest, his heart beat resonating through my palms, his breath
sweepingly lightly over my mouth.
	In the gradually softening heat of the evening, surrounded on all
sides by a sea of grass and not a soul within earshot save for the two of
us, I realize that I'm not afraid that things between us might change after
last night. That couldn't be farther from the truth.
	Rather, I'm afraid that things between us will remain the same as
they always have.
	"Do you regret it?", I ask. I feel his nose crinkle a tiny bit.
	"What do you mean?", he asks in reply, stumbling over the words a
bit.
	"I mean what I said. Do you regret what we did last night?"
	It's clear I've caught him off guard. That shouldn't make me feel
any better; this isn't a battle, after all. But there's no denying that it
offers a small measure of comfort. At least it's nice to know that I'm not
the only one caught on the emotional rollercoaster. Still, he doesn't pull
away from me, doesn't let me go.
	"No", he states decidedly after a minute. "I don't think I regret
it at all. Do you?"
	"No!" I exclaim, quite a bit more enthusiastically than I'd meant
to. Immediately my cheeks flush scarlet yet again with embarrassment, but
Erik only smiles.
	The emotions swimming in between and all around us are growing so
vast and so blatantly obvious that suddenly my nerves are lubricated, and
in a single burst of courage I move in and press my lips to his. He lets
out a tiny squeak of surprise, then pressed back into my kiss with equal
enthusiasm. A moan escapes me. Never in my life have I needed something so
badly as this kiss, my whole body is trembling beneath his lips, and the
feeling has me burning up and freezing all at the same time. A tear slips
down my cheek.
	When a second tear glides along beside the first and touches his
face, Erik pulls away just enough to kiss the side of my cheek and nuzzles
his nose against my ear. I shudder, lean myself into him touch. His breathe
on my ear makes me dizzy, and when finally he speaks, his voice is like
velvet, so terribly smooth that it's almost painful to hear.
	"What is it, Alex?"
	Now it's my turn to fumble with my words. His cheek is still rubbed
up against mine, and the sound of him breathing into my ear has my heart
beating faster than I ever thought it could. The physical sensations of our
closeness are rippling through me, making it impossible to express the
deeper emotional desires raging inside of me.
	"I can't", I whisper, ashamed. He pulls away, just enough to look
me in the face.
	"Tell me."
	I can't pull my eyes up to meet his, and trying only humiliates me
further. Why am I overreacting this way? Why can't I be as stable as he is?
Why am I such a damn baby? All these thoughts of self-deprecation echo
through my mind whilst my gaze remains fixed to his toes. I still can't see
the ugliness in them.
	"I just can't", I reply, choking up the tiniest bit at the end. I
can't tell any longer whether I'm sad, frustrated, hurt,
enraged... everything is swirling through my blood as a hurricane of
emotions and concepts that I'm neither old enough nor smart enough to
process.
	Erik looks at me, eyes brimming with sadness and sympathy and still
alight with the brightness of love, which makes me my skin tingle and sting
in equal parts. He's tolerating my childishness with such devastating
patience, with more maturity than you'd ever expect of a boy our age. I
don't deserve it, and it only makes me feel all the worse.
	"Maybe you should just leave me alone", I tell his feet. I don't
have to look up to know the expression on his face is one of hurt.
	He unwinds his arms from about my waist and steps away from me,
wordlessly. Through intense resistance I lift my head, brush the hair away
from my face to see him standing solemnly a few steps away from me. His
nose twitches, he brushes it with a hand.
	"Alright, alright", he says with his arms lifted above his head in
a gesture of surrender. He shakes his head, takes another step back. "I
can't make you do a thing."
	There's a tremor that shakes me hard, almost brings me to my
knees. I know I'm on the verge of tears again, and it makes me so
frustrated and disappointed with myself that I want to scream and swear and
pound the ground with my fists. Instead I do nothing, just stand there
transfixed as though by magic.
	"Just tell me that we're still the same as we were yesterday", he
finally says, addressing me directly after a lengthy silence. He's regained
his focus.
	His words hit me like a sledgehammer, cave my chest in with vicious
force. Some part of my mind knows that he's trying to be reassuring, trying
to demonstrate to me that his loyalty is beyond refute, that I can trust
him as I always have. But he couldn't have chosen a worse combination of
words, and he doesn't even know it.
	My breathing hitches, just for a second, and all my will is
directed toward sublimating the flood of feelings that are about to erupt
from inside of me before they have a chance to bring me down. I grit my
teeth, tighten my stomach. I don't move.
	"Alex?..." he asks. I don't speak, don't move.
	"Alex, please", he tries again, this time without bothering to
disguise the desperation in his voice.
	I'm being ridiculous. But I can't let go of the hurt he dealt me
any more than I could express it verbally, so I remain a stone, silent and
unmoving. My eyes are fixed on him, and his on me. Everything in me is
struggling against this, compelling me just to run to him and confess all
that I'm holding back, but if I let go for even a moment I know that I'll
cave in completely. Instead I hold my ground, and it's Erik who breaks
first.
	"Fine", he whispers, forlorn. His bottom lip shakes, he turns on
his heel and starts to walk away.
	He takes a step, my heart pounds. Another step and my mouth goes
dry. By the times he's taken five, my stomach is boiling and nauseous. This
is the final moment, my last chance to save us from my own stupidity. If he
walks away now, I know it won't be possible for him and me to ever really
get back what we had, what we have. But can I do it?
	He takes his sixth step, my resolve shatters, and the answer
becomes perfectly clear.
	"Please don't go!" I scream.
	I sprint the distance in less than a second, throw my arms around
him from behind and pull his body tightly against mine with every ounce of
strength left in my muscles. I shove my face into the space between his
neck and shoulder, sob unabashedly into his warmth and squeeze him all the
more tightly. I'm exposed, and I'm past caring.
	"Alex, what--", he begins, but I cut him off with a kiss. There's
no mistaking how eager he is to return as he presses his lips back into
mine. I'm possessed, and I have to nearly crush his torso in my arms not to
collapse into myself.
	The kiss only lasts a few seconds, though in that span of time I
swear I can see stars. It's all so incredibly cliché, and I've been so
stupid about this whole thing, but none of that matters anymore. I cuddle
myself back into him, melt against his body and he wraps my arms in
his. There's no space in this moment for me to berate myself, there's only
the security I'm craving for so horribly, and the truth that I can no
longer withhold.
	"Erik, I don't want to go back to how things were."
	"But... Alex, I.. Oh...", he begins, pitters away when he realizes
what I'm telling him.
	I'm trembling now in earnest, there are jitters shaking their way
through my tendons and ligaments, and my heart is hammering such a violent
staccato that it feels as though I'm moments away from cardiac arrest. I
let go of every inhibition I've got left and just let the words escape.
	"Will you be my boyfriend?" I whisper into his ear, eyes closed.
	"Yes."