The Ghost of You

The dark is too dark, and I almost immediately realize that I’m dreaming. I start recalling that night, and I know for sure that I will wake up sobbing into my pillow. I wish I could just wake up, but I can’t. So I let the dream take over me, pulling into every nerve I have inside and ripping it up for my eyes to see.

The lights were dim, the air was warm, and I was 15 years old. It was the last weekend of freshman year, to be exact. I was in Gerard’s basement, a usual meeting spot for the four of us, and sometimes Mikey. That night though, it was just me and Gerard. I was spending the night at his house, like I did almost every weekend. Gerard’s mom was out with mine on a shopping trip. Fifth grade Mikey was safe and sound in his bed, fast asleep. None of that would have mattered if we had been playing video games, but we weren’t.

A month or so before this night, Gerard had told me his biggest secret. He left me with a secret that only he knew, a secret that was too painful to tell to Ray or Bob. Gerard told me that he was gay. At first, I was sure he was confused, but the longer I knew the secret, the more I knew that it was true.

After he came out to me, I did the only thing a worried teenage boy could do to his gay best friend. I kissed him. It was short and sweet, and I would have ended there, should have ended there, but it didn’t. As soon as I pulled away, concerned for his reaction, he pulled me back in. Our inexperienced mouths danced for a while, until we had to pull up for air. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew that I had liked it. I never told Gee that though. After that, we started doing that a lot, just kissing. We would sneak around a lot, trying to keep it a secret from the others, but I think I was the only one who cared about it getting around.

So on that night in Gerard’s renovated basement, we did what we usually did. We kissed. We kissed for a long time, and we watched a movie while snuggling, and as soon as the movie was over, we began kissing again. We never talked about kissing, we just did it. Gerard asked me if I was gay only once, and I responded that I wasn’t sure. Now I am sure. I wish I could tell him that.

In the middle of kissing, Gerard decided to change it up. Instead of just sitting and kissing, he wanted to try to straddle me and kiss me. I, unsure of what straddle meant, agreed. When I lay back on the couch and he climbed on top of me, I started to feel something that I had never felt before. The butterflies that I usually got while kissing Gerard intensified. As he leaned in to kiss me, my heart started beating a thousand beats a minute, and I began to feel light headed. After a few minutes I started to feel different, but not in the places I had felt before. My jeans began to grow uncomfortably under Gerard, and I panicked.

Gerard noticed and leaned up to look at me, and by then I was terrified. A small smile played on his lips, and a short giggle escaped. I was so scared that I pushed him off and away from me. I tried to make sense of the situation, but I couldn’t. I knew what a boner was, and I knew why I had it, I just didn’t want to tell myself why. What happened after that will be something that I will always regret.

“Frankie, are you okay?” Gerard asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just need to go home.” I grabbed my shoes from the floor and started up the stairs, and made it halfway before Gerard stopped me.

“It’s fine. I get it. If you’re gay or something, you can tell me. I’m you’re best friend or pete’s sake! Give me the word and we’ll stop this!”

“I want to stop! I’m not some faggot like you Gerard! I like girls! It’s just a misunderstanding! We were just experimenting. It means nothing!” I ran up the rest of the stairs, holding back my tears.

I could hear Gerard’s sobs from above ground, and I locked myself in the bathroom to collect myself before I called my dad to come pick me up. Gerard never came to talk to me, and Ray asked me to leave when I tried to sit with them the next day. They never called, and I never called them. I never tried to explain to Gerard what I was feeling, and he never asked.
I remember one day a few weeks after the incident, I answered the door to Bob handing me a box of the things that I had loaned or given them.

“Gerard told us what happened. It’s not because you wouldn’t, it’s because you’re a jerk.” With that he had got into his truck and drove off, leaving me in tears on the front porch going through every gift I had ever given them, and everything that made us friends. Our whole friendship was there, on that porch, in a cardboard box. I still have that box, but now it’s hidden far inside my closet with my sexuality. It’s hiding there from anyone who would care enough to go looking for it.

It’s hiding in there from me.

I wake up in a cold sweat, Black Flag still blasting from the stereo. My mom is sitting next to me, clearly worried about my nightmare. She doesn’t say anything, she just hugs me and says everything will be alright, like she used to when I was little. My eyes begin to fill with tears, and I suddenly explode into a huge ball of whimpers and sniffles into my mom’s shoulders.

“Ma, can I tell you something.” I ask, trying to dry my tears but failing.

“Of course honey, anything.”

“I-I-I’m… I’m…Ma, I’m gay.” The words slip out of mouth like lava, slowly with a bite that stings me all over. My mom hugs me harder and I can hear her tears from behind my head. After a few minutes of being complete messes together, she pulls away and looks me in the eyes.

“I still love you more than anything, Hun. I hope you can be happy now.” She embraces me a while longer and then goes to fix dinner, leaving me to myself.

I’ve never felt so relieved in my life.

Notes