Three Cheers for Red Hair and Love

But they found him. His parents called. “My son never came home,” they cried. He wasn’t on the bus, so they looked at the camp.

Ryan’s exquisite body floated on the surface of the water, sending ripples out like tiny daggers. His limbs were blue and stiff, frozen in the frigid waters of the lake. The eyes of gold that once looked with love and lust at Gerard now glazed over and staring lifelessly at the morning sky, set in an eternal expression of pain and fear.

Gerard confirmed his fears from an impersonal camp letter. It felt like a blow to the head with a club, a boxer’s punch in the stomach, and knives in his heart all at the same time. After just six weeks with Ryan, he had grown to love the boy more than life itself. And now that he was gone, what was left?

He was the only one who knew and understood everything about him, and accepted all these things. Good or bad, he was there. He was the one gave so much but expected so little in return, just love. He took so much from him. His virginity and his nights for sleeping were all lost to this angel. And now he was simply gone.

He never even got to say a proper goodbye.

There was to be a funeral, but Gerard knew how those went. People who barely knew the boy pretended to be devastated. They would weep and lament for the service, and then return home to their normal lives. It didn’t affect them. Not like it did Gerard. His parents would pretend that they knew everything about him and would attempt to express their grief. Little did they know they were the ones who caused it. Because they didn’t know Ryan like Gerard did.

Notes