Chapter Text
"Shoot it." that's what he would always tell me. "Shoot it. Aim at it's head." 'it' he would call them. Like they were no human. like they were animals, people like me. 'Faggots' he called them. An insult I heard a dozens and more times before. Everyone normal said it. Teachers, the police, teenagers, people in shops, but mostly him. Everywhere I go I can hear it. People get pointed out for looking, talking, and even walking weird.
We once sah one. I thought he looked cool, with his white, black sharp contoured face and fancy black clothes. But he didn't. He pointed at him with disgust in his eyes. Said he'd shoot him if he had a gun right now. He wouldn't care that he'd kill someone in front of maybe a dozen people, maybe even more. He'd do it just for the fun of it. Afterwards he would tell, he did it for us. To protect his family, to keep us save but I knew better. Jonathan did to.
In does moments Jonathan would grab my hand and squeeze it tight. Make me feel as save as the moment could feel. Maybe Jonathan knew in those moments. Knew that I was different. That I was wrong. An 'it', not a person. Just someone to protect your family from.
Maybe he knew to. Maybe even earlier. Maybe when I first told him about a boy I had befriended. He never liked Mike. He said I was too obsessed with with Mike.
Maybe he knew by the way dressed. Never waned me to wear anything 'girly'. "Don't be like them." he would say. "Be a man." he he told me when I was 5 and wanted to wear a purple shirt, my favorit shirt, at my first day of elementary school.
Maybe he knew by the way I talked. Always to high for his ears. "Like preschool girls." he told mom once when I was 7 and supposed to be in bed. I just wanted to get some water. I cried myself to sleep that night. Pressing my face deep into my pillows, thinking maybe they would swallow me, kill me even.
Maybe he realised it by my hobbys. "Painting. Why not sports huh?" he murmured at the dinning tabel once when I was 9 and showed my newest drawing to mom and Jonathan.
And maybe he didn't know. But I knew then and I know now. I know that I'm the person he could never look at. That I'm the human he sah as an animal, something to shoot for fun. For pleasure he'd never got anywhere else.
If I would feel it to? That pleasure, if I did it? When I did it? Would he know? Fell it somehow? Would he think "Another one."? or would he feel bad? No, that would not be him. "Something was wrong with him. He deserved it. He was not my son." He would say. To people that would ask him about me, to anyone who would listen, maybe even to himself. At night alone when he longed for somebody to be angry at, to hurt.
I could feel his eyes on me. Then and now. I can feel the disgust in his eyes, rotting deep inside of him. Looking at me. "DO IT!!" he would scream. "DO IT! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE." I can hear him. Tho he's not even here. Nobody is.
I squeeze my eyes even more shut, so hard i can see colorful sprinkles behind my eyelets. I feel tears falling on the gravel under my knees. He would slap me whenever i cried. "Boys don't cry!" He would shout. I would try to hold them back,just like I try now. But they don't stop. They never did. He would punch me then. So hard you could see a purple blue ring form around my eyes that, I knew, would stay for a while. People would ask questions I would give no answer to.
I sink my hand to the ground to feel the gravel one last time. When I lift in again to the cold metal in my hand my heart stood still for a moment, as if it would just relise what I am doing here.
I hatted it for that. My heart always realised way to late. It did with me being a fagot. It did with loving Mike and it does know.
I grip the metal stronger as more tears start to leave my pressed close eyes. The tip of the gun pressing into my chin is starting to hurt really bad but it doesn't mater. Nothing does.
I don't even know what I'm waiting for, if I even do. Maybe for Mike coming running to me, hugging me and tell me he loves me too. Maybe for Jonathan to take the gun away, very careful as if he's scared I will shoot anyway. Maybe for him to take away the gun and to it himself screaming of what a coward I am.
Or maybe just because of that. Because I'm a coward, not even able to kill myself.
I lay a finger an the trigger, waiting. For 10 seconds, for 20. Nothing happens, nobody comes.
One last time my hand traces the gun. Its sharp edges, which remind me of the man with the white face. Maybe if I would have lived longer I would've try that look.
One last time I take a breath. A deep one, that could last for another 30 seconds to think.
One last time I allow myself to think about Mike. To remember him. Mikes smile, Mikes black suborn curls he let grow out over the last time, the way Mikes voice changed with me, Mikes always soft eyes, the way Mikes nose is curved, Mikes freckles, who are only there in summer for anybody who does not look closely. I did. I always did.
Then i pull the trigger.