Love

“Ben? Are you okay? Please don’t tell me you hate me. If you like I will never bring it up again.”

He looked completely miserable. “I mean it, I really will.”

I finally got my words back, and a certain recognition of truth within my heart pulled through to me.

“No! No, Noah. You don’t get it!” I said, and I could almost feel tears running down my cheeks. The years I have kept it together was unraveling and I started feeling the burden loosen with every word I spouted out.

“What?” Noah said meekly.

I went over to him and took his hands, holding them loosely.

“Noah, I…” I looked into those dark blue eyes, the same eyes that has entranced me since the beginning, and I melted. I leaned in closer toward his face.

He leaned in a little closer, I could feel his warm breath on my face.

Just then I heard a gasp. “Oh!” It was Marta, Al’s girlfriend. I was so surprised I hit Noah’s forehead with my own hard head, pulling my hands away from his in fear that my mother or father saw me.

“Sorry.” I muttered to him, touching my forehead. I turned around and saw her in a pretty little hot pink dress, the one that showed off her legs.

“Hello, Marta.” I said with a smile.

“Um, hello. I’m sorry,” She was blushing and explained, “Al just told me to come in and I-”

“No, you’re okay, girly.” I smiled, and she smiled back. She giggled a little as I always called her ‘girly’. I think I did it because she reminded me of Marisol, only not as sarcastic.

Al came in a moment later. “What’s up?” Al said to me. “Hi, Noah.” He waved.

Noah smiled. “Hi, Alex.”

“You don’t have to call me Alex, just call me Al.” He winked at him, and Noah smiled.

“Okay, Al. Thanks.” Noah said softly. He still looked pretty shocked about everything. I hadn’t told him anything outright yet, but I was so close to saying it, I think he already knew.

The cat was out of the bag, now I had to deal with its claws.

Marta looked at me with a curious stare, like she was still trying to figure out why Noah and I were so close to one another. I think she might have seen me holding his hands, too.

Al looked at Marta and asked, “Honey, are you alright?”

“Oh, yes. I’m good.”

“Want to go sit on the porch while I get you some lemonade? Or would you like some peach tea?” Al asked her.

We always had some peach tea around the house since Al was crazy for it, mostly, I think, because Marta was crazy about it.

“I would like a peach tea, please, dear.” She grinned. “With a lot of ice!!” She nodded at me and went outside.

She was very nice, and Al’s first serious girlfriend. Every other girl was just single dates and crushes. She was very cute and had a nice sense of humor.

Al looked at me strangely. “What’s up?”

I shrugged. “Not much, Al. How’s it going with Marta?”

Noah got up suddenly. “May I use your restroom?” He asked me.

“Yeah, go ahead. You don’t have to ask.” I smiled. He offered a quick smile and went across the hall to the bathroom.

Al grinned. “Marta and I are doing fantastic. We’re going out to dinner tonight.”

“That’s good.” I think Al is psychic because he wasn’t buying my act.

“What’s going on?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

He look disbelieving at me, “From the very second I came in I saw Marta was acting differently than usual. She looked at you differently, too.” He eyed me carefully. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, “Everything.”

“What?” His brow arched. I pulled him into my bedroom and shut and locked the door.

“Well… I don’t know where to start. First, my audition went horribly wrong—I couldn’t play properly and they hated my song.”

Al frowned. “I’m so sorry. I know how much that meant to you. Those judges are fools.”

I shrugged. “Maybe they were right. But… Noah did make me feel a bit bettter…” my face heated up. “Ah, damnit. This was the worst thing to have happen. Especially today.”

“Tell me, I promise I won’t laugh.”

“It’s not a laughing matter at all.” I grumbled.

“Okay, Ben. Is this about Noah?”

“Yes.” I said, defeated. “Why are you so smart?”

“What happened?” He said with a curious tone, but his eyes looked at me with a sad fixture, and I was wondering if he might pity me.

“Your girlfriend came in right before…”

“Before??”

“Right before I was going to tell Noah I love him!”

Al looked at me quietly, his eyes widened and his mouth agape.

“Oh my goodness.” Al finally said.

“I was also….holding his hand.” I gulped, not wanting to tell him what Noah had confessed to me as well.

“Holy cow, are you serious?”

“As serious as I stand here today.”

“You didn’t tell him yet?”

I was quiet for a moment, thinking why he had asked that as if it was so normal of an occurrence. “Why does it matter? I shouldn’t tell him anything. I need to get away. Far away from him!” I frowned. “I can’t do this. It’s wrong.”

Al looked conflicted for a moment and then said seriously, “God loves you, Ben. God loves us all, even for someone way out there in the world who doesn’t believe in Him. I love you, too, and I want for you to be happy. You have always been a good person, inside and out. You’re annoying, impulsive and brash and way too loud sometimes, and also, you are just way too crazy, but one thing is for sure, if I know you the way I think I do…” He paused for a moment. “I know that when you are in love with someone, you keep that love forever entwined with God.”

I was speechless. His words locked a sense of destiny within me. They helped me, and I started to think… maybe I should try to be happy with Noah.

Can I show my love, and how can I do it so God can be in my heart as well?

But how?

--

We walked out of the bedroom and Noah was sitting on the couch when I came back. Al went into the kitchen and got the tea ready for Marta, finally retreating to the porch with her.

“So…” I began. “I’m sorry about all that. I didn’t know Marta and Al would be back so soon.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled softly at me, the kind of smile that

enveloped a sense of playfulness and passion. It always made me happy to see him smile.

“Do you want to go into my room? If that is okay.” I offered, and he nodded.

Once we both walked in, I closed the door, and locked it, out of habit. I always locked my door whenever I came in, unless it was just for a moment.

Noah sat down on my desk chair, and I sat down on my bed.

“Noah?” I said and he turned around to look at me.

“Yes?”

I looked at him for a moment, and gazed into his blue eyes, and my heart was slow and I felt calm.

He laughed all of a sudden. “You know, Marisol was right. You do have little freckles on your nose. You know how I know?”

“How?”

“Because of how close we were in the living room,” He smiled. “You have like three or four of them.”

I blushed deeply. I was so silent, I was making myself sick.

Then I felt brave, and clenched my fists together to brace myself.

“I love you!” I said in a loud whisper, “Noah, I love you.” I said again, standing up in a frenzy of my own affirmation.

I shut my eyes and sat down, and felt very stupid, holding my head in my hands.

Just then there was a weight on my bed and Noah was next to me.

Suddenly his palm was on my cheek as he lifted my face to look him in the eye.

I looked him in the eyes for a minute, and I felt myself gravitating toward him.

Just then, he looked away. “I don’t want you to think this is a fleeting feeling for me, Ben. I have such a deep devotion to you, and it has been in my heart for at least the last four years.” He sighed. “I take you seriously, and I take your faith seriously as well, as I respect your beliefs and who you are. To me, if I am being completely honest and all, I am extremely happy to hear how you feel. I have always felt this bond between us, when we embraced, the day I held your hand over two years ago. But I don’t want you to be confused or feel forced into anything. I don’t want you to be with me if it will hurt you in the end, especially with your religion. With God.”

“Noah, I wish I had your way with words, because I don’t even know where to begin. It has been a difficult and confusing journey for me to understand how I feel. When I realized how much I love you that weekend I visited you in Idaho, I have been in conflict with myself ever since.” I smiled. “But don’t think I am confused about how I feel. That is not being debated… it’s the fact of our circumstances here.” I pointed to him and me, and he laughed a little.

“That’s when you realized you…” He blinked. “Wow. I would have never known.” He coughed. “Isn’t it against Christianity for the same gender to be together?” He said in this sad, meek voice that tore through my heart.

“Yes.” I said.

“I have envisioned over and over the day I would tell you how I felt. Every scenario… every answer you could give me. But I never thought of this one.” He sighed. “I have been thinking about God a lot. Really thinking. I want you to know that, for you, and only you…. I…” He stopped and paused a moment, and I took his hand suddenly.

“What, Noah?” I said softly. He looked at me so sweetly, I thought I was going to faint.

“I …I would love you as your faith tells me to, without my flesh. From this day on, to have the chance to show you my love without any fear."

“You mean without physicality’s?” I said with a scrunch of my nose.

“Yes, though you said it in a funny way.”

The thought sounded dreadful to me. How can you be in love with someone and not kiss them, not hold them, not consummate it? My sense of logic and justice came through strongly first, and then, all of sudden my love for God and for Jesus came through even stronger, and I was quiet for a long time.

I thought about it, and it made me angrier and angrier as it became reality in my mind. He would be wasting his life on me, living a half life, a half love, in a relationship that was no more glorified than our friendship now. It would a horribly selfish thing for me to do, if I were to accept.

“No.” I said softly. He looked at me, wide eyed. “No!” I stood up and cried, “Do you think I feel nothing? That I am soulless, a machine?” He started to talk and I stopped him. “Do you think my love for you would come hindered with revulsion, or disgust?”

He looked at me silently bewildered, his hands at his sides.

“I am a real person, and I want a REAL relationship. When I am in love I want to love exactly the same way I would love anyone else, and anything else would be inhuman and selfish.” I sat down next to him and took his hand in to mine passionately.

“Furthermore,” I whispered, “Do you think I have not thought of you? Your hair, your soft voice and laugh, your skin? I am addressing you not as a person, as a friend or as a lover, but as a true representation of my most intimate beliefs… my soul to yours!”

“The fruition of my love, Ben,” He held unto my hand tighter, “Is here, right now, at its fullest climax. I don’t want you to lose your long standing faith for a relationship that I cannot guarantee.”

“Then guarantee it.” I said with ardor, “To hear you say that you would love me for nothing is something that breaks my heart more than anything else.” I sighed. “Be my friend, and it will pain me less.”

He looked conflicted for a long time. Then he asked me, “Did you ever have sex with Marisol?”

I shook my head. “No. Not once.”

“You were waiting for marriage?”

“You know that I was.”

“Was? Are you still a virgin?”

“I am.” I said softly, blushing. “I am still… you know. I have really only kissed Marisol, and maybe fooled around, but that’s it, why?”

“Then why is it so hard to think of me in that way? Would it be a sin to have a non-sexual relationship with me only until---” He stopped and laughed. “That’s ironic.”

“What’s ironic?” I asked, and I raised my eyebrows.

“If we were to be in the same relationship you and Marisol had, we could never get married… it is illegal. We could never consummate anything anyway, because of your belief in waiting for marriage.” He smiled.

“It is just ironic to come to that conclusion.”

I laughed softly, and felt very strange about it all. “We’re not even together yet, and we are already fighting.”

He smiled. “Ben, if I could just kiss you once, I would be content forever.”

I blushed again, as we were close together and I was still holding his hand. “The most I have ever done is hug you, the thought of kissing you gives me goose bumps.” I said, and he laughed. “It makes me feel lighter than air, but also as heavy as lead. It is a very strange feeling.”

“Look, I know you are not a machine, Ben, and you are right when you say that it’s not fair to love you the way any other couple would, but…” He sighed. “I am an independent person and I completely comprehend what I am proposing to you. I want to love you deeply and carefully, softly and without the burden or pain that might scar you if you were to be in a real relationship with me. Saving your soul from my passions are better than keeping them in my favor.”

“This is just insane.”I said.

“Love has made me wild, devoted and completely crazy… for you.”

“Corny as always.” I said with a grin. “So damn corny.” I shook my head, laughing.

“Can you deal with that?”

“Of course.” I said. “I have for almost a decade, now, right?”

I felt so tired from our talk that I wanted to sleep. I suddenly took him in my arms and held him close, falling unto the bed.

He looked at me wide eyed. “You are so unpredictable Ben. You surprise me every moment.”

“You almost never surprise me, my dear.” I said, laughing.

I rested in the crook of his neck and I felt so happy, so relaxed, I started to fall asleep.

“Ben…. Ben…. Wake up, I want to ask you something.”

I opened my eyes to see him face to face with me.

“What?” I said groggily.

“Will you be mine?”

“I’ll be whatever you want if you let me sleep…”

He laughed. “Okay.” He sighed. “I have to go home though.”

“When will you come back?” I asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Come over tonight after dark. Sneak in.” I offered.

“No way. Not going to happen.” He got up out of my arms and frowned. I got up and he sat on my bed.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Would it be a sin to kiss you now?”

“I want to say no, but I think it is…” I frowned as I said it, and it broke my heart to see his expression.

“If I just want to be with you and hold you and kiss you, gosh, I sound like a teenager….”

“You’re only eighteen.” I rolled my eyes.

“I mean… I would be content with that. We wouldn’t ever have to do--”

I cut him off, and kissed his cheek softly, my hand caressing his face.

He blushed softly.

He avoided eye contact with me, and said, “I will see you later.” And then he looked at me finally and grinned. “You made me a very happy guy just now, so you know.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling back at him. “I will be sleeping for awhile, just knock three times when you’re here.”

He laughed and opened the door and closed it. “Not going to happen, dude.”

I was so happy, I dreamt of Noah and my brave kiss the whole sleep through.