HIM & I || BXB

Prologue

The first thought I have when I see his face is that he is terrifyingly pretty.

(I've only seen boys as pretty as that in high fashion magazines, or in foreign queer films, where lack of masculinity is not a crime.)

He's delicate too, his skin clinging to his bones over a slight layer of wiry muscle. I see him in the field across from where my gym class played soccer, his Adidas shirt hanging off his thin chest, and he takes my breath away.

After two days of watching, I decide that he's the most wonderful person I've ever seen. I've fallen into a (maybe sort of) love with him before I even know his name.

-

A week later I find out it out: Tom. (A simple name, and it suits him.) He's in my first period Biology class, and he's seated in such a way that I'm able to look at him whenever I please (which is often). He sometimes smiles with his friends, sometimes laughs, and each time is like a burst of winter sun. He is, simply put, wonderful.

And yet.

I don't have any delusions about him and I. To be entirely honest, I'm not even sure he knows my name. We don't talk, don't exchange glances; he doesn't notice me. I can't let myself want him.

(One time as we stand at our lab stations, he reaches up to one of the cupboards, causing his sweatshirt to ride up. He isn't wearing a shirt underneath, and I see his perfect, flat, abdomen, and nearly drop my test tube of elodea leaves.)

My simple pleasures are the quick flashes of exposed skin when he takes of his jacket, the way he pushes his hair back when he concentrates, the few times our eyes meet while I gaze at him (and wish and hope), though I become more careful that he never catches me looking.

He becomes my reason for life. I'm pathetic, but it's a little easier to get out of bed if I know I can see him for an hour or two each morning. My days are spent with his smile burned behind my eyelids, my nights pass with him in my dreams.