In the middle of Des Plaines Illinois three boys find themselves in a tangled knot of angsty lust and amateur love.
Evan Webster has an average American life. When he isn't at swim practice or the movie theater, he's trying to make time to study bi...
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There was a small church on Quigley Drive. It was the only church in town that had mass in Spanish on Sunday mornings, so it was the only church Danny's family ever attended. He remembered walking there when he was little, no matter the weather—blizzards or hail storms—nothing stopped his mother from dragging him and his siblings out of bed for the Catholic ceremony.
"Forgive me," Danny said, sitting behind a divider. "For I have sinned."
The divider was supposed to hide his face as he confessed his sins to the priest, but the divider dropped and he saw Evan's face.
"Evan?"
"What do you have to confess?" Evan asked. "We've done nothing wrong."
The surrounding walls started crumbling. Clunks of stone fell from the ceiling, driving into the ground with such force that it left cracks in the church's foundation. The entire building shook as Evan stepped closer.
The white-haired boy looked angelic, walking fearlessly toward Danny. He had a glowing outline around his naked body, giving the illusion of wings spread behind his back. The divine sight made Danny want to fall to his knees for a lot of different reasons.
Evan touched Danny's chest, triggering the heavenly dreamscape to burst into flames. The incandescent fire caused Danny's cross necklace to melt down his chest, trickling into a golden puddle. The metallic liquid seeped into the cracks underfoot like unholy mortar, but the quaking crevices kept widening. The golden liquid looked like it was retreating back into the earth from which it had been extracted, like it was abandoning its own value. It seemed as though Danny had been wearing fool's gold around his neck for his whole life.
With both of their chests bare, Evan kissed Danny's lips tenderly. Daylight broke through Danny's night-stricken heart, sending armed ultraviolet rays to combat any shred of shame he had left within himself. He could see his heart gleaming underneath his skin, outshining any hidden inhibitions. The warmth was so overwhelming that Danny was certain that if he got cut, he'd bleed light. It was a dull burning, leaving behind a lasting, ardent ache.
Evan connected their naked bodies and said, "I love you."
Those words were Danny's salvation—he was finally safe from ruin. Protected. He didn't feel like he was sinning anymore, he just felt like he was being loved.
When Danny tried to pull him closer, Evan disappeared like a ghost, and then the ceiling caved in as Danny woke up with a heaving breath.
"Fuck," he gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead.
He was lying on a faded olive-green couch that creaked when he jolted awake. Across from him, his mother's painting of the Lady of Guadalupe was burning a hole in his soul. He gulped and averted his eyes to a Michael Jackson music video. Before he sat up, he rubbed his face, as if his hands would rid the memory of his dream.
A few rooms over, he could hear his parents arguing and his baby brother crying. He figured his younger sisters were already huddled in the back bedroom, trying to sleep. There was an unopened pack of cigarettes on the side table and three empty beer bottles on the floor. Danny scanned the grimy beige carpeting for any new stains, but found none. Meaning, whatever his parents were fighting about, it wasn't about his father spilling beer again.
Danny wasn't sure if he wanted to get out of his own head or his own house, but he turned off MTV, grabbed his keys, and put a quarter in the family swear jar before he walked out the door.
