username: Silver Pandorica
name: Keldan
gender: Male
confession response:
Best friends. Partners.
Wes and I had known each other for
years. My mind had frozen, stopped working. It took me a long time, too long, to process what he’d said. My best friend loved me in a way I could never have expected him to. As he stood in my doorway with a pack on his back, I finally blinked. Blinked again.
Wesley stared right at me. That hard stare that I knew so well. The one he always put on when he was determined. This wasn’t right. He knew that. And yet, here he was. Wes swallowed. “I don’t have much time.” Closing my eyes, I stepped aside, shutting the door softly. It suddenly felt like we were being watched. My fear, my paranoia of someone finding out about this, hearing this, was terrifying. No one could ever know. I locked the door.
After a long moment of silence, I finally got the courage to look at him again. “What are you...do you mean-”
“Yes.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “I couldn’t tell you until now. If people found out, you’d be ruined.”
Um, yeah. Whether I returned his feelings or not, I’d be done for either way. Homosexuality was almost
unheard of in this land. People looked down upon it, shunned the people who participated in such “lowly acts.” I loved him, of course. But not in
that way. I loved him as a friend. Nothing more. Nothing like he was describing. “Have you always…” I struggled for the right words. “Always...felt like this?”
He took a deep breath, keeping his gaze on me. This was so hard for him, I could tell. Why was he just saying this now? “Yes,” he answered, voice breaking. I’d never seen him like this before. He kept glancing towards the windows, like someone was going to come in and attack us.
Now it was his turn to blink. Furiously. He hated crying, hated other people seeing him commit the act. He was trying so hard not to show the tears. “I’m sorry I never told you. I just thought you should know. Before I go.”
Suddenly, his confession was no longer my main interest. “Go? Go where?”
“I have to leave town,” he muttered, looking again towards the window. “I couldn’t leave without spitting it out.”
Tears swelled in my eyes. I wasn’t quite sure why. Was he really leaving? “For how long?” I asked, voice wavering. He couldn’t leave. He was my best friend. I couldn’t survive here without him. Wesley could get over those feelings, right? The awkwardness would pass. We could still be friends.
How could I continue without him in my life?
A drop ran down my cheek, hitting the floor with a light
pat! “You don’t have to return the feelings,” Wesley said, a tear of his own escaping from the corner of his eye. “I didn’t expect you to. But I couldn’t go on like this. Without you knowing.”
Very slowly, he leaned over to my cheek, hovering there for a second. A moment of hesitation. Doubt. Then, closing his eyes, he instead pulled me into a hug. I don’t know what I felt more. Relief that he didn’t kiss me or confusion and terror over where he was going. “Goodbye,” he whispered in my ear.
Goodbye?
Forever goodbye? Why was he so sad about this? I couldn’t bring myself to bid him farewell. I would see him again. Felt it in my gut. This couldn’t be the end. “See you later, Wesley.”
It wasn’t until the next day that I found out he’d killed someone.
He was gone.
extra:
link in case image doesn’t work