It was 4pm on some idle Tuesday when it occurred to him (1). He was on the beach watching the crowds run and splash around in the surf. It was the holidays and everywhere was filled with teenagers looking for a summer fling. His mother had dragged him here, claiming it would be good for him. Maybe it would be, or maybe she just wanted to come and couldn't leave him alone, sometimes it's hard to tell. She was dating someone new anyway. He could tell by the starry look in her eyes and the constantly empty house he was living in.
He shuffled himself between his bed room and the beach to pass the time, trying to ignore his growing isolation. Today, he had already been at the beach for a few hours, sitting on a towel, slathered in sunscreen and watching people when it happened. His focus was currently on a couple, standing not far away at the waters edge. There was a tall, tan, blond haired boy who looked like he belonged on the cover of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue, and should come complete with his own yacht, trying to hit on a leggy, peroxide blond in a barely there bikini. They were flirting and the girl ran her hand coyly down the boy's muscular arm. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to be that girl. The one flirting with the tanned boy, touching him, being touched. It came so quickly that he felt the air leave his lungs as though he had been punching in the stomach. A moment of panic followed as he tried to remember how to breathe.
He lost focus on everything around him as he tried to rationalise the thought. Maybe he was just feeling lonely, longing for physical contact of any kind. But that didn't explain why he wanted so badly to be that girl, not the boy. Maybe it was some misguided desire for a stable father figure, a steady male influence. But the warmth of desire churning in his gut made that thought feel disturbing and wrong. He couldn't rationalise why he suddenly wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in a pair of strong arms, pressed against a hard, male body. He refocused on the beach. All this time, he realised, all these days he had been watching the guys running around on the beach. He could recognise almost all of them, though he had never met them. But looking around again he realised he didn't recognise any of the girls, all this time and he still couldn't tell one from the other, he had never focused on them.
On the verge of hyperventilating he collected his things and all but ran from the beach. This wasn't happening, he thought. Not now, not to him. But his mind just mocked him, pulling forth dreams and thoughts he had buried, repressed, over the years. He started to panic, no one would accept it, no one would understand, not in the world he was from. His mother would hate him.
Back at the house he was greeted with silence besides his own laboured breathing. No mother, no sister, no family, no friends, no one to talk to. He felt the walls around him extend, leaving him alone in the middle of an endless empty space. Nothing around him to grab on to. But at the same time the silence and isolation pressed down on him, trapping him, suffocating him in his solitude. He curled in on himself trying desperately to calm down, alone and unnoticed in an empty house.
(1) Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) – a song for those of you who don't know it that everyone should hear at least once.
