Just for Now
The afternoon sun shone through the trees. Danny looked down at his shadow, which was walking languidly next to Reuven's slightly shorter one, on the sidewalk. Danny pretended to listen to Reuven going on about some theorem, but all he was focusing on was Reuven's lips and the way the sun lit his face. He was listening to Reuven's voice, not his words. Danny slowed his pace a bit, wanting to spend more time with Reuven before they reached Reuven's house.
Reuven's voice was magical- honeyed and deep. Hearing it, Danny's chest filled with a thick bubbly feeling one could describe only as happiness, pure and unfiltered. He loved being here with this boy, just walking with him, just listening to him talk was blissful. He loved these lazy days, he loved these conversations, he loved the way Reuven's laugh hitched at the end, he loved-he loved him. He knew it in the deepest pit of his stomach and in the cracking center of his heart. He knew that this was love.
But he also knew it was wrong. Wrong for him to love an apikoros, wrong for him to love-to love a boy.
"Danny?"
Danny, startled out of his daze, shook his head and turned to look at Reuven, trying to ignore the way the sunshine on Reuven's dark brown hair made Danny's heart speed up.
Today, Danny thought strolling in the afternoon sun, it doesn't have to mean anything. I don't have to worry about what it all means-for now, I'm just going to enjoy this walk. With my friend.
But deep down he still knew, it was love.