August 5th, 2016.
Edinburgh, Scotland.
I was born December 3rd, 2000.
My beloved was born the same day and I've spent almost every second of every minute of every single day since at his side and now that was coming to an end.
I can still remember the day my oldest friend became my boyfriend with stunning clarity, as if viewing it on a television screen. Standing in front of him in his mom's garden, blushing while handing him a bouquet of roses and asking him to be my boyfriend. How he hugged me, smiling a thousand watt smile as he squealed the word "yes" over and over before kissing me on the cheek. How we posed for those pictures afterwards.
But that was ending.
Today was August 5th, 2016. It was 9:27 pm and I lay in a bed.
Gideon Kennedy was dying, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.
The stem cell and bone marrow transplants were a failure. It kills me to know that the blood I donated, the stem cells and bone marrow that I gave to him did nothing to help him. The chemotherapy didn't do anything to kill the sickness.
I love him so much, and every time I look at his frail form I die a little inside just like he is.
The cancer, that He'd been fighting it for so long, and we both knew the end was near.
I could hear him starting to sniffle next to me, where he was curled up in my arms. The sniffling evolved into full on crying and I stared down into his blue eyes with fear in my eyes. The pain contained within the oceans of blue caused my heart to burn.
"What's wrong, love?" I asked.
"I-I d-don't want to f-f-fight anymore, D-Danny." He whimpered pitifully.
"What do you mean, Giddy?" I asked gently, fear taking hold of my heart with an iron fisted grip.
"I'm just so tired." He stammered tearfully, "I'm ready for the pain to stop."
It was at that moment that I understood what he was really saying.
After fighting for so long, he was finally giving up.
"What? But… You can't give up." I said, tears welling in my eyes immediately.
"I g-gave up a l-long time ago, D-Danny." He said through his tears, "The only reason I held on to life for so long was because I didn't want to l-leave you here a-alone. But I don't think I have a choice."
I shook my head in denial, and the waterfall of tears fell in torrents.
"It's too late for me, Danny." Gideon whispered, "I'm gonna die."
"How am I supposed to go on without you?" I sobbed, staring into his pained, sad and tired blue eyes, "I don't want to live without you. I don't know if I can, baby."
"You have to, Danny. I want you to promise me something." Giddy said weakly.
"Anything, I'll do anything you ask." I sobbed, clutching him desperately to me.
"Promise me that you'll keep living." He cried, "That you'll go on, even if you have to do it without me.
"I don't know how." I cried, vision blurry through my tears.
"Then you have to learn." Harry begged tearfully, "If you have to learn how to live again, you do it. If you have to find somebody who can teach you HOW to live again, you do it. Promise me, please?"
I looked into the eyes of the boy I loved. I couldn't deny him this. It would be cruel.
"I p-promise, love. I promise." I cried, tears leaking down my face harder.
"I... I love you Danny." Giddy sobbed.
The first gasping sob escaped my lips at the words and I clutched him even closer, even tighter.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to say it aloud." Gideon sobbed, "But when I'm gone... I want you to know that."
"I love you too, Giddy." I sobbed back, my speech barely understandable through my heaving sobs, "That's one thing that'll never change. You didn't even have to say it, I already knew. It's just one of those things that doesn't need words to be real. You have no idea how much I love you. I'll never stop."
"Danny… Kiss me. Please?" Giddy said.
"What?" I asked him through my tears.
"I know you said you wanted to wait." Giddy cried softly, "Until I got better, to make out and stuff. But we both know that's not gonna happen, and I want know what it's like to really kiss the boy I love before it's too late."
I let go of him and turned on the bed to face him. Even in this state, I still found him beautiful.
I reached out and gently brushed my fingers across his soft pale cheek.
I knew.
The moment was coming.
I was about to lose him, and his last request was for me to kiss him the way I should have been doing for years.
"Okay." I said tearfully.
I leaned, in and pressed my lips to his. As soon as our lips made contact, I felt him relax beneath me and he opened his mouth to allow my tongue the entrance that it needed. As we dueled for dominance, I opened my eyes to see his face.
For the first time in a long time, through all the pain and suffering that regularly cloaked his beautiful face, I saw bliss. I saw him at peace. I took a moment to memorize his face in that moment, to burn it, no sear it into my memory for eternity before I closed my eyes and allowed myself to feel the same bliss.
After four minutes, his breathing got shallow.
A minute later, I felt him exhale.
I kept kissing him, but he had stopped responding.
He had kissing me back.
I pulled away, and stared into his eyes stared ahead, unseeing and blank.
"Giddy?" I asked fearfully.
He didn't answer.
I choked out a sob.
"G-G-Giddy, d-don't do this to m-me b-baby, please."
Still no answer.
My sobs grew hysterical, loud, desperate.
"Nonononono, please. P-please w-wake up."
When my pleas went unanswered, my grief consumed me.
It was 9:36 pm, and he was gone.
I stared at his blank face, shaking my head in denial.
No, he couldn't be dead.
But he was.
I reared my head back and screamed.
"NOOOOO! GIDDY, NO!"
My mother and father, along with Gideon's, ran into the room to find me clinging to Gideon's body, pleading with it.
"PLEASE, NO!" I pleaded, "PLEASE GIDDY! PLEASE COME BACK!"
I felt arms rap around me and try to comfort me, but I wrestled my way out with a blind punch.
"GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!" I screamed in distress and rage.
"How dare they?" I thought to myself, "How dare they try to take me from him. I don't want comfort. I want him. Nothing but him."
But that was never going to happen.
The screaming didn't stop, until I felt something poke my skin and everything went dark.
When I woke up, I screamed more, and the screaming went on for days.
One Month Later.
September 14th 2016.
Anchor Beach Charter School, San Diego, CA.
11:35 am
It's been a month since Gideon died, and I'm broken. I had lost the one person who meant most to me in my life.
At the funeral, it was raining. The atmosphere of the day fit the circumstances. I was a pallbearer. I knelt in front of the coffin and cried into the polished mahogany for the whole ceremony. When the casket closed for the final time, and the bolts went in to seal it, I lost it. I sobbed into my mom's shoulder for the rest of the night.
I locked myself in my room, struggling to keep the promise I made to Giddy.
I promised him I'd keep living, but how do you keep living when the one person who made you feel alive was buried six feet beneath the Earth?
So when my mother and father asked me what I thought about moving to America, I couldn't agree fast enough. When we were on the plane to California, I stared down at the land of my birth. I knew that I would not be coming back for a long time, if ever.
Scotland held too many memories. America would either save me, or be where they buried me.
My parents try to help me, god bless their hearts. They try to tell me the know some of what I feel, that they loved Giddy too, that it hurts them too.
But they don't know, not really.
Sure, they loved Giddy as if he was their own son. But I was in love with him. They say it hurts them, and I'm sure it does. But they don't see cars coming down the street and wonder if it's going fast enough to kill you if you were to leap out in front of you.
I lost the one person who kept me balanced. Everything about me had shifted. Everything from my attitude, to my taste in clothing (now exclusively mourning black) and music (now the angriest of metal to match my inner turmoil and fury).
The only thing I have left of him are memories, pictures, and his cane sword. It arrived in the mail yesterday, with a note.
"Take care of this, just like you cared for our baby. We love you Danny, and we're so sorry." The note had read.
I put that note in my safe that I keep on my desk.
And now I have to deal with this new school.
Anchor Beach. I will admit that, even in my depressed semi suicidal state, I see the appeal of having a school that sits right on the beach. I do not, however, see the appeal that some of these Americans do at showing off and acting like right troglodytes. Had a run in with a few idiots earlier, and had to teach them some manners.
During my thoughts, as I stomped through the school on my way to eat my lunch, my duffel bag tossed over my shoulder, I wasn't watching where I was going and I felt myself collide with something.
I whipped around just in time to grab the wrist of the person I had plowed through, preventing him from falling and steadying him.
I stared at the boy for a second, and then observed his companion for a moment. The boy I had knocked over was tall and skinny, and had brown hair that was just long enough to look like a shaggy mop. His brown eyes observed me as mine observed him, holding a hint of fear as he and his companion took a step back.
His companion was about the same height, maybe a couple centimeters shorter. He was much more muscular than his friend, and you could tell that he played some kind of sport. He had dirty blond hair which was cut much shorter than the others, and his hazel eyes stared at me, wide as saucers as he eyed me up and down.
"Terribly sorry 'bout that, mate." I said softly, "I wasn't payin' attention to where I was going."
"S'alright." The brunette said.
"Whoa." I heard the blond whisper, as he gave me a once over.
"No kidding." Brunette whispered back.
"Nice look." Blondie said to me.
I couldn't help the subtle shift in my stance. It was as if I was subconsciously bracing myself for a fight. I couldn't tell whether the compliment was genuine or mocking.
"Thank you?" I said, phrasing it as a question, "I think."
The brunette shifted nervously, and I sighed. I relaxed. They weren't going to hurt me, so I shouldn't be so tense and scary.
"You sure you're a'ight, mate?" I asked him.
"Yeah. I'm fine." He said.
"Then relax, mate. There's no need to look so nervous." I said gently, quirking my lip into the first small smile it had seen in a month, "I'm not gonna hurt you, or anything stupid like that. You look like you're about to have a heart attack."
"Sorry, just not every day I meet somebody my age who dresses like a member of the KGB." He joked.
"A member of the KGB? Oh, that's just too good." I thought to myself as I snorted, and soon I was bent over laughing. It was the first time I'd laughed in a month, and it felt great.
"Nice. I haven't heard that one before." I stammered as I chuckled, "I haven't laughed like that in a month."
"Glad I could be of service." He said with a small smile.
"I'm gonna have to write that down, actually." I said, "They usually say I'm dressed like a member of the Italian mafia, or an undercover FBI Agent, or more recently an incarnation of Doctor Who."
The two of them snorted.
I smiled back at the two of them.
Gideon's words returned to me.
"If you have to find somebody who can teach you HOW to live again, you do it."
These two. These two random boys had already made me laugh, and had cheered me up a bit. That was something that nobody else had been able to do.
They seem alright, so… ah, what the hell. What can it hurt?
"Hey, uh... Do you fine gentleman mind if I sit with you?" I asked nervously.
"Yeah. Of course." Brunette said, "As long as you don't mind sitting with the school's resident gay kids."
"That makes all three of us, so I amongst my own kind then." He said nonchalantly as we lead him to our table, "Besides, you're both the first people I've met today who are even remotely pleasant. Had a run in with a couple of troglodytes earlier. Had to teach them some manners."
They stared at me for a second. Presumably it was because I admitted my sexuality so casually. They shared a look and nodded.
"Sure, follow us." Brunette said, and I smiled at him gratefully.
We walked over to a table which sat in the grass right under a tree that gives the perfect amount of shade, and sat down. I sat my duffle bag on the table, unzipped it, and produced three twenty ounce bottles of Coca Cola and a thermos. I opened the thermos, which was full of ice, and cracked open one of the bottles and poured the drink into it and took a sip after the fizz had gone down.
"Delicious." I said, before reaching into my bag and producing a roast beef sandwich.
"Um..." Blondie started to say, but rethought it and stayed silent.
"What?"
"Nothing, just... I can't really see what you look like. Your hair and glasses kind of hide it." He said.
"Oh! Okay, hang on." I said.
I removed my hat and sunglasses and shook my hair out of my face, giving them both a small smile.
"So... what accent is that?" Brunette asked instead.
"Scottish." He said, "Born and raised in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland."
"That's cool." Blondie said with a smile, "I've never met anybody from another country before. What was it like?"
"It was alright, until..." I started to say.
Gideon.
"Um. Never mind." I backtracked quickly.
"Oh! We never got your name!" Blondie exclaimed.
"Bollocks, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?" I said, facepalming at my rudeness, "Forgetting my manners. How rude of me, I apologize. My name's Daniel. Daniel Evans. But you can call me Danny."
"Okay, well, I'm Jude. Jude Adams-Foster." The brunette introduced himself.
Hey Jude, don't make it bad…
I couldn't help myself.
"Hey Jude!" I exclaimed, reaching out and shaking Jude's offered hand vigorously, "That's my all time favorite song!"
The other boy burst into a fit of giggles.
"Why does everybody always make that joke?" Jude asked.
"Because it's too obvious." Jude's friend teased, "I'm Connor. Connor Stevens."
Jude and Connor.
I shook Connor's hand with a small smile.
There was something about these two… Something I needed.
Subconsciously, I glanced to the sky, remembering my promise to Gideon.
"Giddy, I think I've found them."