Sauli
Life in Finland was incredibly dull sometimes, so when my parents announced we were taking our first ever family vacation, I was beyond excited. I was spending my summer break in a small beach house on the coast of California. The unaccustomed heat against my pale skin and the persistant glow of the sun beneath my eyelids was exactly what I needed. This was the closest I'd come to feeling normal in a very long time. I was what the people in school would call weird and anti-social. I didn't think I was anti-social, I just hated being around people. Which I think is the exact definition of anti-social… but I'm not worried about the technicalities. I loved spending my free time reading books, writing short stories and fantasizing about the day that I could come out to my parents without them shooting me on the spot. Oh yea, that's another thing, I'm gay. I would be a happy, openly gay 17 year old if it weren't for my extremely conservative and homophobic parents. I never understood how a parent could tell their child that they will love them no matter what and then turn around the next day and say "Oh yea, did I forget to tell you the terms of our conditional love? We will love you no matter what…. As long as you aren't gay". Well, so was life right? I was just waiting for that glorious day when I would turn 18 and be able to move out, start my own life and never have to live in fear of my parent's ignorant wrath. If that meant severing any (however strained) relationship we had, so be it.
I had had plenty of crushes before and they were all dismissed later on, after seeing the same boy making out with a girl behind the school or getting to 2nd base at a school dance. I could live with that. That was just an inevitable downside to being an alternate sexuality, you were unfairly outnumbered by hot guys who only cared about girls and getting in their pants. It would be nice if one of the openly gay guys at my school (there weren't that many) showed any kind of interest in me of course, but seeing as I was pretty much a loner who didn't talk to anybody, I found that to be a bit of an overly hopeful stretch. I knew I wasn't ugly, but I wasn't exceptionally attractive either. I wore primarily dark, average looking clothes and my short, sandy brown hair was usually swept off to the side of my face or shoved unceremoniously behind my ears. I wasn't afraid of being who I was, but nobody ever gave me the opportunity to show it.
It was the summer of my sophomore year and I was feeling better than ever, a strange confidence seeming to envelope me as I basked beneath the sun. I was sitting on a deck chair in just my ashamedly cliché, floral print swim trunks, sighing contentedly at the rare serenity I was experiencing. I had some pretty respectable abdominal muscles, as I worked on them regularly, so I didn't feel particularly self-conscious shirtless. That is, until he walked by. Any sense of confidence or peacefulness I may have had was viciously stomped on and tossed out the window by a certain tall, dark (haired, anyway) and handsome guy. He was much taller than me, by six inches at least, and his raven black hair swooped perfectly over one eye. The other eye was visible from my vantage point and it completely took my breath away. His eyes were a striking, ethereal grey, so bright and clear I felt that I was lost in them from 15 feet away. He was shirtless (we were on a beach) and his body was gloriously toned and shaped. His light skin reflected the sun beautifully and gave him a slight aura, making him look even more like angelic than he would have otherwise. His face was unlike anything I had ever seen before; his high cheekbones defined and perfectly set, his small rounded nose giving him an endearing innocence, his brilliant smile turning the whole atmosphere around him from nice to ecstatic, and those intensely vivid eyes giving his whole face a mischievous mystery. Long story short, I couldn't take my eyes off of him.
I probably could have kept staring at him for hours if it weren't for that one piercing glance that I received from this gorgeous mystery man ad he turned his head slightly. The eye contact didn't last long as I broke the gaze immediately, feeling my cheeks and ears flush a deep crimson as I wrapped my arms around my chest, popped up from my chair and stumbled back into our cabin.
"Oh Sauli! It's so good to see you outside getting some much needed vitamin D! You did put on sun screen right?" My overprotective mother hurled at me as I ran through the cabin up to my room. I could still hear her blabbing as I shut the door to my room hurriedly. I knew that my parents worried about my quiet disposition and lack of social contact with kids my age, but they failed to understand that bombarding me with questions and undeserving praise of being their "perfect son" wasn't helping much. I flung myself onto the bed as I flew into my small room and covered my face with my hands.
"Stupid, stupid, STUPID!" I muttered angrily to myself. I was getting all worked up over this guy who probably didn't even notice me as he walked by in his radiant perfection. Even if he had, what are the odds that a guy like that would even be interested in a guy like me? Frankly, what are the odds that he was even interesting in guys at all? About 0. At this point in my life I should be used to that, but there was something different about him. I stood up and walked toward my mirror, suddenly feeling the familiar self-consciousness and inadequacy I was so used to wash over me. I righted my slouching back and pushed my hair back from my face. I looked at my features, scrutinizing every curve and line. I had pretty un-spectacular, light blue eyes that always looked a little dull. I had a long nose that stood out just a little too far for me to be comfortable with and a large forehead. I had thin eye brows that always made me look like I was contemplating something, and "girl eyelashes" that opened the door for a great deal of taunting in previous years. I had a defined chin but not so much that it made me look like a cartoon character, and relatively defined cheekbones. I had never paid much attention to my appearance because nobody else ever had.
I didn't know whether to be giddy that that incredibly sexy guy had looked at me or embarrassed that he had seen me, so inferior to him. My best bet was to fall back to my normal routine of sitting alone in my room for the rest of the day.