"Eat your food sweetheart, don't play with it," John's mother cooed. She didn't look up from her ritualistic morning paper. She always knew. John looked down at his biscuit floating in his tea cup, the chocolate sticking to the side of the cup. He ate the biscuit half-heartedly and then sat down next to his sister who's eyes were glued to the morning cartoons.
"Harry, want to go outside?" John asked. One of his favorite activities being tree-climbing, Butch Cassidy wasn't precisely stimulating for the seven year old.
"Not now, I'm watching," Harry replied.
John sighed, and made his way towards the back door. Once he closed the door he eyed his favorite tree and walked towards it with purpose. He put a small hand onto the bark, and then jumped up to grab a hold of a branch. He'd scaled this tree many times, and mostly alone. Harry staying indoors was nothing new or bothersome. John liked to be alone anyway.
Once he had made it to the top of the tree, he settled down between two branches and looked at his surroundings. He could see every house on his street from here, and as his eyes searched the lawns and picket fences, his eyes fell on his classmate Marcus. Marcus lived two houses down and was just barely older than John, though much taller. John watched the other boy from his perch, and felt his face go warm. Marcus was lying in the grass, eyes looking up at the sky. The boy reached his hand up, as if to touch a cloud and then slowly and gently brought the hand back down to his chest. John swallowed, and allowed his own hand to reach out. When he did however, he lost his balance. As John fell down onto the grass he wondered why he had done it, reached out, wanting to touch.
Luckily, upon impact, no bones jutted out from any limbs. Though his right arm certainly did not work properly. John began to cry, and his mother came bolting out of the house, newspaper still in hand.
"What happened?" She asked, eyebrows furrowing together, hands grasping at the sides of John's face.
"I fell," John choked out through sobs.
"Oh I knew this would happen one of these days. Come on, let's get you inside, we're going to the doctor."
John's mother lifted him in her arms and cradled his head. John kept his eyes shut, letting the salt water fall into his mouth and down his cheeks, face burning red all the while.
Later, after having his arm put in a cast and being fed chocolates, John heard his mother talking to his father in hushed tones.
"He never falls, what happened?" His father asked.
"I dunno, I didn't ask. He was so upset."
The first time John Watson looks at a boy and feels his face flush, he breaks his bones.
_
Harry isn't a whole lot older than John, to a ten year old, thirteen seems light years away. Harry started talking about how every single one of her friends was trying to get boy's attention. But Harry didn't try, she already had it. Her long blond hair and blue eyes made her impossible to miss. Boys would call the house and John would ask Harry "there's a boy on the phone for you, what should I tell 'em this time?" Because John knew Harry wouldn't take any of their calls.
"Dunno, just make something up. Tell him I'm being punished and can't use the telephone," Harry would reply, rolling her eyes and barely looking up from her book. John would put the phone back to his ear and sigh.
If every girl Harry knew wanted boy's attention, why wasn't Harry trying? Why wasn't Harry trying? Wasn't she like everyone else?
It happened on a Tuesday when John was eleven. Susie Chapman's delicate little hands shoved him hard onto the ground, and as John went toppling backwards, he pulled Susie down with him, his hands on her elbows, and she was lying against his chest, angry and grinding her teeth.
"WATSON YOU'RE A GIT!" She screeched into his ears.
"I didn't DO anything, you're the git!" John said sternly back, his eyes never leaving hers for a moment, those stupid muddy brown eyes. Susie's curls were falling into his mouth, and John moved his hands to get her hair out of his face when he suddenly felt the softness of it, and stopped moving his fingers. John stared up at Susie, who had the oddest look on her face.
"What?!" She growled.
John didn't have an answer, but he kissed her cheek.
"Oh…" Susie trailed off. She then very suddenly picked herself up off of John, scrambled onto her feet, and swiftly turned away from him, walking quickly towards the swings, hands balled into fists at her sides. John felt his face go warm, and he laid his head back down on the grass, eyes closed, thinking about brown for the next several hours.
_
Harry was caught with Cecelia three days after her fifteenth birthday. John hadn't the slightest what had been happening at the time, he only understood after the fact. He had been writing his history essay, sharpening his pencil for the seventh time, when his mother had come into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.
"Do you know where your father is?" His mother had asked him, tight lipped, voice neutral, all the while knuckles white against the granite.
"I think he's outside in the yard," John had said, brushing pencil shavings off his paper, creating smudges across the words.
"Go get him…please," his mother said, closing her eyes, exhaling slowly.
"Okay," John said, and lifted himself from his chair, pushing the back door open.
His father had been sitting in a lawn chair and had looked up from his book and glass of red wine and smiled at John as he walked towards him.
"Yes, John?" his father had asked.
"Mum wants you, dunno what for. She's in the kitchen."
"Alright."
They had gone inside together, and John had sat back down into his chair when his mother had looked at him sternly and said "Go to your room, John."
"But I'm doing homework!" John protested.
"Do it in your room."
John had never seen his mother's face quite like this. He picked up his work and headed down the hall to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Somehow he knew to close the door.
About three minutes passed, and that's when he heard Harry's shouting. She was full on crying, screaming, incoherent. Right outside his bedroom door John had heard the most pleading voice, it didn't seem to be real.
"Please don't take her from me," Cecelia had said. Quite, wet, but trying to be strong.
"You're going home now. We're taking you home. Harry, stay here," John heard his father say through the door.
"Dad, PLEASE!" Harry had shrieked. She was silenced though, it was obvious no one was listening to her.
That night, when John had decided it was safe to leave his room to relieve himself, he found his sister curled up over the toilet, reeking of fermented fruit, lips stained red.
"Harry?" John had whispered. It was past midnight. Well past. Harry turned to look at John, her blond hair falling over her face, hiding it, hiding everything.
"I love her, I'm sorry," Harry said, then coughed.
John never saw Cecelia after that.
_
He finds himself thinking these things, and forcing them down, because all he can see is his sister's red stained lips. He stops every thought of it in his tracks.
His mouth, his hair, his neck, his shoulders, his bare shoulders, the patch of freckles covering his left shoulder, his calves, his arms, the veins in his hands.
Red lips, red lips, red lips. He's only fifteen, but he knows.
He met Amelia when he was seventeen. Her dark skin under his mouth made him nearly cry and when he kissed her he swore she killed him. She was an ethereal being, and he worshiped the ground she walked on. Every single time he said he loved her, he meant it. Even when he said it before he hung up the phone, even when he walked her to her car, even when he had already said it eight times that same day. He loved the way she kissed, the other girls he had kissed didn't know how to kiss. He wanted to be good for her, so when he touched her for the first time he said "Tell me what you want. Tell me what's good, what's not, when I'm right, when I'm wrong." John had never done any of this before, but he wanted to be good. And she did tell him. And he tasted her wet in his mouth, undone. She did the same for him. He loved her.
_
He didn't want to leave her, but he had to. He had done so well in school that he fancied himself a doctor. Doctor Watson. It had a nice ring to it. They both cried, and John thought that probably helped.
The same night he went to university his roommate Evan invited him to a party. He was eighteen years old and after the goodbye he'd said today, John Watson imagined he could have a drink, or several, come to think of it. He had four beers and John didn't drink much and suddenly he was with his roommate, walking back to their room, holding his hand. He didn't know why. He just was. It didn't feel like a betrayal. They had gone running around, they had broken into a dormitory that wasn't their own, and John had been laughing so hard, and it was four a.m.
When they got back to the room, Evan turned the key into the lock and nearly fell onto the floor as he pushed the door open. John laughed loudly, and Evan shushed him.
"We'll get caught, shut up!" Evan hissed, his dark hair shaggy, falling into his face, needing to be cut, needing to be pushed away. They both sat down on their separate beds, and John began to think again. He imagined;
Brushing knuckles against his stubble, feeling how rough it is, feeling how coarse his thick hair is, his hands, long fingers, his gapped two front teeth, what else is in his mouth? What else has he got?
Evan moved across the room to John's bed, put a hand on his cheek. He bent down but. But. John moved away. He didn't know what was happening, but he wouldn't do that. Not to her.
"What is it?" Evan asked, and then a look of horror crossed his face. "Oh God, you don't like men do you? Oh, God…"
"No! No it's not…"
Not what? What was he not?
"No really it's okay, I'm sorry," Evan said.
"No, it's that I've got someone."
Evan's mouth made an 'O' and he sighed. "Who's the lucky bloke then?"
"Her name is Amelia."
"So you don't like boys. Right, sorry. I'm a real wanker I just thought…"
"I didn't say I…don't like boys. I just said. I've got a girlfriend," John replied. The words came out easily after several beers and adrenaline pumping, were coming out easy as this boy looked at him like he understood.
"Have you ever…kissed a boy?"
"No."
"You want to, huh?"
"Yes," he admitted. Eighteen years, and there it was.
"She doesn't need to know, John. This isn't about her…" Evan trailed off. John knew somehow that he was right, but also knew it would feel all wrong.
"No, no I can't do that."
"I…I'm tired. Goodnight, John," Evan said. Evan smiled at him, took his hand away from John's cheek, and curled into his own bed."
John didn't know why, but he felt frustration rise in him. He felt trapped. And it continued this way.
_
John felt it trying to fall asleep in the same room as Evan, he felt it in class, in the library, at the bottom of beer bottles. He sometimes felt in between his legs, his hand there. He felt it and he hated himself. He rightly hated himself. He was afraid to see her, see Amelia. How could he be afraid to see her?
He felt trapped, he felt smothered, he felt confused, he had no right to be with anyone. So he ended it. There was no explaining it to Amelia, that was the worst of it. He couldn't explain it because that'd make it worse.
It's not you, it's me, it's bullshit.
He did kiss Evan, once. It was shockingly different than kissing a girl, alarmingly so. The face shape all different, the body underneath his so much sturdier. They didn't do anything else though. Evan just said it was okay because John never had. Now you have, there you go.
He felt freer somehow, after that.