Redemption
All characters lifted from Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho", I own nothing.
Mike was fed up with his existence. Existence, yeah that was right, it wasn't like it could be called a life. Being used and abused for money, hiring himself out to weirdos who had no hope of ever meeting anyone through the regular channels, just to earn some cash. What an existence that was. Why was he doing this? How had he sunk to such depths? He knew the answer, it was simple; he was too poor and too far gone to do anything else. It was too late to change now, no-one would ever give him the chance, not with his past. He wasn't like Scott, who could just walk into an inheritance and have his slate magically wiped clean.
Scott. Scott Favor.
That bastard. Mike had loved him, and he had just abandoned him. In Italy no less, left him for some cheap Italian floozy. Left Mike alone in a strange country. And his justification? "I'm in love, man." Well so what? What difference did love make? None. Mike had loved him and it had meant nothing.
He had known that he had no chance with Scott right from the very beginning. Scott didn't, couldn't, love guys; he just wasn't averse to doing them for money. He'd always said it was just for the money, if you did it for free you would grow wings and become a fairy. Fairy. Scott's words sounded so harsh, negative and bad. Mike loved Scott, and Scott didn't pay him, did that make Mike a fairy? If so, it didn't feel negative or bad, it felt right, the one thing Mike was sure of in his whole life. Scott had said once "Two guys can't love each other". The words rang in Mike's ears. How could they be true? That would mean that Mike was wrong; that the blood rushing in his veins and pounding in his ears, the butterflies in his stomach, every fibre of his being that screamed for Scott, was all a lie. How could that be? It just couldn't, how he felt for Scott was something so obviously central to his being that it couldn't be a lie. It had to be true. True what though? True love? Yeah right, love.
Mike scoffed at the idea. No, he was wrong, it wasn't love, love didn't exist, it was a myth, a fairy tale. Love couldn't exist. For love to exist people had to be good and honest and true and they weren't. Mike had seen enough of humanity to know that. He knew that people lied, and let you down, and cared for no-on but themselves. But if it wasn't love, then what was it?