Follow Carmen, a young and deeply closeted gay teenager as he navigates the 1980's and 1990's yearning for love and trying to find where he fits in.
This story is rated M because it contains elements of death (including children), homophobia, religi...
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I was not dealing with the loss of David well. I was fourteen years old, sad, alone, and not understanding why the world around me seemed to hate me so much. It had to be me. I was the common factor in all of those failed relationships. Somewhere out there Aiden and even Colin were happily living their lives and had probably forgotten all about me, and here I was all alone. Furthermore, while I knew it was common for teenage romances to fail, most teenagers don't have to go through those failures by themselves. They could at least talk to friends and family. I had nobody that I could talk about my feelings with. I was utterly alone, and I was utterly miserable. I did not have the heart to even get on with life. I did not care anymore, and this manifested itself in everything from my relationship with my family to my school grades. While before I would sit in school and daydream about being with David, now I just stared blankly ahead not taking in anything.
Even the teachers stopped bothering to ask me questions in class. I did not do any work in class, I did not do any homework after class. I was merely occupying a seat. Still, somehow I managed to keep passing those classes because I would ace the tests even though I had done no work. The high test scores balanced out the poor scores for class participation, missed projects, etc, so I managed to squeak through. I was sinking into a deep depression, one that would last for many years. There would be high times and there would be low times, but that depression was always there, always lurking.
After school I would go home and lie in bed. Sometimes I would turn the stereo on, often I would not. I was simply existing. I'd make appearances at meals, pick away at my food, but would not interact with anyone. My parents were concerned at first, wondering what was wrong with me but of course I couldn't tell them. I could never tell them. Carman's advice was really starting to make sense now – if I told them why I was upset and they rejected me now I would not have been able to handle it.
Their concern for me gave way to frustration, then to anger. Especially Dad. He placed a high value on education, and I was blowing my schooling to bits. This created a lot of friction between us, often culminating in screaming matches. He would ground me to my room to try to force me to do my homework and I would just lie down and stare at the ceiling. It got so bad that the school guidance counsellor got involved. She pried and pried, but as she was digging I would look at the crucifix on her chest, the pictures of Jesus all over her office walls, the ever present Bible on her desk. If there was anyone on Earth that I would not be telling the reason for my problems to, it was this creature sitting before me, judging me. I didn't need to hear about her hell. I was already there.
March turned into April, which slipped by into May. I hardly even noticed the passage of time. One fine Saturday morning Dad came down into my bedroom carrying a brand new fishing rod. It was a Shakespeare 'Ugly Stik', my favourite rod ever, one I had always wanted (and the one Colin had owned before). Attached to this rod was a shiny new Shimano reel. In his other hand was a new tackle box.
"This is going to end today", he said as he sat on my bed. I just looked at him.
"You are not going to spend the rest of your life wasting away in this bedroom. The weather is nice out. I want you to go fishing."
