Jesse

17: Choice is all we're given

Ian Greene

17: Choice is all we're given

            Of course I lied to Jesse. I mean I didn't want to, but I felt like I didn't have any other choice. It was an easy way out of this. But as I sat there, alone, Jesse long gone, I realized there was no easy way out of this. I had kissed him. I had done it.

            Jesse was not at blame here. I was.

            But I had done it for a reason. I could blame me being drunk, but that wasn't it. I did it simply because I wanted to dammit. I have lied to myself every day. Every single day since…

            I don't want to think about that. I needed to tell Jesse.

            I love him.

            I can't really describe it—the way I feel when I'm around him. I'm the me that has been hiding so long. Not this person I look at in the mirror. Not the person my parents knows. Not even the Ian my so called friends know me as, what little I have here, and back home in New York.

            The thought went through my head again. I love him. I love Jesse McLeod.

            But I hated myself. I hated myself for everything. For kissing him. But I didn't regret it. At all. I had told him, I would make it up. But how? Tell him everything? It was the damn truth, wasn't it?

            I would take Jesse to New York sometime, maybe this Christmas, when we would go back to visit the family. My parents wouldn't mind. We could share the same bed. Make love. Be free. But it would still be a lie. Nothing but a lie. Because it would still be hidden.

            That was why I keep telling myself, I really like Jena. Because she's a girl. That's who you were supposed to love. That's what your parent's want you to do. Every father and mother's dream, to see their little boy all grown up, marry the GIRL of his dreams, have children, and live fucking happily ever after.

            Sometimes, in life there were no happily ever afters.

            I don't know who I am anymore. Once I thought was normal. Once I thought that I was like everybody else. I fit into this world's design. But now…

            I sat there on my bed, staring out of window, just thinking. Thinking about everything. Mostly Jesse. He was the only reason that kept me sane here. That made this place seem a little like home. And I had let him go.

            Fuck. Dammit, I wished more anything you could just wish your emotions away. Tell your heart what to feel. But then it wouldn't be right.

            I realized I had been sitting there for a couple of hours.

            "Are you okay, Ian?" someone spoke, startling me.

            It was Mom. She was standing at my door. I looked at her, and nodded, looking away again. "Yeah, I'm fine."

            "You sure?—Problems with Jena?"

            "No, Mom, I'm fine."

            "Alright: you still going over to her place tonight?"

            I silently nodded.

            "Okay, you better get ready soon." Then she was gone.

            I had watched a car—a white, old Honda—pull into Jesse's driveway. It sat there idle for a minute. I saw Jesse open his door, lock it, and leave the house. As he approached the car, someone got out and met him. It was a girl, in a tank top and jean shorts. She had long honey brown hair. Who was she?