He came out of the shadows like a wolf, and I—like a doe—startled and resisted the urge to flee. I studied him, as prey observes the predator; he was lean and dark-featured as night, yet his voice was soothing, like the sea before it crashes on the beach. His mouth parted momentarily as he placed a cigarette between his lips. We spoke for a while, exhaling tendrils of sweet poison and shivering in the cold. My initial reservations subsided as we acquainted; the next day, I asked him to sit beside me in class.
In the days that followed, we became as one unit—talking, working, studying, eating, breathing together. In all things, we were so alike and so different at the same time, complementing each other in what we individually lacked. I knew of his mounting attraction—and made no effort to hide my own—but I refused to acknowledge the beginnings of what I knew to be affection. Yet like all sprouts, which have an inherent mechanism to blossom, my fondness for him grew and I could not hide it from those who knew me well.
The following is an account of my expressions, memoirs marked from the beginning by dreams, sadness, hope, joy and fear.
In the beginning, I was not alone. I was loved and feared and needed, as a child is to its mother. For two years, I smiled when I had to, laughed when the occasion called for it, made love when I was yearned for and dreamed against my own desires. All this I did for a man, and for the illusion of perfect love. I cannot in fairness say that I was unhappy. I loved him well, and made sacrifices—as all people must—to ensure the survival of our relationship. But in doing so, I forgot what it was to be myself. I was fooled into contentedness, I settled into being someone else’s prized possession, and I refused myself a life outside his own. All the while, someone else consumed my thoughts, and the struggle which followed, a conflict between two men, is the tale that I am about to weave.
Comments