An Excercise in Writing Limes
To say I'm in love would be trite, so I just won't do it. Instead I'll simply tell you that I'm a nineteen-year-old college freshman, and that I feel strongly about a lot of things. The first of which is my academic career, the second of which is Daniel. I won't bore you with long descriptions of his curly brown hair that falls to his shoulders, or how his blue eyes shine when he's talking about his latest story.
It's true. He's a writer. Go ahead and moan and talk about how typical it is for the freshman to fall for the "sensitive man" that can write poetry. I'll ignore you; it's not like I haven't berated myself about it before. We only have one class together, but I spend it staring at the back of his head, hating myself for doing it. I write endless repetitious lines of nonsense in my notebook so that my teacher thinks I'm paying attention, but I'm not.
It didn't break my heart to hear that he "swung both ways." He didn't tell me directly, but it only takes once or twice for a person to notice that the boy sitting next to them is checking out the other men. They were vague comments at first, then there was a vague allusion to the sweet gay couple a few tables over, and I realized he just wasn't "cut from the same mold as the rest of us." He finally admitted it one night during a deep philosophical discussion of alien sex. I wouldn't ask about that if I were you, just allow me to tell you he finally said that he was gay.
I doubt that my jaw dropped or that my face turned red, I had been expecting the revelation. I was quite relieved that he finally told me. After that, the comments were more frequent, and one night while we were searching for limes in the grocery store, he frowned as he pretended to examine the small green fruit and finally asked me if it bothered me. I lied of course. Oh, don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me really. But the first close friend to admit homosexuality is always...different.
Yeah, laugh. I don't mind. I'm quite used to it. It's such a typical story, and I get quite sick of telling it. I've told myself a million times that I should just get over it and say something to him.
How do you tell your best friend something like that? I almost cry whenever I think about the way that we act together, I know most of our friends probably already think that we're dating. I don't want to tell them that they are misinformed, but he's never hesitated to remind them that he is not interested in me. I don't know what to say, do I just go up to him one night and say, "Hey Dan, by the way, I'm so obsessed with you I can't think about anything else and I think I'm going to fail my Sociology test. How was your afternoon?"
I just don't think that it works that way. So I stood around and did nothing, it's my usual way of doing things. I had intended to keep my mouth shut forever, I had done it before. Every two weeks, we went grocery shopping at three a.m. in order to avoid the crowds, and those were the nights when I had to bite my lip. It was also one of those nights that I slipped.
We were buying limes again; Dan really loved them for some odd reason. I was acting like the small pits in the rind were the most amazing things I had ever seen so that I wouldn't see that small smile he got when he was selecting the perfect fruit. He was smelling the small green lump, squeezing it slightly when he glanced over at me and decided to give me a heart attack.
"Hey, Kevin...something on your mind?" He stood and tossed one last lime into the bag. "You've been weird around me lately."
I had the standard reaction, heart jumping into my throat, stomach flipping, the whole deal. I wonder how long it took for me to decide what to say. I just remember him looking at me until I answered. To say it was unnerving would have been the understatement of the week.
I was cursing my misfortune for at least five and a half seconds. I would have completely suppressed my feelings, and never had a problem if Dan had only been straight. I wouldn't have had to think about if he returned my feelings, I would have known that it was impossible. Now there was a chance, and those tiny chances are the worst things sometimes.
Would it surprise you to say that I told him? I'm sure, after what I've said that you wouldn't believe me. Or maybe you'd see that as the normal progression of the story, and you'd yawn because it bored you. Well, I'm not asking you to listen to me for long; I just want to say how I feel.
And I didn't tell him. Not directly, I just mentioned that I was having some problems dealing with how close we were getting. It was as close to the truth as I could get at the time really. Looking back, I'm almost glad I didn't say anything then. But it still puts me in the position of having to find out just how slim my chance is. Maybe I'll get lucky, maybe things will work out in the typical college romance fashion, and he'll finally admit how he's felt about me all along. Or maybe he'll find somebody and leave like everybody else.
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