The moan he had heard that had escaped Gilbert’s lips kept echoing in his brain long after he had left that horrific scene in the forest. ‘What was Gilbert doing there?’ he thought as he lay in the bed motionlessly while swimming in the ocean of his thoughts. No, he knew what was happening there. His mind just won’t process it. The night felt darker than ever, even when the moon shined as brightly as it ever could. It felt like a grim shadow had surrounded him, devouring him.
He heard a voice then, from within himself, as if a demon had gotten conjured up within him, who whispered, ‘The problem isn’t with Gilbert….. It’s with you’.
How could he like some, someone like Gilbert, someone of the same gender? He vigorously started tapping on the rigid part of the bed, which was the headrest.
The demon spoke again, ‘You can never give him the thing that satiates him?’, then came a long chuckle; each little snicker made the hair on his body stand. ‘The demon was right’, he thought, ‘How could I be this stupid! I’m not well…. No, I’m ill. How could I forget that! But there isn’t any medicine there to fix me, not that I know of……’. ‘What should I do?’, this sentence kept ringing in his ears, and it felt like he could hear it, coming from everywhere around him, and with each repetition, his tapping intensified. He did not have any type of control over his body at that time. He was about to go into a trance-like state when a suggestion popped up in his brain, ‘I could tell my mom, she could help me find a cure’, but then the answer came flashing in his mind, ‘No-No she, she’d freak out, she’d think I’m a, I’m an abomination. No, No, NO!’.
He felt like his head was about to explode. His fingers, which had been tapping on the bed, travelled to his forehead, and with it came his palm. His hand instinctively started thumping his forehead, but then the demon spoke again, this time more grimly than ever, ‘But that’s not the only thing wrong with you, is it? You don’t feel the urge that makes them human. The lust, the desire for someone to touch you, to feel your body, TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD FROM THEIR TOUCH. If you don’t feel that, then what are you? Are you even human’. Air wouldn’t reach his lungs as his hand kept abusing his forehead, making it bruise, but suddenly someone was hugging him, holding him tightly. Their warm embrace soothed him, and suddenly he could breathe again, and that’s when it happened; a tear fell from his nearly desolate eyes. And then another, and soon he was drowning Garrett’s shirt in his tears as he kept himself latched to him like Garrett were the only thing keeping him alive like if it weren’t for Garrett, he would probably be dead, rotting.
“It’s the second time this week”, Garrett said to Abner, who was laying his head in his lap, as he brushed his fingers in his hair, “You know there is nothing wrong with you, right?……. Some people like one thing, while some like the other. Even between us...... I do many things that you don’t like…… like, I like to eat the berry pie our mother makes, but you find it disgusting, but that doesn’t make me…… bad, right?”. There was a silence that followed his innocent argument. ‘I wish it were that simple, Garrett, I wish it were’, he said, but his lips didn’t move.