A Final Dance

 People ask me about the day she died.  But I don’t like that story.  That’s a bad story.  I don’t want to tell you that one.  That one hurts.  I don’t know how to describe, but it feels like my heart was ripped from my chest and laid on the table, and all I could do was sit there and watch the beating die down to stillness.But that’s a bad story, and I don’t want to tell it.Let me tell you about the days she lived.  Or perhaps the day she brought me to life.Which one?  There were so many!The day we met?Alright, I can tell you that.

I sit in the park with dusk approaching, facing a small, candle-lit vigil.  A world cast in pink and yellow.  A cool zephyr bites my face and I watch the candles dance to the music of the wind.  Today they’re the only ones dancing.  Tomorrow the rest of the world will move on and no one will speak her name.  Her picture is there, several of them lifted from her social media and printed out, laminated.“Did you know her?” they ask me.  Did I know her.Did I fucking know her.I was gay.  Today I laugh.  It all seemed so important, then.Gay.The word stung me the first time it came from Rachel’s lips.  Her plush, sweet, appetizing lips.  Her venomous lips.“He’s gay.”The thing is, I wasn’t mad at her.  I was at first, but that soon changed.  There was that initial moment when you hear something like that from a girl you’re

Sara Temptation had never been with a guy before; she’d told me as much.  She’d never kissed a guy, never been on a date with a guy, never had a boyfriend, nothing.  So she was about as experienced with the opposite sex as I was.Of course in her case, it made sense.  Guys weren’t her thing, so I didn’t think anything of it; otherwise I’d have had to call shenanigans.  A straight girl like her?  Single?  Yeah right.But then she also got a kick out of arousing me, which unto itself was pretty arousing.  So, I played along and let it all hang out with her.  And I don’t know if you’ve ever had a friend like that, but you’re missing out if you haven’t.  One morning she texted me to find out what’s the sexiest thing I could i

Friday.So.Are you thinking what I was thinking?Um… So Sara Temptation was a straight female, meaning that she was attracted to guys.I was a guy.Well, I still am, but you know what I mean.Hey, these days, that point does need to be clarified, you know.  But whatever.  That Sara was straight shouldn’t have been big news for any normal, rational, thinking human being.  But then I was not normal, and as you can see I’m definitely not rational, and my thinking process is a little off.Regardless, I started to put th

SundayIt was morning.  I did not sleep well for anticipation of the coming day.  It was all I could think about; I was going to go over to Sara’s house, and we would spend the day just the two of us.Sara.This girl was so beautiful the sun paid tribute at her feet.  She was going to be home alone for the entire evening, and she wanted me to come over.  Me.  No other friends, no family, no one else to look and see, no one else to watch out for, no custodial staff to walk in on us, just total me and her time.I had a bowl of granola cereal with raisins and half a grapefruit for breakfast, and I couldn’t inhale it fast enough.  The only question was how to get over there; sh