Jerome

Adam (short story)

Sarah,

I am not really sure where to begin, because I’m not really sure how to explain myself. I am not really even sure if I want to, but I thought after last night that something had to be said, and seems as you won’t talk face to face with me, I thought this was the only way. I know most likely that you will just tear this letter into hundreds of little pieces, but at least then you can piece it together again when curiosity gets the better of you – I hope.
To be totally honest with you, I am not sure what, if anything this letter is going to achieve but at least my conscience will be clear, even if that does sound selfish, but maybe in a way I need to do this as much for me as I do for you. And after 8 months, I feel that I at least owe you some sort of explanation. What I can’t stand is that at this moment, you absolutely hate me. It is something I never meant to happen, but it just did. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything earlier, but you know what I am like, I just didn’t want to think about it, as maybe that way it would just go away, but as you well know, none of my problems ever do. Maybe it’s time now to face one of them.
I remember when I first met you 8 months ago, it was our first day of University, both of us arrived completely scared, not knowing what to expect. Just by coincidence, the first person I met was this happy go lucky girl from London, with her long blonde hair and cheerful smile. And lucky me, she was moving in all of three doors down. I couldn’t believe my luck – nor could my Dad, his parting words were have fun but be careful!
That evening we both sat in the kitchen with all the others in our flat, just getting to know each other over a few drinks.
Over the next few weeks all our time was spent together, getting to know one another. I kind of considered you my girlfriend even though we hadn’t kissed or anything – little did we know that everyone else did as well!
When we finally kissed, walking home from the The Parlour, it was complete. It was a case of about time too for all our friends, who had seen the moment waiting to arrive since the first day at uni. But what is strange, is that somehow it wasn’t what I was expecting – I mean, not that I didn’t enjoy it, I did, just as much as I loved your company, but out of everyone I wasn’t expecting it to be how it actually was – crazy isn’t it. I was the one person who didn’t see that coming! I mean, it isn’t nice to say, and I know that you are going to hate me even more, but I just wasn’t attracted to you – so why did I let it go on for 8 months? I just loved your company, there is something about you – this honesty which I just don’t possess. I mean, you were the first person I had ever met that was so comfortable with themselves that you weren’t ashamed to admit that when you arrived here you had had no sexual experience whatsoever, apart from a few kisses playing spin the bottle. I mean, for me that seemed impossible. To this day, I have never told anyone the truth about me, but I don’t know why – I just didn’t feel happy with myself. To be totally honest with you, and believe me you are the first person I have ever told – although you probably figured it out for yourself already – when I came to uni I was a virgin,
in fact I was so inexperienced that my first kiss was actually my first night of university – you remember that random girl at the Freshers event! I don’t even know how it happened, there we all were dancing in a group and this girl just came up and starting dancing with me. Next thing I knew, her tongue was in my mouth – I had no clue what to do – so I just made it up! I think it kind of worked – although I bet it looked pretty messy! I was on such a high afterwards – although, I don’t know if you noticed but I tried to act cool, in order to make it look like I had had loads of previous experience – slagging of the girl’s kissing technique and saying her breath tasted funny – in all honesty I couldn’t believe my luck.
And as you know, I spent the rest of Freshers week partying with various people and snogging as many as I could, although I have to admit I was too frightened to take anyone back to mine, or go back to theirs – I mean – how would I know what to do!
Well, anyway soon enough we had snogged and what a few days after that did we have – neither of us knew whether we were coming or going, until eventually it was just easier to go out than not to, I mean imagine telling everyone after all that build up that actually we weren’t going to get together! I think that they would have probably been more devastated than we would have been!
So, as a result we got to know each other very well. We spent all our time together, and actually I loved it, it gave me a chance to actually properly get to know someone, in a way I had never done before. You were even more honest and frank with me than you had been before, I am so sorry for not sharing that openness with you. I don’t know why I held back, probably just fear, but I want to make it up to you now – and correct all the lies that I led you into believing.
Well, as you know now, before university I was completely inexperienced. And in all honesty, life at home was not quite how I painted it – I mean, you had found part of that out when you visited me.
I mean, to begin with I painted myself as the rich boy from the suburbs, when in fact, my house and family are all pretty regular – it was just my insecurities that mad me feel that I had to build up such a pretty picture. I mean, I didn’t think I was interesting enough, funny enough or whatever for anyone to pay me any attention for longer than a few minutes, so maybe if I came from this well off family with connections then maybe I could make friends that way – I know, I know, how stupid do you get?
Well aside from that little lie, school was not quite how I said it. Of course, I was not the Mr Popular I had painted myself out to be, in fact I was just a Mr Regular. I wasn’t an outsider, but I wasn’t Mr Cool. I got on with people, people got on with me, but I wasn’t at the top of people’s lists nor at the bottom, just somewhere in the middle. My friends at secondary school were just like me, those who got by – and the reason I don’t speak to them now. Well, it isn’t that I just couldn’t be bothered to stay in touch, in fact it was probably all my fault. I mean, somehow I let my insecurities get the better of me. Somehow I got myself into trouble during Sixth Form – well no trouble, just somehow I just started going through a change I couldn’t explain. I still can’t really explain it now, but all of a sudden I felt different, something inside me changed and I realised that I didn’t want this anymore.
All of a sudden I didn’t really see my self in the mirror, or I saw myself but not how I wanted to see myself. And what was worse, I didn’t really like what I saw in the mirror – and, well what they say is true, if you don’t like yourself, then you don’t leave any room for anyone else to like you. Not that they don’t like you, just that you don’t understand it.
These people, my friends, treated me no differently, but all of a sudden, all the things that we had done, all our jokes, the same ones we had always had, just irritated me. I didn’t understand how they could like, why they liked me. I couldn’t see what they found funny, it was as if someone had put blinkers over my eyes. To begin with they just ignored this change, but you can only take someone pushing you away for so long, before you actually go away. There has to be a breaking point – and I reached it.
Do you remember me telling you about that holiday I had with a few of my school friends to celebrate the end of our A Levels? You know, the one – you found the photos hidden in my drawer, I had brought them with but could not bear to look at them, knowing what it had been like, the regret – well that was it. That was our breaking point – I mean, you don’t want to go on holiday and have your mate bringing everything down, and after that holiday I only saw them once again – shame really, but as I said it was my fault.
Maybe now you can understand slightly why I didn’t tell you more. I mean, I saw university as a fresh start, a new page – a place where no one knew me, no one knew what an idiot I had been – a chance to recreate myself – to be the Mr Cool I had always wanted to be. The one who was funny, happy, stylish, just Cool – whatever that means, but somehow I managed it! My new start had worked, I had a fresh start, a clean slate and I knew from the beginning in a way I had messed it up – there was one thing I had not mentioned to anyone – in all the fun, and its not surprising no one picked up on it, thanks to me snogging all those girls during Freshers – but then the other day you found it out – I’m gay.
I know, what a twat I am for having lead you to believe something other, for a whole 8 months I have kept our relationship going because I love being so close to you – loving the feeling that finally I have found someone special to me, someone who understands me, even though I just see it mutually.
And before I say anything more, I just want to apologise for the way you found out, I mean, it couldn’t have been any worse and any further from the way I wanted to tell you. I have been trying since the start, I promise you, but somehow something always gets in the way, or something stops me – maybe, just because I know the consequences and am frightened that I would lose the one person here who actually means something to me. But that does not forgive what you had to go through – the dishonesty.
As you know, Sam and I have been good friends since the beginning, and as you know he unlike me has been honest and upfront since the start – in actual fact, it seems to me now that maybe I am the only one who doesn’t know how to be open to his friends, maybe this is going to be my biggest lesson. Well, just recently, and I want to make it clear that it has only been recently, and not since the beginning, I honestly would not have done that to you, you have to believe me – anyway, just recently, Sam and I have had the chance to talk more deeply. You have been busy with your essays and so instead of sitting in with you in the evenings, I would go round to Sam’s or he would chill round mine and we would just talk. Well, one day, I had had a bit too much to drink, and it finally came out – I mean this thing that had been inside me, the thing that had made me so unhappy through sixth form, the reason I couldn’t look in the mirror, finally cracked, it couldn’t stay contained in me any longer, I just needed to tell someone – and someone that I knew wouldn’t be off with me about it, Sam was perfect – he couldn’t judge me for being gay, in fact he could only help me. I just told him straight, I slipped it in the conversation as if it was no big deal hoping he might no even notice, but thankfully he did and we chatted about it. I have to tell you just how great it felt, it was this major weight lifted off my chest – I have wanted to tell you for ages, but I just couldn’t bring myself to, I didn’t want to hurt or upset you in anyway – well, Sam asked me whether I had ever kissed a man. Did I really know that I was gay – I said no, and that is when I first kissed him. There on my bed, I had wanted to kiss him since the first week – and for the first time it felt like I knew how to kiss. I loved kissing you, but I always just saw it as fun, but this time round it was different – maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the relief that it was finally out in the open, but somehow this time my kiss was electric. I could feel this charge running down my spine, and I just wanted more and more. I know you don’t want to hear it, but that night Sam stopped over, we didn’t really do that much, but messed around a bit – and I know, it took me nearly 4 months to be comfortable enough to do anything, but somehow this felt natural, it felt right. After that, nothing happened until last night, when you walked in on us kissing. I purposely avoided Sam and ignored his messages, I wanted to get everything sorted with you first, I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I was going to, and boy did I know that I was going to hurt you, even more so I knew that I was going to hurt myself – I was going to lose the most special person in my life, the one person I really loved, maybe not in the way they wanted me to love them, but I loved them all the same and still do, so much that it hurts. I knew that I could go no longer without telling you, but I just didn’t know how, and you were so busy with the essays, I knew what pressure you were under that I didn’t want to mess things up for you even more – fat chance of that – I bet they are worse now than if I had of just said, but then yesterday Sam popped round unexpectedly. He wanted to know what was going on, and who can blame him. Well, as you saw I couldn’t resist him and we started off trying to talk things through, but soon enough we couldn’t resist anymore, which is when you walked in. My heart literally stopped that moment, I could not hide anymore, there was no putting it off any longer, my secret was out.
And I have not slept a wink since, I won’t sleep a wink until we talk, that is all I want. Just a chance, I know I don’t deserve it but I am begging, please just think about it rationally, I know you are hurting just as much as me – and I know it is selfish, but I need you. You are the only person here who I understand and who understands me, and now that my secret is out, I need that person to help me through it. But not only do I need you, but I want you, I have never felt so close to anyone before, and I know that I am not who I said I was, or who I pretended to be, but I want to show you the real me now, and I hope that you will like the real me just as much as you did the old one – I am the same person, just without the pretence, on the base level I am still little old lost me – and you are the only person to have ever found me or at least attempted to!
I hope you will read this, I know that you will because you cherish this friendship as much as me. And when you do, please get in touch, somehow, whether you can face to see me or not, any form of contact will do, it is a start after all.
I love you more than you know, and I am eternally sorry, I just hope that somehow you can see through all the lies to forgive me – I know that you are a better person than me, and so
hopefully you will be able to. I just hope that when you are ready you will be able to face me again, Love Always, Adam

posted by Jeremy @ 12:51 pm