It's Time For...

..Teaser Tuesday! (It's been a few weeks, yeah?)

How about...The Animals Were Gone!

This is Craig's point of view, and he's talking about two different boys--Lio, with whom he's hit a rocky point in their very, very tentative relationship, and Cody, the ex-boyfriend who is out of his life but not at all out of his mind.

--

Things I always liked about Lio:

The gaps between his canines and the rest of his teeth that make him look like a vampire or a really dangerous puppy.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn't cold.

The fact that the teachers stopped making him take his hats off after the first week, probably because his hair is so fucked up.

The scar from the central line he had, and how he wears tank tops that let it show and acts like he doesn't give a shit who sees, and explains when people ask about it, with a small smile to show he doesn't mind that they asked, and plays with it, running his fingers across it and pinching the scar tissue when he thinks no one's looking.

His voice, low and gravelly, like he's always getting over a cold.

Things I now hate:

His stupid smiles he makes me work for.

His stupid multicolored hair that he never lets me see because of those hats he wears even though he isn't cold.

The fact that I probably won't be mad at him a few hours because he's so fucking charmed.

Cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy cancer boy, I get it.

His silence.

***

So Cody's dad's death pretty much destroyed my boy, and as much as we didn't want it to destroy us, as hard as we worked, as hard as I worked...

God, I held on. I held on so hard.

When he was screaming. When he was crying. When he was telling me he hated me and why hadn't I died instead. That time he slapped me across the face and shrieked that I bring him back. The time he shoved me across the room and told me if he ever saw me again he'd kill me himself, and called me two hours later, baby I'm so sorry, baby I'm just so sad and I don't know what to do and my therapist says I BLAH BLAH BLAH

When he said he was going to buy a gun and get revenge himself, and I told him no--not because I thought that was wrong, but because I knew he wouldn't go to Afghanistan and I was worried he would go to me or his mother or his therapist.

So they eventually shipped him off, not to Afghanistan, but to some hospital and then some school, and I never visited him, not once, and it took so long before he asked me to visit, and it should be simple to say no, I can't, I won't do it again, I can't, but it isn't, because he fell asleep crying in my arms so many times, and he called me Lollipop, and he told me I was the only thing, the only thing in the entire huge bad scary world, that helped.

***

So fuck frozen cold hearts, because who are they helping?

Fuck you, frozen cold heart.