Matthew

I sat in class learning about yet another formula in which wouldn't dare touch my mind, until the day we were randomly quizzed on it and I was panicked at the thought of remembering it.

My foot tapped the floor earning me several stares and eye rolls and a,

"Who ever is doing that can you stop"

The thoughts of what could happen and what I wanted to happen chased me, the thoughts of morality and sin, of me doing only what my parents want me to do. As I was taught over the last decade God and my parents should come before anything, I should do what I would want my parents to see.

Or rather what I was taught by my brother , who was by now in a drunken state, do what you want that isn't too dumb. As long as you repent you should be fine.

Or rather what I mustered in a decade and a half. But what I mustered was the offspring of my surroundings. As is everyone's.

So I made a game plan to not over socialise with him and to enjoy what I could whilst keeping a slight distance. Of course game plans hardly go as planned, rather being left stranded as the tsunami gathers us. Rendering us helpless, hopeless.

The need to once more taste the cherry lip balm that he wore, to feel them compress against mine in an act of passion and youthful temerity. The need to fill my heart with his own.

But need was the brother of lust, so as to distinguish the two you wonder to yourself is that what Jesus would do. Or rather is that what my parents -though they were themselves mortal men dancing on the fertile floor, searching for meaning - would have me act.

If your answer is no then it's most likely an earthly desire in which your whole congregation can agree is best left in the pits of hell. Where the souls of the immoral lay, in eternal discomfort.

The thought that if I were to ever act upon such a desire as the one that laid deep within me bore questions in which I can't remember. Question that bothered me daily but eventually became locked in a cell so as to not remind myself of who I once was.

"Hey trick" she waved at me with an off putting smile as though it were frantically layered on mere moments earlier.

"Are you okay," I asked though I was most unfit to arouse such a question.

"Yeah, just the same old insensitive bastards," she giggled malevolently, she was hurt though admitting was hard.

"Do you wanna a hug ?" She shook her head the same smile dancing upon her lips, her lips that by now seemed chapped and filled with scabs of a malicious pain.

"I was going to ask why you didn't tell me about the trip ?"

My eyes dared to look at hers, knowing a paltry lie would escape.

"I don't know, I guess I forgot. It's not a big deal anyway."

There it was, having left with the ease of a man just realising that any minute his balls where to be twisted with gargantuan force.

Her eyes looked at me, donning an thwarted and irked shade.

"Okay"

She smiled once more and turned on her heels, then looked over her shoulder.

"Bye trick," a peace sign becoming my vision.

I smiled a goodbye back at her, before turning my vision to the next class I had. As fate would have it, the usually joyous snarl that rest up her gleaming coco skin had now became an obvious cry of fear and vengeful lust.

The smile she had on mere moments prior now an obvious cry of pain.

The thoughts of approaching her now tamed by realising that 'ones self is it's biggest healer and foe' so said by a book of poems. So I stood there watching as halted tears fell down her cheek, as her eyes were held painfully shut.

She stifled her sniffles, with the guise of hay fever and her being prone to illness.

To bare the embarrassment of showing vulnerability within the four walls of school was enough so she rather it seem as though it were a fever, a cold, anything rather than her being upset. At the end of the day she was supposed to be the strongest, because of the way in which her curls were shaped and skin glistened.

"Where's Faye ?" he asked barely looking my way.

He hadn't said hi rather choosing to sit on the lunch table and opened up a homework in which he most likely had weeks to complete.

"She's probably gone to the bathroom"

For a second his eyes met mine before an, "Okay" left his lips.

So we sat in agonising silence, a tap of a finger followed by the biting of a lip, resulting in the immediate blundering stares at the mucky floor or table.

"Hey idiots," she smiled with a whole new face, whether it be of make up or pure ecstasy.

"Hi" we said in unison granting us a breathy snicker.

She sat down opposite me, next to him " in case you were wondering where I was, I had to go to the principal about something."

So as to halt more questions she finished, " it was about some idiots touching me"

Our visions focuses on her eyes, to see whether it was recently dried or if it ever bore tears. We looked to so if her composure was different, if she had that same I'm upset but I don't want you to know feeling about her.

We knew each other well, from the way in which our bodies curved at our worst to the sparkle that our eyes would dare bare at the best moments.

However we weren't psychic, so we knew what we told one another or the mannerism in which we displayed over and over again. Our inner thoughts and feeling often confined to a chamber of our hearts.

A day passed then another, the wash of fear and anticipation twisting my guts. The shivering sound of my alarm along side the sweet taunts of my mother, her shouts pondering as to whether my bag was ready or if I had showered.

It was time.

Though as time would tell, this wasn't my biggest handicap rather the question of what he would do and how I would respond. As we all know game plans rarely go as planned, so I hoped upon a star of luck and the prayers in which I made in the comfort of my four walls hat things would go smoothly. For both our sakes.

"So are you excited," my father smiled. His habit of tapping the steering wheel being drowned out by the radio. His hair was thinning in the centre, no matter how much he rebuffed it. Attaining it to my 'poor' eyesight.

"Yeah, really excited," I smiled after taking my vision off the green land and farm animals.

"That's my boy" he brought me into a soft, short embrace. Wrapping one hair arm over my shoulder as the other clung to the wheel.

"It's gonna be great"