The first time we held hands was before we were dating. Under the cover of darkness in a cinema with friends, hiding behind the thinly veiled excuse of a scary movie. I could feel the strength in his fingers as they laced between my own. Every crack, every groove, every callus, a story of hard work etched across his skin, and it was strange.
We’d met a few weeks earlier, the only two men in a sociology class, a class he wasn’t even enrolled in. We’d met on a whim but after an hour of my incomprehensible musing on the world being entertained as if they were more than the ramblings of a mad man I left with a new number saved to my contacts.
We started going on runs together. I always talked big game and he was never afraid to leave me in the dust, my breath stolen for one reason or another. Always pushing to run further, run faster, redefine my boundaries. As our relationship grew and developed that feeling of exploring new limits became a running theme.
The first time we kissed it was in the middle of the woods, we’d long given up on following the well trodden paths in favour of forging our own way through the underbrush trusting that’d we’d find our way through together. Nothing made me feel more lost than when his lips touched mine and I was met with an unfamiliar strength. I felt that tell tale spark run through me but as I brought my hands down to rest on his hips I hesitated. We both knew the steps to this dance without having to think yet we’d only been taught to lead, never to follow. When our same steps came together it was more reminiscent of a fight than a dance.
Later we’d laugh about how we’d each thought the other was straight, guilty of repeating the stereotypes that had kept us both constrained by society. Our masculinity bonded us, I’d spend hours sitting on his workshop floor watching as he’d use his tools and his talents to turn trash into trinkets. In turn he’d let me drag him along to my hockey games, a bright spot for me to turn to in the stands in a season characterised by loss. It stung less when I knew he’d be there regardless of the outcome.
In the same way it brought us closer, our masculinity also kept us apart. I’d been openly queer for longer than I’d ever been in the closet when we met, dated more men than women. Yet when faced with him I was at a loss, is it possible to have a sexuality crisis when you’ve been confident in your identity for over a decade? Gender roles are so deeply entrenched in relationships that they prevail even when they’re not applicable. I was used to being the fixer, the provider, the rock. He was a rock too and as we came together I was worried that we’d chip away at one another.
The first time I spent the night my stomach had twisted itself into a web of overthinking and words failed as my throat was dry like sandpaper. We slept on opposite edges of the mattress, arms stretched out spanning the chasm of sheets between us clinging to the warmth of one another’s hands. He was the first to move as he so often was. I had been tugged across the mattress in an easy movement, my face hidden in his neck and arm slung across my back. As our breathing rhythms synchronised I could feel my carefully donned armour start to splinter. Just for those few hours as we lay side by side I could just dream.
As the light broke through the blinds, warm rays stretching out like tendrils laying claim to the walls he dug his fingers into a lapse in my armour and tore. He tore into the metal as if it were paper, no regard for my carefully crafted protections. He tore into the scar tissue that marred my skin like seams of coal meandering alone a cliff side. He tore through flesh and bone and kept tearing until I was broken down to the barest parts of my humanity. And as I lay there I found solace on the brink. Brick by brick he built me back up, moulding me like clay, an alter of worship carved by his will.
The first time I told someone it was my dad. I remember prefacing the admission with the words ‘you know how I can’t be normal about anything?’ to which he laughed and agreed. I told him about the wonderful man I’d met. How nice it was to share hobbies. How nice it is to be challenged. How nice it is to let someone else share the weight for a few hours. I remember it was the first time I’d called him my boyfriend and it became a little bit more normal.
A few days later I told my sister, we’d been sitting in the sun having brunch. I’d been wearing clothes from the day before thrown on hastily still creased front he night they’d spent crumpled on his living room floor. My mind had been working overtime and the thoughts came tumbling from my lips before they were fully formed. I told her how scared I was to buy him flowers. How scared I was to reach for his hand outside the sanctity of his bed. How scared I was that one day my rough edges and chapped lips would lose their novelty, traded in favour for familiarity.
It was inevitable but when the time came that I didn’t tell someone the omission hurts in the way a physical blow could never. We were out country, buying the bed I hoped would become ours. As I shook hands with the old farmer - I don’t know if it was fear or habit - I found myself reaching for the word friends. So often you hear the phrase ‘date your best friend.’ but there is a steep learning curve when ‘bro’ comes more naturally than ‘babe’.
The first time he said I love you it felt like a salve to soothe the burning admission he didn’t know how to treat me. I wasn’t ready to hear it. The second time he said it was an easy confession with no guise and no obligation to respond. Nonetheless I felt like I was about to lose a staring competition with an eighteen-wheeler. He keeps saying it despite my wringing hands and awkward silence but it slowly becomes less strange.
The first time I’m brave enough to say it back I think too much and can’t make myself say the words. I was never a practical person, always a fan of taking the scenic route. So instead I leave them hidden between the lines of prose and hope I can capture the feeling
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
janainaart
romaincrisis
stormborns
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
2087
