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What makes a body human? Is it the gallons of blood that pour out whenever something inconvenient happens, or is it the soul that makes everybody who they are, some more bad than others. What makes a person human? Is it the ability to express any sorts of emotions that they may have, or is it the ability to feel every one of those emotions? Happiness, anger, sadness, jealousy, love, are those things really what makes somebody a human being?
It’s silly, it’s stupid, it’s something that cannot be described in words. Andre thought of humans as beings that would do anything in their power to make somebody feel miserable and worth nothing. He thought of people as someone who will lie to make everything better for everyone, even when it doesn’t.
Humans are nothing but mindless idiots that think the whole world revolves around them, that think that everybody loves them when in fact they hate them. They hide even the slightest emotion to anybody so that they won’t ever see what’s behind their facade, he’s one of them.
On the outside, he’s viewed as a boy with anger issues, a boy who cannot control what he feels and will lash out if something doesn’t go as planned, a boy who picks a fight with anybody who has a problem with him. Almost everyone around him has an issue with him, but he could care less, if anything, having a person to rely on can only lead to the worst break of his life.
He relied on someone once, years ago even. A young pretty girl came up to him during maths, with a cheerful smile that can brighten up a dim room in an instant. That pretty girl was the same girl he fell head over heels for, wanting to do everything right for her and treat her with nothing but respect, but she was also the same pretty girl that ruined him and made him seem like a freak.
On the outside, he’s a freak, he’s the boy who cannot feel anything except anger. But on the inside, in the past, he was just a boy. He was a boy who wanted to feel happy, to feel the warmth of another person and to feel like a person.
He was vulnerable, he feared just as much as people feared him. He put himself out to be a tougher guy than what he really was, a boy. To be feared is better than being feared, that was the mindset he kept throughout his middle school and high school days.
No one could see or make him vulnerable, not even his own parents have seen him cry once. He didn’t need to be held by his mommy or reassured by his daddy, the younger Andre probably, but not him.
At a young age, Andre’s dad taught him that being weak was not going to get him anywhere in life, he taught him how to fire a gun, he showed him that people aren’t what they say they are, to trust nobody or he’ll soon get used.
All he wanted was to be trusted and to finally trust.
Meeting Calvin Gabriel was not part of what he planned, but rather than lashing out like he always did, he let him stay, he let him linger in his mind when they weren’t together, and he let himself trust him a little more than he trusted anybody else.
But why? Why did he feel the urge to suddenly trust a person he met just 5 months ago? What about him that made him different from all the others? Why did he want to feel safe with him and protect him more than anything else in the world?
Calvin was just like him. While he wasn’t aggressive or violent like Andre, he couldn’t find it in him to trust anybody except himself. He was far more vulnerable than Andre, more skinnier than him, more weak. While he didn’t express how he felt outloud, he felt them inside his head, wanting nothing more than to escape the terrible life he was placed into.
Calvin and Andre, Gabriel and Kriegman, the Army of Two, the one duo nobody could break apart. What Andre felt when he was around Calvin was far different than what he felt when he was around other people, the need to not have to act so tough around him pained him because he didn’t want to have another person ruin what he managed to build back up.
And yet, during some moments, he couldn’t help but let out a bit of his vulnerableness.
“Dude... I couldn't have done this with anyone else. Like, I don't know what would've happened to me if we hadn't been friends.”
And Calvin too showed more emotion when he was around Andre.
“I don't think that I could've done this with anyone else, either.”
With Calvin, Andre felt the younger part of him come out, all he wanted was to feel like somebody again, and with Calvin, he was able to feel such a way. Despite the constant teasing and hits he received, he found that with Calvin, none of that really mattered to him, as long as they were with each other, nothing bothered him.
But when Calvin had to leave due to his mental health declining rapidly, Andre found himself back to where he was before meeting him, only now, he felt tears running down his cheeks as he watched his best friend drift away.
What ached more wasn’t the beatings all of his bullies would give him, but the rip of his heart after it all. The other half of him, the one person who understood him and knew what it felt like to be different from everybody else, was gone, and he was stuck feeling like the weak little boy he used to be.
“Look at me. When I get back, everything will go back to the way it was. And if it doesn’t, maybe you’ll find someone just like me, out there, wherever in the world,” Was what Calvin said to him the night before leaving.
But Andre didn’t want somebody like Calvin, he wanted Calvin, he needed him more than anything. Without him, he found himself unable to get up from his bed or even eat something, which caused a rapid change in his physique.
His parents were hardly home, so they never noticed the change in his attitude or body. They didn’t notice the amount of meals being thrown into the trash after being told that it was already finished. Sometimes he wished they did notice, maybe then he wouldn’t feel like this so much.
‘Fuck...’ He missed Calvin like crazy. Whatever kind of spell he put on Andre was working, because he could not erase his friend out of his mind. He stopped being able to focus and everything he thought about was now just ‘Cal, Cal, Cal.’
He was losing it, he was going insane over a boy he met for less than a year, and yet he truly believed that the two had met before due to how close they had gotten with each other. What should’ve been a few weeks of ridiculous therapy sessions turned into months, and when Calvin finally returned home, Andre swore to himself that he would never let him go again.
Calvin liked that idea.
They spent more time with each other, hanging out at each other’s houses, cooking and nearly burning down the kitchens, but it was perfect. Andre felt a change in the way he acted around Calvin, he let himself be hugged when they went to bed despite the constant retaliations that he would kick him off if he so much as laid a finger on him, he let himself lose focus and come back to the feeling of his hair being brushed, something he didn’t want to admit that he enjoyed.
He let himself get jealous when he heard the mention of Calvin’s friend, Rachel, someone he grew to dislike despite never meeting her.
He let himself fall in love, a fear he always felt the day they became friends.
He felt more human when he began to feel the thumping of his heart in his rib cage grow stronger the longer he stared at the blonde. He felt more human when he felt butterflies in his stomach whenever he heard Calvin’s laughter, he felt human when he smiled at Calvin.
“I feel human when I’m with you, the feeling of actual happiness and true love I feel with you feels like no other sensation. When I’m with you, I lose all sense of time and just want to enjoy and make new memories with you.”
Andre spoke those words when he confessed how he really felt about his friend.
“I feel human with you because you were the only person who knew how I felt. I want to feel human with you and only you, I want you to be the only person who truly understands what it was like to not be like everybody else. I want us.”
Those were the words Calvin said during their wedding vows, leaving Andre in tears as they shared their first kiss as husbands. Calvin and Andre, Mr and Mr Kriegman, the Army of Two, the only two who knew how it felt to finally be human again.
Maybe feeling human wasn’t so bad, as long as it was with Calvin.