Chapter Text
When he was younger, Naim’s mother told him that in every place he went, every new area he found himself in, he should choose one thing that makes it meaningful, something he would one day reminisce about. Where he first lived, it was his father and the arcade they would go to on Sundays after church. His mother thought it was sinful for the two of them to play Space Invaders and shooting games after just having been in the presence of the Lord. Neither Naim nor his father—his real father, not God—cared all that much.
After his father died of lung cancer in his early forties, when Naim was just old enough to walk to the arcade himself and the two of them stopped going together, he and his mother found their second location to live in. They resided in an apartment in the middle of a bustling city. Their complex was stuck between a bar with a rainbow banner up front, which his mother found quite unpleasant, and a bookstore specifically for Bibles. In this store, one could find a red Bible, a blue Bible, a Bible written in pig latin, or even a Bible that was supposedly written using the old Pope’s blood. For some reason, whatever it was having baffled Naim, his mother found this shop much more appealing. He understood that living next to a bar as a devout Christian mother with a ten-year-old son was not his mother’s dream in life, but she seemed more upset about the colorful banner that rested by one of the bar’s circular windows. Did a rainbow not represent God’s promise? Naim would think to himself every time they walked by and his mother scoffed and covered his eyes with her sweaty palms.
At the time, Naim chose his then-friend to someday be his meaningful reminder of what life used to be like for him. In his teenage years, he would come to realize that he thought more about the bar and its banner than that one friend. He didn’t even remember the kid’s name anymore, just that it started with a B.
The church Naim and his mother went to every Sunday was pleasant enough, until the pastor was allegedly involved in a “scandal” of some sort. It wasn’t the illegal type of scandal, at least when it came to actual laws. It was some kind of sinful act that got his mother so riled up that they didn’t just switch churches—they switched towns.
So, here Naim Reid was, eighteen-years-old, walking into yet another prestigious private school. He had been in this small town for some time now, at least a few months, but he was yet to make any friends. There was nothing here that he would one day reminisce about, except maybe the convenience store that sold hella good slushies, or the abandoned mill he sometimes found himself at as a way of escaping home.
As he entered the school doors, he noticed how bland the place looked. There were so many dusty decorations and portraits and crosses, it was as if the school was the building-equivalent of his late grandfather. He read in books and saw in movies that public schools had personality. This school didn’t even have a damn mascot. If it were to have official school colors, they’d be beige and a slightly darker shade of beige.
The only thing he looked forward to in his day at the academy was a fellow senior who sat right by him in trigonometry class. He had curly blond hair and somehow found a way to make the school uniform look nice. His name was Ryan Whelan, as Naim had once seen on his exam paper. He definitely did not pay much attention to Naim, other than the occasional sneaking glance, a what’s-the-new-guy’s-deal type of glance.
Today, though, Naim’s eyes met a different type of glance, one conjoined with a smile. The smile faded into a slight smirk as Ryan asked, “Do you understand half-angle identities?”
Naim couldn’t help but let out a slight laugh. “There are literally formulas on the sheet. Once you get the hang of plugging stuff in, it’s really not that bad.” He took a deep breath and swallowed his discouragement away. “I could help after school if you want. I could show you the way to my favorite spot. It’s this mill away from everything.”
“I’m down,” was the simple two-word response that was paired with upturned lips.
✭✭✭
Naim had made no friends in this new town he resided in, so he never had the chance to show anyone his favorite spot to relax: the probably-haunted old mill. It wasn’t the ideal place to tutor someone, but his mother was seldom fond of houseguests.
He walked in, surprised to see that Ryan was already standing in the mill, leaned against a tall pole. “Everyone knows this spot, Naim. You wouldn’t have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for me,” the blond boy stated in a mocking tone.
“I never see anyone here when I come,” Naim replied.
“Do you come in the middle of the night? That’s when they’re typically here. If you catch my drift.”
Naim’s eyes widened. “I… had not realized that.” He cleared his throat and continued, “Did you bring your homework? You don’t have your backpack or anything.”
This time, it was Ryan with a surprised expression. “Whenever someone asks someone else to come here with them, it’s not actually for homework. I guess I misunderstood. Shit. Should I go? I should go.”
He started running off in embarrassment—and fear—of what he had assumed, but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Turning around and blushing, his eyes met Naim’s serious face. Each of them kept switching their gazes—eyes, lips, eyes, lips…
There was a touch of the lips, and the two boys soon found themselves embracing one another. Ryan’s grip was strong and heavy; Naim’s was soft and warm. They brought their foreheads together and shut their eyes. Naim smiled a true smile for the first time in forever.
He had known this about himself for some time now; that he wasn’t like everyone else. He hadn’t come to terms with labeling it yet, but he knew he just didn’t feel anything for girls. As a kid, he pretended to, so no one would assume anything. That old friend he had back in the city would talk to him about all the “hot girls” at school once they got old enough to find people attractive. Naim would nod, smile, and agree, but he felt nothing for those girls with their long hair and lipstick and miniskirts. His friend even once tried to show him a naked woman in a magazine, but he looked away, not disgusted or anything, just… displeased. Later that day, when he was all alone in his bedroom, he looked up the three word question that so many teenagers search, yet so many teenagers dread the answer of. And he received the answer after taking a variety of questionnaires. And it was the dreaded answer. He closed his laptop, stared at his ceiling, and did not move until his mother came into the room saying she had made blueberry pancakes.
His mother. God, if she ever found out, she would convince herself it was her own fault for living next to that goddamn bar. She would send him away to some place that would heal him so that he wouldn’t end up in Hell. Even he found himself believing that if Hell’s real, he would go there. He would burn scorching hot, hot like how he sometimes found guys, hot like how he was supposed to find girls.
Ryan started to push Naim against a beam, yanking him right out of his head, but Naim just moved away. For once, he was experiencing what it’s like to like someone, maybe even to love someone, though he definitely could not admit that.
“Is something wrong?” Ryan said after he caught his breath.
It took Naim a moment to come up with an answer. “I think I like you. No one can know what just happened.”
“I was going to say the same thing.”
“That no one can know what just happened? Or… that you think you like me?”
“I was going to say the same thing.”
✭✭✭
Since their meetup at the abandoned mill, the two boys found ways to spend at least an hour together most days after school in private. Once, they ran together through the woods, and when they were far enough away from society, they interlocked their bodies by a large paperbark tree. Another time, they met in an empty field and tackled each other down into the grass. Sometimes when the two were together, townspeople walked by, and they had to pretend they were actually fighting. None of these passersby cared enough to call the cops on a stupid fight between two teenage boys—now, if they saw what the two teenage boys had actually been doing, more than just the cops would be called. A brief trip to a cell is preferable to a permanent estate in Hell.
It was a cloudy Wednesday when Naim and Ryan laid their backs down on the grass and looked up at the sky. Ryan reached into his pocket to grab his lighter. Naim had started smoking with him a week ago when they were out in the woods for the third time. It soothed him in a way that was nearly as comforting as the other boy’s touch. He never got fully high, at least he didn’t believe so, but it was such a freeing experience to put his lips against the cigarette Ryan’s lips were just on, and then to breathe Ryan out.
After several passes of the cigarette, Naim began to laugh, pointing to a cloud. “That one kind of looks like Jesus. Am I going insane?”
“Oh, I can see it,” said Ryan, letting out a snicker, “He’s watching over us, I guess.” He turned his head towards Naim and the two made intimate eye contact for a moment, before he frowned and said, “Do you think He hates us? God or Jesus or whoever watches us, if anyone at all?”
Naim swallowed, pondering briefly. “I’ve always been told He hates people like us, so I just assume He does. My mother sometimes claims He talked to her in her dreams the previous night. Why doesn’t He talk to me as well?”
“I think that’s just your mother trying to make reasoning out of shit she doesn’t understand. Don’t we all do it? I did it when I first liked someone. I told myself I was just fucked in the head and that I needed to find a pretty girl. It would all go away the second I found the right one. It turns out the right one for me isn’t a damn girl.” Ryan leaned in and kissed Naim’s lips.
After a kiss that felt like it lasted a lifetime, Naim murmured, “I don’t think my right one is a damn girl either.”
✭✭✭
Several weeks passed by, and Naim and Ryan were growing closer together. It became nearly impossible to avoid each other at school, especially since they shared a few classes. What was even more difficult, though, was avoiding each other during church service on Sundays.
Of course, today of all days, the service was about normalcy. In other words, the pastor, Father Rod, was informing all of the adolescents that they must follow the ways of God, and if they don’t—if they do drugs, if they drink, if they have sex before marriage, if they have sex with someone who is not of the opposing sex—they’re going straight to Hell. Everyone in the pews nodded and followed along with the man’s words, even Ryan, but Naim simply couldn’t. His eyes found themselves looking at the curly-haired boy on the other side of the room. All he wanted was to run away with him, away from this pain and this silencing and this suffering.
Father Rod cleared his throat after a monologue about sex before marriage, and continued with his sermon. “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. Leviticus 20:13. God Himself told us what would be done to us if we disobeyed the laws of nature. Intercourse is for reproduction, and more young men and women need to be taught this. I advise every parent to take close watch over your child’s interpersonal relationships. You never know what the Devil is putting in their heads.”
The Devil isn’t putting things in my head, Naim thought. If anything, he’s putting things in my heart. They shouldn’t be there, but they are, and no one will know unless they claw out my heart with their bare fingernails, and there is only one person who even wants to get so close to me as to do that.
✭✭✭
Three nights later, on a Wednesday when Ryan wasn’t able to get together with him, Naim found himself walking around town. He passed the convenience store, the church, the ice rink, and the school. Nothing was entertaining him; all his thoughts were about the boy he could not see tonight. Maybe Ryan was sick? He had just suddenly told Naim in trigonometry class that they could not meet up that night, and he’d seemed off all day. It was like he was avoiding him up until that brief moment in class while they were learning about inverse functions when he leaned to whisper in his ear.
Naim’s thoughts began to spiral with possibilities about what the boy he loved could be going through, or what he could be doing, or if his family found out about anything, oh, God… Surely, Ryan wasn’t feeling well, and surely, it wouldn’t hurt to just walk past his house. He would just look through Ryan’s bedroom window to see if he was in there, and then he’d leave.
It only took about twelve minutes to reach Ryan’s house, but those twelve minutes seemed to stretch into twelve hours. Once he was there, he noticed something immediately. Ryan was not in his bedroom, nor in the house at all. He was right in the backyard, actively moving around, certainly not ill. A clothesline covered everything from the boy’s ankles to his forehead, so it was not clear what he was up to.
A pair of shoes that Naim only slightly recognized—he swore he’s seen them before on someone from town—walked up to Ryan’s figure.
Then pushed Ryan back.
Then picked up a rock and threw it at his chest.
Naim’s blood ran cold and his breathing became heavier. He wanted to reveal himself to whoever was attacking Ryan, to say that he was a witness, to say he would call the police. But he was a coward, so he stood there, his limbs shaking in both fear and anger at himself for being so incompetent, and then something happened.
The two figures pushed their bodies together, and from between two shirts on the clothesline waving in the wind, Naim could finally see what was happening.
Ryan was making out with Hunter, the pastor’s son who he had seen at church once a week, and at school every day. He looked nothing like Naim. They had different hair, different eyes, different styles—they even kissed Ryan so very differently. By the way he was smiling and where he was moving his hands, it seemed like Ryan liked Hunter’s grasp more. Ryan liked Hunter more.
Unable to catch his breath, Naim began to bolt home, desperate to go to sleep and then realize this was another one of his stupid nightmares. For once, he didn’t stop to look at the deer in the empty field by the convenience store. They reminded him of himself: gullible, fragile, too easy to manipulate. He had run right into the headlights, right into Ryan’s bright smile that melted his insides. He should’ve listened to his mother and to Father Rod and to God Himself.
Naim was hardly thinking when he entered the convenience store in a panic. Gospel music played over the speakers above him, causing a wave of nausea to rise from his chest to his throat. He quickly walked out of the store, vomited onto the pavement, and stared at the store’s interior from the exterior windows while trying to calm down.
There was a new display in the back side of the store to the right. It was a shade of red so bright that Naim felt forced to go back inside and look at what this was. He allowed this somewhat supernatural attraction to overtake him as he walked through the doors and into the back.
On the shining red cardboard, the words “One Wish Willow” laid in an unsettling whitish beige color. There were probably a hundred of small containers on the display, each one showing the same three words as the cardboard backdrop. They seemed to be a toy from what Naim could tell. “You only get one wish!” the boxes stated in a smaller font. Almost every One Wish Willow box had the same frontal design: the faces of a woman and a man in the middle of a wave of stars and sparkles, both of them looking at a broken stick with the word “CRACK” by it.
There was one box that was ever so slightly different. Naim thought it must’ve been a manufacturing error; there was no way this was purposeful. The box had the same wave and broken stick, but instead, two men were in the middle.
He grabbed it without a single thought in his mind, used the self-checkout so the cashier wouldn’t see which one he was specifically buying, and actually ran all the way home this time.
When he opened his front door, his mother called out that she had made chicken parmesan, but he ignored her and went straight to his room. He sat down on his bed, his knee bouncing in eagerness to open this godforsaken box. It was obviously fake, obviously, but he felt a connection to that bright red and the two men on the box—
Except the two men weren’t there anymore. They were replaced by the normal man and woman. It was all in his head; this fury towards Ryan was causing him to hallucinate. He’d finally felt loved for once in his life, and it was all gone because of some asshole who gets off when throwing stones at people. Why couldn’t Ryan just love him more than Hunter? More than any other boy?
More than anyone?
Naim peeled open the box, revealing a stick similar to the cartoon one pictured on the front. He almost turned to the back to read the instructions—as if there were any; this was a goddamn toy for children so they could wish for a pet unicorn or infinite video games—but he needed to get this over with.
He held the stick in his palms and rolled it back and forth as if that was going to do anything other than slightly calm his nerves. After closing his eyes, he positioned the stick so it would be able to crack. He took a deep breath for the first time since seeing Ryan with Hunter.
“I wish Ryan Whelan loved me more than anyone else in the fucking world.”
Crack.
Silence.
It was only when he turned off his lamp and pulled his blanket over his head that he heard the knock on his window.
"…if i could be who you wanted
all the time,
all the time." - end of Part I