Free Wonderland by Rob Browatzke Page A

“Did you see who did this? I know you fucking sit in there peering through your peephole, you sick fuck. Probably getting off on everyone else’s life.”
    He sneered at me with such loathing. “Fag.” And he shut the door.
    â€œFuck you!” I screamed, and proceeded to kick his door for a change, until my foot was sore.
    It was too much. I let myself into the apartment. Griffin was meowing at the door. I slid down against the wall to join him, and as I scratched his back, I started to cry.

Chapter 19
    I was thirteen. I was walking home from school when they went by on their bikes. “Fag!” they yelled as they pedaled past. I ignored them. I always ignored them. It was just a word, I told myself. Just a word, and it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t even about me.
    That day, they didn’t just yell “fag” as they rode by. They circled back and did it again. And then again. I started to walk faster. I couldn’t run. They’d be on me if I ran. I was only two blocks from home. They’d get bored. They were jerks. They’d get bored. Why weren’t they getting bored?
    They started to circle me. “Fag!” “Queer!” “Homo!”
    â€œStop it!” I yelled.
    â€œAh, look, the sissy is crying.” They were getting off their bikes. I tried to run through them, but one tripped me.
    â€œLeave me alone!” I was crying. I hated crying. I jumped to my feet. My hands were bleeding.
    â€œFaggot faggot faggot faggot,” they chanted, in a circle around me, pushing me back and forth.
    Eventually they stopped, and I ran home. I hid in the backyard until I stopped crying. My dad hated it when I cried. And what could I say? That guys were picking on me? He called me sissy too, when he was angry. It was just words. I didn’t need to cry.

    I was fifteen. His name was Nathan. He was blond-haired and blue-eyed and slim and smooth and wonderful. We were in his room studying, when he asked me if I wanted to watch some porn. I was immediately hard. We were sitting there at his desk, and it was the first time I’d ever seen sex. I was watching the guy on the screen, and the guy beside me, and not the girl at all.
    â€œIsn’t she hot? Look at those tits!”
    I just nodded.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him rubbing his crotch. I saw my fingers reaching out toward him. I couldn’t help myself. I touched his thigh.
    He jerked away. “Dude, what are you doing?”
    I jumped to my feet. “I . . . I . . .”
    â€œWhat are you, some kind of faggot?”
    â€œNo . . . I . . .”
    â€œGet out of my room!”
    I ran from his house, crying. “Faggot!” he called after me. It was just a word. Why did it still make me cry?
    Â 
    I was seventeen and his name was Taylor. He didn’t pull away when I went to touch him. Quite the contrary. He touched me right back. Every weekend, in the quiet darkness of my room, we explored each other’s bodies. He was my best friend and my first love.
    I knew I was gay by then. I’d admitted it. Only Taylor and Dinah knew though. I wasn’t ready to tell my parents, and neither was he. No one really called us that at school anymore. In accepting it was true, we’d stopped reacting with fear and tears, and the joke wasn’t as fun for the bullies anymore.
    Our teacher had asked me to help Taylor with his math homework, and things had just gone from there. The first time we kissed, we were both laughing so hard, it didn’t really work out. But then he looked at me with his deep brown eyes, and I brushed his hair off his face (he had this bang that always flopped over his eye), and things got really quiet, and a lot less funny, and I think I fell in love the first time our lips met.
    We had been together for all of eleventh grade, and the summer, and our senior year was starting, and we had made so many plans. We were going to come out