Velvet Valentine (MxM)

My hands shook as I held my phone in them. Looking at the screen into the very familiar Instagram account of the person who had my heart. I opened it just so I could talk to him, but I was taking a leap of faith here by actually sending him the text. It sat there. A meek 'Hi' waiting to be sent into the dms of the love of my life. Obviously, he didn't know that, but I did. And it scared the shit out of me.

How many years has it been? My brain thought.

Seven. It answered itself. It's been seven years since I last saw his beautiful face. And the last time I saw it, it was full of hate and regret and pain. Everything I never wanted to see in those beautiful eyes and I was the one who put them there.

My hands shook again and I used the back of my left hand to brush away the tear that had escaped my eye. I determinedly squared my shoulder. I needed to do this. Not just for me, but for him as well. He deserve to know and he deserves that closure so that he could move on and be happy.

The thought of him with another man made my gut clamp on itself as a nauseating feeling overtook my whole body. Goddamit.

I hit send before I chickened out again, then locked my phone and threw it on the bed.

I'll see the damage tomorrow, for now, my nerves were losing the adrenaline and I was somehow feeling emotionally exhausted. As my head hit the pillow, I willed myself to go to sleep but the guilt that had been keeping me up for so many years till the crack of dawn didn't suddenly leave me today and my mind went back to eight years ago, the first day that I saw him.

It was the first day of our high school and everyone was excited, including me. My boards results were pretty stunning but I still chose humanities much to my parents' dismay but I didn't care. I wanted to be a photographer and I didn't need much else for that. I was a popular guy at school since my father was a forest officer and my mom was a teacher in our school. Everyone loved the position I was in and I've never been without a girlfriend since I was fourteen, until now. I was seventeen and single. I wasn't really looking for another relationship because I knew all these girls that I've been with were with me just because of the attention that got them. They didn't love me, they loved what being with me got them. High school was a terrible place.

And the realisation that nobody really cared about me made me angry.

But mostly, I was angry because the new student was making me feel things I've never felt before. It wouldn't be so hard if he was a girl. I'd walk up to her and she'd agree to go out with me under three minutes. But he was a boy. Even though he was taunted by the whole school, even the teachers for his feminine gait and melodic voice, it didn't change the fact that he was, very much- a boy.

That was the reason I never talked to him for over a year. I turned a blind eye whenever my 'friends' bullied him. They didn't hit him, but everyone knows that you don't really have to physically harm someone to make their lives a living hell. And the boys I was friends with back then did just that.

I have wished time and time again that I could turn back time and stop everything from happening. Tell my seventeen year old frustrated self that it was okay to feel things for a guy, especially a guy as genuinely kind as he was. But time, unfortunately, is linear and cruel. I couldn't mend the burned bridges, but I could try and build a new one. Because in the last seven years, I have tried and failed to get him out of my head and my heart. So I was giving in. Even if I couldn't have him, I'll try my goddamned best to be a better man so that he wouldn't hate me anymore. Because the thought of that hurt even more than him moving on with another man.

So much more.

I finally gave up and felt around my bedside table for the sleeping pills my doctor has given me for special occasions. Today was a special occasion, my nerves were everywhere and I knew that I won't be able to sleep without swallowing that damn pill. I did, and within minutes my eyes fluttered close as my body gave itself upto dreamland.

So I missed the little sound that lets you know the arrival of a new notification. In this case - an Instagram message.