I sigh and fall back onto my bed, looking at my ceiling. I scroll through our messages, thinking back on how many times I considered telling him I love him but deciding not to. It isn’t that I think he’d be disgusted, I know he wouldn’t. He knows I’m gay and he’s bisexual so it isn’t like he doesn’t know I like guys...he just doesn’t know I like him and trying to find the strength to tell him is hard. I can’t even see him without getting flustered so how the heck am I going to tell my best friend that I have been in love with him since fifth grade? I roll on my side and set my phone down with a loud huff. “Feelings are stupid,” I say to my bear that sits against the wall on my bed. I inch my way over to him and pick him up “feelings are stupid, Benedict!” I say in full confidence to him. He returned no comforting words to my suffering so I just set him back down in his special spot. My mom opens my door with a smile.

“Stop yelling at Benedict, Ruben. It isn’t his fault you can’t admit your feelings.” She chuckles a bit and I just roll my eyes playfully. She comes in with some pizza rolls and sits on my floor, patting the floor next to her. I slide off my bed next to and look at the plate. “Go ahead, baby.” I take a pizza roll and eat it, leaning on her lightly, it reminded me of when I was younger when my parents separated.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was about nine. Dad would hit mom a lot but blamed me for it and one day when he was watching me I spilled my milk, I think, so he hit me, hard and a lot. I lost two of my adult teeth because of it, he said it was my fault he was stressed and that mom never got to rest. When my mom came home that night she was mad, I have never seen her that mad. I thought it was my fault at first, I thought I did something wrong but she started screaming at dad, she screamed so loud and picked me up, and...we left...I haven’t seen my dad since. Haven’t heard from him, mom says that’s for the best but I can't help to wonder where he is. How he is. Is it wrong that I think that’s beautiful too?

“Mama? Why are feelings difficult?” I asked her softly. She ran her hand through my hair.

“Because you’re sixteen.” We both laughed at that. My mom had a way with making me feel better, ever since I was young she was my support. Even when dad would hurt her she always made sure I was okay. Maybe it’s a mom thing, you know, setting your needs, wants, even pain aside for your child. That’s a special type of love and it’s beautiful.

So many things are beautiful.

Love

Animals

People

Music

Words

Art

Even pain, that one’s kinda funny to think about as beautiful.

It’s hard to choose between so many things that are beautiful. So many people may find something you think is beautiful to be not beautiful too, well I guess that will be the point of the essay huh? Have to convince them that it is beautiful in its own way.

“Whatcha thinking about?” My mom’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I Always seemed to drift away from conversations and go to my own world. Mom says I got that from her but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

I shrug “I dunno. A lot of things I guess. You, my dad, school.” She smiled and stood up. I looked at the time and knew it was time for her to go to work. “You off?”

“Yeah, baby. You gonna stay up for me?”

“Yeah. See you when you get home.” She smiled at me because we both knew I would be knocked out on the couch when she got home, I could never stay up late.

She ruffled my hair and took a pizza roll. “Okay, see you later kiddo.” With that, she left. Leaving me alone to my thoughts and my pizza rolls.