-Art-
Our elders always warn us to be careful what we wish for; I guess it's human nature not to think through what the downside could be if we actually got our hearts' deepest desire.
My deepest desire is unspeakable...to my other friends. But I guess I can tell you. You won't tell, will you? My secret desire, Ummm. Why am I sweating? Hold on, I need a glass of water. Be right back.
Ten minutes later...
Oh. You actually waited, cool. Maybe I can trust you, well since you went through the trouble of waiting. My desire, my secret wish....Ummm the windows open, I should close it someone might hear.
Three minutes later.
Ummm I'm busted, aren't I? Yes, I'm stalling. I'm sorry I just never thought I would say this out loud. Ok ok, no more stalling...Ummm Is there a draft in here? Just kidding. You've waited this long my secret is, I have loved my best friend since I was like 10 years old.
Hmmm did I build it up too much? I don't know I think you would get it if you knew my whole story. Interested? Where should I begin? Guess the beginning...Yea, let's start there. I was eight years old and I was playing at the sandbox near my school...
Day 1:
Fwoop-
"Owww!"
"Oops Sorry. Are you ok?"
I was sitting in the sandbox playing by myself when a red ball came flying and hit my head. A boy that is about my age comes running with his three friends behind him.
"Are you ok?" He asks me again.
I rub my head, there is sand in my hair and it hurts a little but not very much.
"I'm...fine" I groan.
I'm more embarrassed than anything. I look from the boy to his friends and feel my face flush. The boy follows my gaze.
" Don't mind them, they're just my friends." His eyes land on my project. "Whoa did you build this?" His eyes go wide.
I look down at the masterpiece I spent all afternoon on. It's a replica of the Wat Arun Temple. All the kids huddle around to look at it. My face flushes more. The boy looks from my replica to his friends, then my burning face. He stands up and reaches out his hand.
"I'm Fiat, and these are my friends."
I push up my glasses, shake his hand and quickly let go. He continues "And this is Jay, Steel, and Clover."
Clover stands up and puts her hands on her hips. "Fiat you're so stupid, he already knows he's in our class."
Fiat looks at me confused. "No way, I have never seen you."
Clover shakes her head. "Tell him Art, tell him you're in our class."
I'm surprised she knows my name. My family and I have just moved here and I hadn't really made any friends yet.
"You never pay attention Fiat, he introduced himself to the whole class last week."
Fiat gently shoves her "I do pay attention ."
His other friend Jay comes over. "That's the day you were sick." He says putting his body between the two and patting Fiat on the back.
"Oh yeah, I forgot." She giggles
"Yeah cause you're dumb." Fiat adds.
Clover frowns.
Fiat turns and kneels down to look at my replica again and Clover and Jay follow.
"How did you carve these windows and doors?" Fiat asks looking back at me.
I feel really nervous but I point to my kit. He looks at my tin case full of clay carving tools. He picks up a sharp one.
"Careful you could cut yourself."
I walk over and carefully take it from his hand and place it back in my case. If any accidents happen my mom will definitely take it away and never give it back. I had to beg and beg for her to let me have it and she made me watch so many safety videos.
He smiles at me "I'm sorry."
"It's ok, it's just my mom will get mad if there are any accidents."
He smiles at me.
"Will you teach me then?"
Stop. Stop the video.
Do you see? You see that adorable smile? The way he said "Will you teach me then?" How could I not like him? I don't know if I was gay before this moment. Would I have liked boys if I didn't meet Fiat? I guess I'll never really know. So that's my secret, not that I'm gay my friends already know that. What they don't know is I have been crazy, and madly in love with my best friend since we were ten.
Day:2
At school that Monday I took my seat in the back of the class by the window. I made sure to get in early so I can work on my assignment. I peer out the window and see Fiat and his three friends walking through the gate. Steel is chasing Fiat and running around Clover who is already annoyed. She pushes past them and storms off. Minutes later she walks through the classroom door.
"Oh hey Art, you're here already?" She places her bag on her desk and walks over to the window to see what I'm looking at. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "Ugh, so annoying." She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks down at my assignment. " The math has gotten so hard. You understand it?"
I nod. She runs back to her desk and opens her bag and grabs her math book.
"Art pretty please, let me copy. I'm pretty sure all my answers are wrong." She opens her book to the correct page and places it in front of me. I look at the page and can't help but giggle. She frowns. "It's all wrong isn't it?" I nod slowly.
"Don't worry I don't mind if you copy. Hurry up before the teacher comes." She picks up my eraser and starts erasing her work and copying mine.
A few minutes later Fiat, Jay, and Steel rush into the classroom all out of breath. The three boys quickly discard their bags onto their desks and come over to peer over Clover's shoulder.
"If you guys want to copy too, you better hurry," Clover says without looking up. Jay and Steel quickly run back to their desks and grab their assignment books and pencils and soon all three are copying my homework. Steel turns back to look at Fiat.
Fiat shrugs "I'm good, I already did it." He waves to me and takes his seat.
At lunch that day I didn't have anywhere to sit, I looked around for an available seat.
"Fiat you idiot!" My eyes automatically look in the direction of Clover's voice. My classmates are sitting together at one of the nearby tables.
"Hey Art, come sit with us" Fiat smiles and waves me over. He motions for Jay and Steel to move clearing a spot for me. I quickly take the seat and set my lunch tray down in front of me.
"If you knew you had all the wrong answers why didn't you copy Art's this morning?" She's looking over Fiat's math assignment. I can see from where I'm sitting a lot of red marks.
Fiat snatches his paper away. "You're so smart? We have a quiz later you gonna copy that too?" He scoffs back at her.
He pushes his tray away and reaches into his bag and produces a pencil and eraser. I'm surprised when he starts erasing his work and reworking the math problems. I peer over his shoulder.
Wrong. Nope. Definitely not right. I don't know what possessed me but I stood up, plucked his pencil out of his hand, and picked up his worksheet. I pushed my lunch aside and placed his sheet in front of me and erased the problem he was working on. He watches me closely as I start working on the problem correctly. When I finish I pull out my phone's calculator to make sure, the calculator matches my answer.
Fiat smiles at me "Will you teach me Art?"
Again with the smile, again with the eyes.
I quickly realized that Fiat is basically perfect. He's good at everything he wants to be good at and everyone likes him. He plays sports and works hard to keep good grades. He plays the guitar, and he is really charming all the girls at our schools always swooned for him. I think some of the teachers did too, not all women mind you.
That's just Fiat. He is kind, funny, and charming.
I wasn't surprised when Clover and Fiat started dating the summer of our 13th year. Clover was the head of the cheerleaders and Fiat was the bully of the footballers. I wondered why Fiat stayed friends with me. I wondered often why any of them were friends with me.
Jay co-captains the football players with Fiat.
Clover the goddess of the Cheerleaders.
Steel is the rising star of the swim team.
And me, my names is Art. I like Art.
I'm not the captain of anything. I do work for the school's journalism club. I take pictures, and I guess I'm kinda smart. I was long ago designated our group's tutor, and it is my responsibility to make sure everyone passes. No one ever said I had to but I don't really serve another purpose in my group.
We have been best friends ever since. All of us have. I can hardly believe we will be starting Uni soon.
Day: 3,650 of loving my best friend.
I groan "Come on guys. Can you please pay attention? I don't want to be here all day."
I feel like I'm trying to wrangle a group of babies, not a group of soon-to-be graduates starting Uni in a few months.
Clover, Fiat, Steel, and Jay look up from their phones. They are playing a game together instead of paying attention while I'm trying to prep them for the finals.
They all blink at me and look back at their devices. I throw my hands up and head out to the kitchen. I open the fridge, pull out the soy milk, and take a seat at the kitchen table to pout while eating.
I reach into my hoody and pull out my headphones, I put them in and press play. The music starts effectively separating me from the world. I dig into my bowl of cereal and take a frustrated bite. I dig in for a second bite when someone grabs my hand.
Fiat takes the spoon out of my hand and picks up my bowl and starts eating.
I pluck one of my headphones from my ear and let it dangle beside my hoody strings, and cross my arms.
"There ARE other bowls and spoons. There is more cereal in the cupboard and more milk, I shouldn't have to tell you that, it's your house."
Fiat rolls his eyes and takes another bite and looks back at me.
"Yeah, but I want this bowl, this spoon, this cereal, and this milk."
He smiles at me obviously pleased with himself. He places the bowl back in front of me and dips the spoon into the milk and cereal, and offers me a bite.
I shoot him a look of disgust and stand up to fix myself another bowl.
Remember earlier when I told you the Fiat was Almost perfect? Let's circle back to that. He's kind, funny, charming, athletic, he plays the guitar, he is tall, dark, and handsome. His list of attributes goes on and on, and as far as I can tell only two things hang out on his lacking list. Fiat is SPOILED and JEALOUS.
Don't get me wrong he isn't always but when the mood strikes him he is the absolute worst. I long ago noticed this when we were kids.
Exhibit A:
Our tenth year.
Fiat's parents gave him a shiny new remote control helicopter to replace the remote control car he had long ago stopped playing with. The red paint was chipping off the metal casing and some of the hard plastic pieces looked cracked
While Clover, Jay, and Steel watched the sky as Fiat did tricks with his brand new pride and joy. I walked over to the trash can where his old shabby sports car sat on top. I picked it out of the trash and placed the car on the driveway. I flipped the switch for the remote and the small red light indicated it was on. I fiddled with the dials and was surprised when the car responded. It whizzed around me in happy circles as if it were excited to be played with once again. I could hear Steel begging to control the helicopter and after a while Fiat relented.
"You better not crash it." He warned as he handed Steel the controller. He watched him for a moment and then walked over to me.
"Ugh, you're playing with that shabby thing?"
I nodded my head and sent it whizzing around his feet. He smiled and shook his head. "It's yours. Take it home." He offered.
"Really?" I asked him. I don't think it was so much that I was happy to have a new toy, I think I was just happy he gave it to me.
That night I took it home and got busy repairing it. My dad was busy in his workshop and I sat beside him at his work table while he worked on his latest project. I picked up a piece of sandpaper and began sanding off the red paint. After a while, he looks over at what I'm doing and takes the sandpaper from my hand. He stands up and disappears into his workshop's closet. He returns with a clear plastic bin, paint thinner, and a scrub brush. He then produces a screwdriver from his thick apron. He takes apart the wheels and unscrews the base and pulls off parts, and pulls everything apart until only the outer casing of the car remains. He places the red casing into the clear bin and pours the paint thinner and hands me the brush. I brushed at the red paint until only a silver casing remained. When I was done I looked to my dad. He pulls a rag from his apron and instructs me to wipe away the paint thinner. When I'm done he hands me the sander. He picks up a bottle of clear liquid and sprays it on the metal exterior and prompts me to sand the steel until it's smooth.
After I'm done Dad takes me into his paint closet and instructs me to pick a spray paint. I choose this really cool neon green. He takes me outside where he had already set up an area for me. I place the metal casing on the waiting tarp. My dad reaches into his apron and pulls out two bandanas and instructs me to cover my face. He shakes the spray can and removes the top and hands it to me. I spray the grey steel casing with neon green paint. When I'm finished my dad appears with the rest of the pieces of the car and hands me the black spray paint.
I let it dry overnight. The next day after school I came straight home and put all the pieces back together. I was so proud of what my dad and I did I couldn't wait to show the gang. The weekend came very quickly and I was excited to go to Fiats to show him. They were all playing with the helicopter near the pool, and I placed my green car down on the grass and it whizzed past them and did circles and tricks. Clover, Steel, and Jay were really impressed. Fiat got a really strange look on his face. He watched my car for a while, then grabbed at the controller. He snatched it and the car went out of control and fell into the water. He didn't say anything he just threw the remote in to.
Clover, Jay, and Steel all yelled at him.
He looked at me, but I couldn't say anything.
I wanted to cry, but my pride wouldn't let me do it in front of him.
So I just walked away.
I walked out of his backyard and walked home alone.
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