In her living room, a blonde-haired woman put pen to paper. She scribbled away furiously; her hand beginning to cramp from all of the many documents she had – and still had yet, to sign. She took a swig from the glass of aged bourbon that was placed dangerously close to the paper which she wrote upon.

In the doorway, her young son appeared. His form was dwarfed by the frame, and his presence was not noticed by his mother; too busy in her own affairs to pay attention to anything but the area directly before her.

“Mum?” The boy spoke.

The woman perked up out of her daze; her annoyance very visible on her face. “What?” She anticipated an answer.

Somehow completely oblivious to his mother’s irritation, the boy ruffled his hand through his hair. “I think...” He wanted to find the correct words to say. This had been weighing on his young mind for a while.

“I think I like boys, the way that you do.”

There wasn’t a second of quiet, before the expression on his mother’s face became that of shock – rather than anger. The pen which she held loosely in her right hand now snapped, from the amount of force which she applied to it.

A brown-haired man waited by his blue rotary phone. Anxiously, he tapped his fingers on the table in front of him; there was a visible frown on his face, although his eyes couldn’t be seen behind the fringe obscuring them.

He stood in his living room; it wasn’t the same home in which he had grown up in, but instead, it had been passed down to him when he had become of age.

Dread rose in his chest; this was a conversation which he hadn’t wanted to have with anyone – especially not his wife. The ringing of the phone was agonising to him; the world seemed to slow down with every subsequent ring. Throughout the entire thirty second ordeal, he warred with himself as to if he even should say what he was about to.

He wasn’t doing this because he was cheating on her, in fact, he’d rather remain single until he had finished university. This wasn’t a necessity, he had thought. However, the more time passed – the more he realised that the sooner he talked to Julie regarding this topic, the less damage that would inevitably result from it.

He mused of his daughter; she was coming up on a year old now. When he had seen her short red hair, and mismatched eyes for the first time – he had felt love unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life.

He wished that he was able to tell Julie in person. However, between her and Margot living in Australia, and his university life, he was too busy to make the long trip.

Telling his wife was necessary. Margot’s safety was necessary. If he could ensure that his daughter was kept away from his side of the family, then that was the kindest thing he could do for her.

In a way he was grateful. He didn’t need to tell any kind of lie to get that end result.

His thoughts were finally interjected, as Julie picked the phone and greeted him.

“Hello?” Her soft voice came through the speaker.

“Julie, it’s me. How are you both?” The man replied, a solemn smile now in place of his frown.

The pair exchanged platitudes, and rather than his anxiety rising further – the man’s determination to tell the truth grew. Eventually, there came a point in the conversation where the man felt ready to come clean.

“There’s something which I need to tell you.” He had interrupted a rather lengthy silence. In his nineteen years of life, he’d never quite understood when it was correct to speak. “I can’t keep lying to myself, anymore.”

Noiselessness came between them again. Julie sat by, wondering what would be the next sequence of words to leave her husband’s lips.

“Julie.” The man paused. This was what he needed to do.

With one final bout of hesitation, he told her the truth.

That man now resided outside of a large, flashy building; he smoked a cigarette and tapped his foot on the floor.

The walls of the building were painted purple, a colour which he had grown to hate. He was dressed appropriately for the Autumn weather, with a plain denim jacket, and a beanie atop his head.

The person the man had been waiting for was hurriedly pacing towards him. “Hey!” He shouted, grabbing the man’s attention.

Tilting his head upwards, the man looked towards his friend. He was wearing his usual garish orange getup, and his brown eyes were filled with life – as they always were. The man couldn’t help but smile at him.

Finally reaching him, his friend stared at the lit cigarette in his hand.

“You should stop smoking.” He paused, and smirked. “Those things will kill you, before you know it!”

The man chuckled, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it to put it out. “It’ll take more than some tobacco to do me in.”

The two of them walked side by side, away from the accursed building.

“So, uh... Damien?” As his friend spoke, every word echoed.

At once, the world around Damien went dark. He turned to the side, and all he could see in front of him was his friend.

And then, his friend suddenly wasn’t his friend, anymore. His friend’s features had now shifted. Absent was his orange jacket; he didn’t have a beard, he was much shorter, he’d lost a lot of weight...

This was still somebody familiar to him, somebody who he cared about.

Damien felt himself grow older as he took in this information. He wasn’t nineteen now and he was sure that around two decades had passed. All of this was natural to him. He wasn’t scared, he saw no reason to be.

“Damien?” The person spoke in a southern drawl, before his features changed once more.

This person was similar to who they had been previously, with the only difference being their attire; his checkered black and pink jacket had been replaced by a pink and green turtleneck, and his hat and glasses had disappeared. Damien was fully aware though, that these two were just as distinct and distant from one another, as they were to the original impression of his friend.

“Damien?” They uttered. They still had an American accent, but it wasn’t the same as when they had last opened their mouth.

“Damien!”

One final enunciation of his name woke him from his slumber.

Startled, Damien quickly opened his eyes and jolted up; in front of him, was Kiral – his personal assistant. She leered at him, and Damien was sure of the source of her anger.

She held her tangle in her hands, fidgeting with it frantically.

“Kiral, I’m sorry. I must have-″ He began to explain himself, but it was clear that his assistant was not having any of it.

“Fallen asleep, again?” She scowled, yet her voice remained rather calm. “Save the excuses; either do your job, or go home.”

He watched her hands fidget, concern overtaking him. “You’re stimming a lot more than usual, are you okay?”

Kiral gripped tighter on her tangle, and stared at him coldly. “I’ve had to pick up all of your work for the past few weeks.” She gritted her teeth. “Other than that, I’m completely fine!”

Damien sat for a short while longer, before he stood back up and collected his things. Without looking at her, he wordlessly left the room.

Now, standing outside of the town hall – he lit a cigarette.

He inhaled, needing the nicotine to take away some of his worries.

And then, he exhaled.

Damien leaned backwards, letting the wall support his weight. He swirled the liquid inside of his red plastic cup, and took a gulp.

The loud techno music assaulted his ears, and he tried not to cringe at all of the couples who were trying to have sex with one another in front of absolutely everyone else present at that shithole.

The taste of the cheap cider made him gag; in spite of that - he still continued to refill his glass whenever it was empty, or empty enough to justify doing so.

“If I didn’t need a drink... I’d throw up from how horrible this tastes.” Damien had a habit of murmuring to himself. It was something which allowed him to organise his mind a little bit easier. Everyone told him he was weird for it, and he’d tried to stop doing it – but nonetheless when he was highly stressed, he always ended up performing such an action at a higher frequency than usual.

He hated house parties. He absolutely despised them. However, he was willing to try anything to distract himself from that day’s earlier events; if that meant putting up with bright lights, godawful music, and some dumb horny university students (none of whom, he had ever crossed paths with despite attending that place five days a week,) then, he guessed that his current circumstances would have to do.

Damien picked up on the looks he was receiving from the other party-goers. He assumed that if he wasn’t the mayor’s son, that by now, somebody would have come to greet him, or at the very least have called him a loser. Instead, Damien’s status as the next in line to be the mayor of the city, made everyone present give him a wide berth.

He didn’t particularly care. He preferred being alone. He’d never been good with people, anyway.

Deciding that he needed to go outside for a piss (he’d checked if the bathroom was free, it wasn’t,) and a cig – Damien crumpled up his cup and threw it into the bin. He placed his hands into his pockets, and sauntered to the door. There were people glancing at him, probably wondering what the hell he was even hoping to accomplish by showing up to the function in the first place.

Outside, the booming music coming from the house was quieter and somewhat palatable to Damien.

He saw a few of the patrons smoking, chatting, and he even had the pleasure of viewing one person throw up. Rolling his eyes, Damien shuffled to a secluded corner of the front yard, and proceeded to unzip his pants, releasing the contents of his bladder onto the trampled grass below.

Relieved, he pulled his pants up, hoping that nobody saw him. He got out his pack of smokes, and a lighter; he proceeded to strike it. Again. And again. And-

“Hey!” Damien hadn’t been sure at first if that voice had been yelling at him. He looked around, and beheld somebody running up to him.

Internally, Damien was dreading whatever interaction was to follow.

Now, Damien was 6’4 (when he stood up straight, which was very rarely) so to see somebody slightly taller than he was, startled him. Not only was this man tall, but his stature was also rather large.

The man had a wide grin on his face, and was nervously scratching the back of his bob-length hair. “You’re the mayor’s kid, right?”

The flush present upon his cheeks signalled to Damien, that this man had had a few too many drinks.

“Uh. Yes.” Damien awkwardly responded.

The smile on the man’s face grew wider than it already was. Surprisingly, he reached out his hand and grabbed Damien’s, shaking it firmly. “Well, I’m Lucas!” At the very least, Damien concluded that Lucas hadn’t seen where his hands had been just moments prior.

Swiftly pulling away, the man – Lucas, sped up his scratching and his gaze averted to the ground.

“Me and my friends were wondering if-″ Before Lucas could finish his proposition, a large commotion erupted from inside the house. Damien was taken aback when Lucas’ entire demeanour changed. He looked at Damien with resolve, and without a single word exchanged between them, they ran back in together.

“Eli!” A woman screamed. “Eli! Someone help, he’s bleeding!”

The crowd grew, watching in horror as the amount of blood puddling on the floor grew larger by the second.

“Phone.” Lucas sternly stated. Seeing the look of confusion upon Damien’s face, he clarified. “Do you have a phone?” Damien nodded, and rushed to pull out his brand new uMobile 2G. He was shaky, but got it together and typed ‘999’ on his touchscreen. By the time he had hit the dial button, Lucas had already gotten past the crowd to the centre of the scene.

Damien did his best to follow.

“It’s going to be okay.” Lucas reassured the man, and the woman who was presumably his girlfriend. He took off his orange jacket, and used it to counteract the bleeding coming from the nasty cut on Eli’s wrist.

As he did so, Damien became aware of something rising in him. He watched as Lucas tenderly bandaged the wound, seeing the careful and deliberate nature of his actions. He witnessed how Lucas’ droopy brown eyes scanned the scene, and how his form animated with care and compassion for the couple.

The music still blared, the lights were still too bright, and there were still entirely too many people around for Damien’s comfort; but all of that simply faded to static, when he took in everything concerning Lucas as he worked.

Damien knew exactly what he was feeling, a kind of clarity which was rare for him. All he could consider doing about it, was muttering a pitiful – “Oh, no.” under his breath.

Clearly, Lucas had taken up too much of his attention, as he hadn’t been aware that he’d gotten through to the operator. She replied to him – albeit indirectly.