From his spot next to the water fountain he had a nearly perfect view of the school grounds sprawled out before him. Basically a bunch of dirt and grass half-covered by the hundreds of shoes worn by the hundreds of kids attending the same hundred year old school. But after years of being forced to tramp to the grounds five days a week for hundreds of weeks and multiple years, Jonny felt forced into viewing his spot by the fountain as an tourist's observation deck and the school yard before him as a scenic view.
And yes, a tourist's, because Jonny, despite all his years here, couldn't help but feel like an outsider. He didn't really have any friends, just acquaintances. He wasn't interested in any of his classes. Sometimes Jonny wondered why he even bothered coming. He was seventeen, he could drop out at any time. Or at the very least, skip once in a while. His parents would never know. They had never cared to take interest in his life. He wasn't much more than decoration to them.
But retracing his thought process, getting back on topic, he knew why he bothered making the mile long trek to this institution of lackluster "learning". It wasn't for knowledge, it wasn't for friends, it wasn't even for acquaintances. It was for a stranger. Yes, a stranger. All Jonny had was a face and a name.
Well, there was more. A lot more. There were small things. The way he ran his long fingers through his short curls. The way his eyes shone when he laughed after one of his friends told a presumably hilarious joke. The way his eyes sparkled when he was the one telling the joke, something he clearly thought was the funniest thing in the world. His friends didn't seem to share his sense of humor though, they just gave him odd looks. But sometimes Jonny would be close enough that he could hear what the young man said, and even though it was usually something lame he found himself trying to hold back his own laughter.
And speaking of hearing, another small thing was the particular sound of the sweet man's laugh. The man clearly enjoyed life. And the sound of his laughter filled Jonny with such a sense of warmth he could feel it suffocating him from the inside out and sometimes he simply couldn't breathe all because of it.
The simplest, perhaps shallowest of these small things was the man's attire. He dressed unusually formal for a school setting, and looking at him Jonny always felt inferior and pathetic in his own clothes, usually just a t-shirt thrown on over some old jeans.
And then there were the deeper things. The aspects about this man that not even Jonny himself could ever fully explain. The captivating thing his shimmering blue eyes would do, looking both full of wisdom and courage, yet painfully innocent and helpless at the same time. Like you wanted him to teach you something about life, but then at the same time you wanted to teach him to protect himself from the horrors of it.
The way he could somehow pull off acting like an immature boy, but look so much like a man. The way his perfectly toned arms seemed to be begging for a body to wrap around, lonely and scared and seeking refuge beyond their own sculpted beauty.
And how Jonny desired that. Longed for it. Night after night, he could think of nothing but the way it would feel if those arms were wound tightly around him, refusing to let go. He could have pictured more, much more. But for some reason that was all he wanted. He just wanted to be held by this mystery man.
He had a magic about him, he was a top notch magician. If he were to do a magic show Jonny was sure he'd leave it feeling dumbfounded and mesmerized and ardently believe it to be the best one or two hours of entertainment he'd ever spent money on. All he wanted was this one man, this young, bright soul called Christopher (or Chris, but he preferred the full title).
He could never quite reach deeply enough into his mind or into his heart to find just exactly what it was that made him want this so badly. Maybe it could be traced back to some sort of complex. He never felt he could look up to his parents and he didn't have any older siblings to look up to, so maybe this obsessive admiration was a result of having no other outlet for it, and he simply wanted, no, needed, someone to look up to and admire. And maybe within those eyes and within that laugh what Jonny saw was someone who could tell him what to do.
But at the same time, perhaps it was Chris's boyish charm and innocent expression that drew Jonny closer. The aura he gave off; that he could take a hit with a smile, but somewhere deep down it would still leave a bruise. And because of this weakness, this tragic flaw in personality, Jonny felt compelled to be there for Christopher, to hold him and to protect him and to care for him if he was not well.
Perhaps it would be a fair trade-off. Christopher could warm Jonny's being with his good-natured attitude and corny humor and Jonny could, in return, cool off any pain Christopher might feel, not letting the heat get too intense, not ever letting it burn him and scar him for good. Perhaps Christopher could remind Jonny to laugh along and to live a little, and Jonny could ensure that Chris kept his head just far enough out of the clouds so he wouldn't get caught in a storm of troubles.
If Jonny really pondered this seriously, he knew it was all of these things. All of them and more. All combined with an overwhelming feeling that Christopher was just the one. The one person on the planet that could make Jonny come out of his shell and truly feel something.
Even now, Jonny felt so many things for Christopher. He felt admiration, he felt awe, and in all honestly he felt a good deal of desire and tad bit of lust. But most and possibly scariest of all, he felt something that he, even though he would never openly admit, knew was love. Love for a guy called Chris. Love for a stranger. Unexplainable, unrequited, unimaginable, yet inexplicable love.
It had to stop, he knew. He couldn't go on this way. But he knew it would never, could never, stop. It was as much a part of him as his tangible beating heart was. And he would lay in bed at night, and laugh. All this for a stranger. A stranger he had known of for just two years. But he knew that nothing would ever change. Well, no. He knew that his feelings would never regress. Depending on future events, however, they could always progress.
And this is where Jonny would stop thinking about that matter. He knew what he yearned for was impossible. Christopher would never love him, he would never even know him. They would probably never even talk. And the pain of this realization was almost unbearable. It wound a knot so tight in his stomach that standing up straight became a grueling task.
On this particular day as he stood by the old fountain, Jonny felt an impulse to do something, anything about it. He wanted to scream what he felt to the world, he wanted to spray paint it all over the dreary bricks of the school. He had to get it out. He thrust his shaking hands into his pockets, locating a crumpled piece of paper and a pen with his fingertips. He ironed out the paper as best as he could and scribbled his thoughts in quick succession on it with the pen, summarizing as best as he could.
He finished just as the bell rang signaling the students that it was time for homeroom, and as kids began to file into the school he folded it into a paper airplane and threw it, watching briefly as it caught the breeze of the blustery morning. Then he turned around and walked somberly into the building, leaving his thoughts and expressions and feelings to fall as they may.
