My Best Friend, Tristan (Part 1)

NOTE: as this is written in first person, you will get the best experience by reading slowly and letting the events unravel the way it would for our first-person narrator (KYLE).

MY BEST FRIEND, TRISTAN (Part I)

An early morning race across the Academy football field before class. A routine of our friendship that should have ended as usual; with Tristian’s girlfriend meeting him for a 10 minute make-out session reminding me that I am almost 21 and still alone. Still. Alone. But that didn’t happen today. Today everything changed, for the better or the worst, I’m still not quite sure.

But as usual we raced our 4 full lapse, and as usual Tristan always won. No surprise there. Usually I’m graceful about losing to him. After all, he did have a four inch height advantage. But today he wasn’t as graceful about winning. As if he ever is really.

“Take that, bitch!” He says in an overly cocky manner. “I smoked your ass.”

This morning Tristan seems to be intentionally trying to get a reaction out of. He always complained about me being too much of a punk and did everything to break me. Well this morning it was working.

He walks up to me and mush the back of my head.

“Just made you my bitch today!” He laughs. “Pussy!”

I SNAP! I shove him. He falls to the ground just staring up at me horrified. As though he had been betrayed or something. But I was the one who was betrayed. I had been hearing that my entire life and he sounded just like everyone else who ever called me a pussy or a bitch.

“Man what’s your problem?” He gets up pissed ready to attack me. Then a moment passes and he sees me standing there, looking down and angled away from him. He calms down and just stares at me. Then he lets down his defense. He sighs.

“I’m sorry Kyle. I wasn’t trying to make you angry this time. It was just a joke.”

There he is doing it again. Just being Charming Tristan and he gets whatever he wants. I didn’t want to let him off the hook that easily. I really didn’t, but then I released an involuntary smile that he notices right away. He’s relieved with jovial laughter as he takes me in a headlock.

“Haha-Haa!” How’d you get so sensitive?”

I try to fight my way out of his hold but I couldn’t. I lose my balance in the attempt and we both land on the ground. I’m still struggling to free myself. I roll him over.

“Well, I’d rather be sensitive then an only child brat!”

In that moment I was proud of myself. But even more, I was enjoying our friendship being playful again. But he starts getting aggressive and struggling to overpower me.

“Now that’s the Kyle I know!” In his struggle Tristan suddenly rolls me over and pins me down.  We look at each other. He says nothing else. He just looks at me. So close.  A moment passes. I realize what’s happening here and quickly force myself up from under him pushing him to the side. I rise up with my back to him.

I don’t want to believe what I thought I was just feeling, only I’m still feeling it. Faced away from Tristan, who I could hear trying to pick himself up, I try to understand.  But I am only filled with this irrational urge to…to…

“Kyle.” He calls me. I can’t turn around. I can’t face him. I won’t.

My refusal to face him quickly backfires when Tristan walks around and stands right in front of me. Why so close? I thought yearning to keep my composure. I don’t want to look up at him but I know he is waiting on me to. And Tristan would wait as long as it took to get what he wants.

So I look up. But I shouldn’t have because now it’s impossible to avoid those eyes. I start feeling those urges growing stronger. I want him. Could he see that in my eyes?

He just stares down at me and I can’t read him. How can he keep his cool like this? Is he admiring what he sees? Does he think I’m a childish idiot? What?

I’m reluctant to go forward with the one thing I was hoping we both wanted. I felt jittery. Like that first kiss feeling. Only this is exactly what it was. My first kiss. And I want him to have it. I want you to have it, Tristan.

Suddenly, his eyebrows scrunch slightly. A little confusion on his face. He knows I want this.  Right? This isn’t his first kiss. And he seems reluctant to move forward unless I do. This kinda made me want him even more. But he knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t make that first move. What is even going on here? Then he pulls away and walks past me, our backs now to each other for the first time in our lives.

Then I let go of all the weight I was holding up in that very awkward moment in an even heavier sigh of relief. I hear Tristan sigh too. But it didn’t relieve him of what he wanted to do. I could imagine him just wanting to take up. That’s the type of lover I imagine him to be. Couldn’t he tell I wanted him?

A moment passes and he sighs off the disappointment this time.

I hear him turn to me. All he must see is a coward faggot who refuses to face him yet again.

“I’m gonna find Lanae,” he said trying to mask the awkwardness of this moment. He comes walking passed me. The thought of letting him leave without satisfying this urge to touch him drove me crazy. And before he could walk away completely and forget he ever saw me that way, I abruptly grab his hand. A moment of us frozen there.  He turns to look at my hand wrapped around his. I draw close to him and just kiss him.

In that moment of kissing Tristan I try to release that massive urge I was feeling as well as try to understand it. All the while I didn’t even realize that Tristan isn’t kissing me back. Shit!

Why isn’t he kissing me back? Was I doing it wrong? Fuck! Did I mistake how he felt?

When I stop kissing Tristan, the moment gets even more awkward than before.

“Sorry!” I said briskly turning to grab my bag, swinging it over my shoulder, and clutching onto as though it had the power to create some sort of invisibility something. All the while he’s watching me in my frantic. I start to walk away.

“Kyle!” He calls.

There goes my name again. Coming from his mouth. How can he make it sound so important? So worth something? I stop. I don’t turn around. I just stand there. Waiting for him to say something. But he doesn’t. He walks up to me and touches my shoulder. Feels good. Then he turns me by my shoulder and kisses me. This time I felt him release through my whole body. Mm, so close. I want this moment to last forever.

But suddenly reality slaps me across the face. What am I doing!? Kissing a guy? I’m kissing a guy! With a penis! I jerk away from him. As much as that felt good, I must have been thinking about doing it with a girl. Right? Right? I scramble around in my head trying to rationalize my actions. Had anyone seen, it would mean the end of us both.

“Tristan?” A voice suddenly comes out of nowhere.

“Lanae.” Goes Tristan’s voice past me. Then I see his gaze also go past me.

“Fuck!” is all I can say.

Someone had seen. And not just anyone. His girlfriend. I didn’t know what this meant for my reputation at Howard Academy of Law.

Tristan remains unmoved. Lanae says nothing. She only stands horrified at what she had just witnessed. It isn’t much longer before she turns and runs away in the melodramatic way that women usually do. I couldn’t understand why Tristan didn’t go after her. But now looking in his eyes, I can see he is more concerned with what he has just learned about himself. Concern grows on his face as he shifts his introverted thinking outward towards me as though he was looking for me to answer whatever it was he was questioning within himself.

And slowly he tries to kiss me again. I dodge him.

“We’re just gonna act like this is okay?” I charge at him. “This is bad! And your girlfriend just saw. Don’t you care what this would mean if people found out?”

He says nothing.

I leave, I had to leave. Tristan just didn’t seem to be getting it. He only wanted to indulge in this new found perspective of his. I’ll admit, I did too, but one of us had to be smart.