okay, this is matt. Alex, 2024-04-292024-04-29 So I guess I’m okay with baring my soul to you guys. I think you’ve figured out by now that Dyl and Alex, okay I call him Xander, it pisses him off in a cute way, I guess you figured out that he’s wicked important to me. The way he describes the first time we held hands is nothing like it was for me. I was kinda sure about the whole liking boys thing but the first time holding his hand was like that time when I tried to plug something in and zapped myself. And there wasn’t any coming out drama, I mean that first day I went home and told my mom I had a boyfriend, my dad was right there, they both said “finally” at the same time. My early life, I really don’t remember loads. I remember grampa and he’s grampa, grumpy old fuck that acts bitchy but he loves me to death. Summers up here were the best. First we were living in Salem (Mass, the witchy place), and I think I was a basically happy kid. There’s not a lot of places I can think would be this cool to grow up in. Especially around Halloween, my fav holiday, no cap. Even when I was kinda little it was okay for us to take the train to Boston as long as I was with friends, and I super hope now that we’re back up here I can take Xander and Dyl there because I love that city, it has so many memories, all of them good. And the food, holy fuck, yeah I was always weird cos I’d try anything. Shoulda seen my mom’s face when we were at one of the North End restaurants and I ordered calamari. She moved as far as possible from me and refused to look at it. My dad’s a software developer. Back in those days, he could work from home and go see clients. He made good money, too, we had a big house close to the sea, a little too close with hurricanes scaring the fuck outta me, then I saw Jaws when I was like six and never got near the ocean again. Mom says I used to go in all the time. Xander’s got his dates mixed up, I’m sure, I mean I was 12 when COVID hit and my life went upside down. I weren’t in Jersey until that fall. We usually did my spring vacation at grandpa’s and holy shit we knew something was wrong but then we hit Vermont and it was total lockdown. Way more than back home. Dad and mom and me decided to just stay with grandpa since he was okay with it, even being out in the country, middle of nowhere, I had nightmares all the time I was so scared. Dad didn’t really get how freaked out I was about the virus, but it weren’t just that, back then I knew I was gay and convinced I’d somehow magically get AIDS from thin air. But the country suited me. I got a whole education on farm life, because back then there were cows and chickens. I was little so I don’t know all of it but I knew before they told me we weren’t going back to Salem, they’d sold the house. And now dad had no work, either, so we were burning cash. I did paper routes, everything I could think of, to help out, yeah, there was an old guy in town who’d pay me to do stuff which is why I wasn’t freaked out about Montreal. It’s not this big thing to me, it was kinda fun, and he paid me lots which I couldn’t really explain so most of it’s buried on the property, I just gotta remember where. Mom and dad were so stressed out they weren’t tracking things so sometimes a bill got paid they didn’t remember paying. And the guy was nice, it wasn’t just wham bam, we talked, I made up a friend a few times to stay over, he had great stories and he was super gentle with me. Then he stroked out in the middle of it one time and I had a lot of explaining to do, I just said I was walking by and heard someone calling for help. I got his pants back up and mine, I mean there was nothing 911 could do, he was gone in two seconds and I tried everything to get him back after calling them. My parents worked out he was a friend, not the whole deal, and they were worried about me. And yeah it sucked because until he died I never lost someone important to me, and I never told him he was important to me cos I didn’t really know it myself until it was too late. I had to think about that a lot before it finally occurred to me I liked boys. I made sure to visit him and clean up the grave, put flowers on it, Xander and Dyl haven’t noticed I disappear once a week just to make sure I do that. And people can judge if they want but if I hadn’t met the guy and done stuff I would never have gotten so comfortable with who I am. That fall my dad got a job offer in Jersey so we moved again. And that’s when me and Dyl met, then I met Xander, and he’s right, okay, it’s like my universe just grew by two people and I’d never let anyone in before except that guy in Vermont, and it was cool. The fight fucked up everything. Rod got what he deserved, he was a horrible, cruel person, but I knew Lucas more than Xander, he was sort of the fourth person in my universe, we’d gone all the way but he wasn’t ready to commit, and he was real fucked up by his brother’s unalivent. There were times we’d get together and do a poor attempt at sex, okay, we always came but things got damaged. He got violent, okay wrong word I guess, super rough with me. And then after we came, he’d start crying and I’d hold him, sometimes all night. Xander’s not remembering the fight correct, or maybe he blocked it out. I saw Lucas get the gun and I knew he was pretty much always on the edge of taking himself out. That was part of why I stayed his boyfriend-not-boyfriend because I wanted to help him get better. So yeah he got the gun cos our SRO was a useless fat idiot who usually never bothered to even strap it, I’d seen him drop the piece on the floor more than once. Everyone thought Lucas was gonna shoot Rod because vampires, but I knew better, and I tackled him. He’s bigger than me, okay there too, so it wasn’t gonna work. I bounced right off him, he was a football player before, you know, I fought for the gun just hoping he didn’t shoot me by accident, and I tried to jam it when he pulled the trigger like I’d seen on TV. That didn’t work, the slide bit the shit outta me and the gun went off. I guess Xander didn’t hear all of what Lucas said before that. I mean the whole time I was fighting for the gun I was begging him not to, crying, and he whispered to me “I hope you know you’re the best thing to happen to me, the only good thing since Max died” and then he said louder “I gotta go be with him now, he’s alone, he needs me” and in my head, it’s all slow motion, maybe I shoulda kicked him in the balls or something to make him drop it, idk, but the next my ears are ringing, I can’t hear shit, and I’m covered in Lucas head to toe. It was months before I could sleep through a night without nightmares and waking up screaming. I know Xander left that bit out to make things seem better, that’s what he does, he protects. Most people are never lucky enough to have a friend like him, much less a boyfriend. I’m with him for life. I told him there was gonna be stuff in here he wouldn’t like but he said to post and okay there’s this. That year all of us were apart I got in a real bad way. I tried it, too, pills, lots of pills, and wound up in the ER. Dyl found me and somehow managed to keep it from getting back to my parents by giving a fake name and kidnapping me from the recovery room before they could try and get info outta me. We were two towns over so no one recognized us. Me and Dyl were way close then. I mean, we are now, but it isn’t new like it was. I can’t be with Xander how I am with Dyl, they’re just super different people. And I can’t imagine being alive without both of them in my life. My parents are cool with me moving in with grampa. I mean, dad’s never home, they send him all over the world to do tech jobs, they aren’t divorced but mom has a boyfriend and dad’s okay with that. I asked him once if he was ever back in town, which he never is, would he do stuff with the boyfriend, too? Never ask a question you don’t want answers to cos by then I’d done it with Lucas, Xander, and Dyl, and okay that guy too so dad replied with some questions that were more than awkward to answer about what having sex with another boy is like. He was real curious about what it felt like to get fucked. I didn’t lie, it’s never been anything less than awesome with all them even if it hurts. But it’s never gonna be like it was with Lucas cos it basically felt like I was on all fours at the edge of the word and getting slammed so hard it was all I could do not to fly over. Dyl will get rough sometimes, not that rough, he’s not super comfortable with it, and Xander always wants to be gentle. So like Dyl is usually fifteen minutes, Xander it can go for hours, I’ve actually fallen asleep once or twice cos it felt so good. That’s basically what I said to dad and I could tell part of him really wished he hadn’t asked, but part of him was curious, and idk if he went there with mom’s bf. I kinda hope so, but they got their lives, I got mine, and since like seventh grade the only thing I ever asked them was to get me places. The VW was Lucas’, Xander and Dyl don’t know that. I helped him fix it up, it had been his brother’s and he left it to me, thing never ran while Lucas was alive but one rare week my dad got a break for the whole seven days we got it put back together. Me and Lucas had been messing with it for months, managing to fix one thing before three other things broke. And since Xander and Dyl are gonna read this, I’m gonna put a photo of us on the dash, really the only I got of us that one day we went to the naked beach. Uncategorized