In the middle of the night I saw him, the so called monster, the Boogie Man. With no sleep, I decided to open the window and get some fresh air even though it was in the middle of the night.

Suddenly boom! A gigantic mosquito entered through the window and I tried to get rid of it. I swear I wasn’t paying attention to the boy who lived opposite me, who was staring at me.

“Roman! Roman!” He shouted my name.

I looked at him with shyness that was rooted in fear of embarrassment.

I greeted him and told him that there was a mosquito in my room and it was annoying and I was trying to fight it. He laughed at me whilst blushing from afar. I got annoyed easily and gave him a pissed-off expression.

I closed the window and ended up sleeping.

At last it was morning and I decided to wake up early just to go and apologise. I didn’t sleep well because I knew what I had done was wrong. I went to his crib and found him outside the door.

“Buenos días,” I greeted him in Spanish.

He smiled and asked, “What are you doing here?”

I told him that I’d come to apologise for how I treated him during the midnight crisis I had.

“It’s cool, no worries,” he said so effortlessly.

His house was a mess at that time.

“Sjoh, why is your house so messy?” I asked him.

“Oh, I’m moving out soon to go live nearby. I was so crushed because of certain reasons.” He said.

By the way, did I tell you that I liked boys and I had a crush on this one? His name was Nathan. He was cute and muscular… yummy! We had a lot of things in common even though I didn’t want him to come near me because I thought I would end up falling for him more and more.

So I wasn’t OK with the matter of him moving out and I decided that I should ask him to spend some time with me and he agreed. I was silently glittering with abhor because I liked him. We went out to the mall and watched some horror movies and got to buy tickets for the upcoming Nicki Minaj concert that was coming to Cape Town. I was the happiest guy alive.

But something caught my attention at the mall. Two strange guys were busy looking at me. It was so strange so I decided to avoid it.

Nathan and I decided to leave the mall and go to a park nearby because of those guys. Going to the park was the perfect opportunity for me to confess to him that I’m gay and that I liked him. So we went to the park and chilled. He told me about his dreams and aspirations. We seriously clicked and had a connection; we had that ‘thing’.

I looked at him nervously and I finally told him that I liked boys and that I liked him too. He stared at me and shouted, “WHAAAT!?”

I was completely dumbfounded and thought he would take it well…

“I have to get some fresh air,” he said and left.

I was cool with it so I waited for him to come back to the park, especially since he left his stuff with me. Later he came back.

“Hey Roman, I’m sorry I freaked out like that. It’s just that I also have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I’m also gay and I’ve liked you for a very long time. I was just scared to step up and tell you about it, especially that I was in the closet. And seeing you being yourself just made me like you even more, and I decided to come out of the closet because of you and my love for you.”

I was numb but I was so happy. I held his hands and told him that it was OK. He gave me a kiss of a lifetime and I felt like a little kid; I had butterflies in my stomach.

He asked me to be his boyfriend and I screamed a big “Yes!”

“We will support each other in every step of the way.”

“How? You’re moving.”

“Yes, but only to the house next to mine.”

I laughed, because I thought he was moving away forever.

We shared everything. We spent our days loving and comforting each other, life was fun. Nathan and I continued with our adventures and continued to dream big as life was taking us to another level.

***

Tell us: What did you think of Roman’s bravery to come out to Nathan?