Roommates, Best Friends, More Ch. 03

Dear Readers,

this part of the story is written from Matt's point of view. Hope you enjoy!
Thanks again to 76Tromboners for editing!
And of course everyone is still over 18.

YamiAndYugi

Alex had been my best friend since we went to kindergarten together. He was not only taller and stronger than me but also way more confident and had a very winsome personality. People liked him, no matter what he did. I have never been like that, but he pulled me with him. We contrasted with but also completed each other, I guess. Alex was chaos in every possible way; his head was filled with stupid ideas; I was careful and over-thinking. He made me go out; I stopped him from doing extraordinarily stupid things and harming himself in the process. We were the perfect team. Best friends as in the books.

When we were teenagers I noticed my feelings for him were changing. Not all of a sudden but in a rather subtle way. I started seeing little things, like how beautiful his smile was or how much I liked the sound of his voice. It became difficult to look into his eyes or touch him without my heart beating faster and my cheeks turning red. At that time I tried to avoid him as often as possible. He never said anything but I knew he was hurt. I was hurting as well and I missed him. We started meeting regularly again and I got used to living with my feelings, hiding them from him and everybody else. This made me feel sad and lonely, but it was better than having to live without him. And it worked.

We grew older. Started listening to metal, teaching ourselves to play guitar. We even had a little band together with his younger brother.

High school was a mess, but with him it became bearable. My family was a mess as well. They didn't accept anything about me. It seemed all I did was wrong, wrong clothes, wrong music, wrong people, wrong everything. Again Alex was there, gave me strength and encouraged me to be myself, no matter what. We told each other everything. Well, except for the fact that I was still deeply in love with him.

Then he moved away for college. When he heard that I couldn't follow him he offered to stay with me, to wait one year. I told him to go. His parents would have killed him and I didn't want to be the one standing in his way. I don't regret that but I have never been as unhappy as I was then. With Alex gone, I had no real friends left, and I wasn't good at making new ones. Not that I had much time for that, to be fair; my parents had me working very hard and I was saving all my money for college, so going out wasn't really an option. Maybe I had hoped I could get over him when he was miles and hours away. The opposite was true. I thought about him all the time. His eyes, his smile, his perfect body, everything. I was in love with my best friend and there was nothing I could do about it.

Loneliness, desire and insecurity mixed up to a feeling of constant desperation. I couldn't eat or sleep anymore and started cutting myself. It gave me a feeling of relief, and it helped me keep control over myself and my unwanted desires so I could finally find at least a little rest.

Months later, I got accepted to the same college Alex was attending. He was so excited when I told him and practically begged me to move in with him. I just couldn't say no, even though I had no idea how to handle living with him, when I couldn't even think about him without having my heart beating at the speed of a running horse. (Too much farm life, I'm sorry.)

Five weeks before I could leave my town for good, my parents came home way earlier then I expected. They came into my room to tell me they were back and caught me watching porn. Gay porn. Hell broke loose. My dad shouted, my mum cried, my sister didn't even look at me anymore. This was the worst kind of wrong I had ever done. The coming weeks were horror. They didn't throw me out as they had threatened at first, but my dad made me work like a dog so I "wouldn't have time for that shit" and my mum dragged me to church because she had read about "praying the gay away". They took my computer and my TV. I was only allowed to use them when they were present and I had to leave the door to my room and even to the bathroom open all the time. I was a broken boy when I finally packed up to leave "home".

At first my parents had insisted I should move in with my super religious aunt, but luckily my mum was a good friend of Alex's mother, who convinced her, I don't know how, that living with my friend would do me good. Because my mum was too afraid of losing her good reputation to tell anyone the real reason she wanted someone to have an eye on me, I was allowed to move in with Alex. Before I went, they sat me down and told me that if I ever mentioned or acted upon any gay thought ever again they would stop paying for my college and my apartment - and stop seeing me as their son. Forever.

I can't describe the way their words made me feel. It was Alex who saved me, without even knowing. The moment I was back in my room, as lonely and desperate as I had never been before, my phone buzzed. "Hey Matty, you won't believe how happy I am to have you here soon! Can't wait to have my best friend back! Oh and I found a new band you NEED to listen to! See ya tomorrow!!"

He sounded so excited, so honestly happy, that I couldn't help but smiling a little. Alex would never let me down, no matter what happened. A little voice in my head whispered "but what if he knew?" but I managed to silence it. Only a few more hours.