He sat on the floor of my bedroom, his back supported by the side of the bed. He'd scrunched his face up into concentration as he reviewed the issue I was having with my television and its remote control (they didn't seem to be working). This was Kyle, the first person I'd felt heightened emotions for, and he was sitting there in my room attempting to help.
I'd mentioned the issue to Kyle earlier in the day, during our Junior year high school English class, mostly as an aside per a throwaway discussion as to what was going on in our respective lives. He volunteered to come over that evening and see if he could help. It was a nice gesture. It would also score some nice points with my mom, who'd already met him on a few previous occasions when he'd come over to have lunch with us during the school day.
Suddenly, a few buttons were pressed on the remote, the TV came on, and Kyle's face lit up in what can only be described as an accomplished smirk. "Fixed it!" he said, sounding confident. 'Is there anything he can't do?' I internally asked myself. Kyle was the opposite of my father: soft-spoken, considerate, non-aggressive. These were things I consciously valued, but also had in my head that a person such as that wouldn't be very good at, well, the manly sort of things. Such as fixing things that were broken. Being proven wrong at such a stereotyped assumation increased my esteem of him. I could almost feel it rising within me, like a Power-Up in a video game.
"So, what do you want to do now?" I asked. The question brought Kyle's face down a bit, as he looked at me, then past me, then away in a manner that betrayed he 1) hadn't been expecting the question, and 2) was made uncomfortable by it. To be clear: the question had no sexual background to it. Perhaps oddly, I never thought about sex when it came him. But the desire to spend more time with him was hugely important.
After a few moments, Kyle responded, "I don't know. Is there something you wanted to do?" This was said without any hint of subtext, though there still seemed to be some slight bewilderment on his face. This threw me, at the time. We'd hung out together on many occasions over at his place. Him being at my house was less common and, in hindsight, I should have done what he did when I was his guest -- just suggest things to do. Throwing out a nebulous question was probably not the best option.
'I don't want you to go. I would like for us to spend more time together this evening. It doesn't really matter what we do. Whatever it is that keeps us in each others' presence is fine with me.' That's what I wanted to say to him. That was the unspoken honesty behind the initial question. Of course that isn't what was said. Instead, I came out with a shrug of the shoulders, a "Dunno," and a very probably goofy expression.
Kyle mildly shook his head and began to get up. "I should probably head home," he said.
I nodded. "Of course, of course," and we went downstairs and said our goodbyes for the night. Kyle and I continued to be friends for some time longer, until we weren't. Ultimately, it was a lesson in the perils not only of unrequited love, but of falling for a hyper-religious, heterosexual person who cannot possibly return perhaps even a marginal amount of the same love. But I shall always remember, with fondness and frustration, the night he fixed my remote control.
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