Falling Star

Last night, Trung and I left the house around midnight to go watch a meteor shower. We drove to the only somewhat dark and somewhat high up place we knew of: the hill. It was a hill in a park by my old high school friend Kathleen’s house. Getting to the top was very walkable, but the hill was still high enough so that I could see Kaiser Permanente, which was a mile away, and another road going up the Silver Creek/Evergreen Mountains, which was about four miles away.

I knew that memories of this hill wouldn’t be the only things I’d revisit that night. This hill was the only really good and easily trekkable hill in the area, so I expected to run into people I knew from high school but haven’t talked to (avoided) since graduation.

And I did. But it wasn’t anyone that I used to be close to, so the reunion wasn’t too awkward. A few yards away, Trung and I laid a blanket over the dirt and lay ourselves flat to get a good view of the entire sky and all its stars.

We’d chat, and periodically we’d see a shooting star in the corner of our eyes.

There’s something so magical/romantic/nostalgic/inspiring about shooting stars. The night sky is normally full of your typical stars—immobile, lazy. They wait on you; they’re always there blinking and winking at you when you’re happy or sad or angry or whatever. While a starlit sky is all very pretty when you’re in a really dark place far off from civilization, the sky is nonetheless more exciting when shooting stars randomly run across it. A shooting star has places to go, no time to waste. It dashes past all the motionless stars, leaving them behind. And a shooting star definitely isn’t there to wait for you when you’re happy, sad, angry, whatever. It moves on, completely unabashed by the lazy stars it brushes past and by the stargazers who wait and search for it.

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“Mentally, I guess I was okay.”
Written September 8th, 2007 (Excerpted)

The second to the last week of summer break, Leon im’d me late at night, and I could tell that he was hornier than normal. “Jacking off alone is boring,” he complained.

“Go get your boyfriend,” I joked, knowing that he lived [far away].

After getting past the banter, the conversation boiled down to Leon trying to convince me to “play” with him—as in, watch some porn together but jack off individually. Aside from being amused by Leon’s corruption of such an innocent word, I was very apprehensive, but he managed to convince me that “playing” wouldn’t be cheating. “It’s not cheating as long as no one touches each other!” he explained. That’s all it really took to convince me because after all, Leon was hot. Plus, it was such a surreal opportunity that I couldn’t let it pass; the guy that I had had a [tiny] crush on a year and a half ago [and haven’t talked to since then] was willing to get naked for me. Even though I no longer had any kind of feelings for him, I wanted to make my sophomore self jealous.

[And so jealous I made my sophomore self.]

A few days later, Leon and his boyfriend broke up. Leon told me that they were going to give each other some until they [met up at school again]. And then I and Leon began discussing a second play session.

[Details about the second “play” were here. Afterward, he discussed the possibility of starting some body contact later on.]

I thought it was kinda inappropriate that Leon was willing to do anything with another guy even though the possibility of getting back with his ex, who he claimed to love unconditionally, loomed overhead. But then Leon was able to convert me to the idea of “sexual liberalism” (in the gay world, that apparently means being able to dissociate love and relationships from sex and to treat sex as just a casual friendly thing, but the rules of cheating while in a relationship still apply), although it wasn’t much of a conversion because I was already on the verge of going over anyway.

So another week passed, and school started again. I was invited to watch the meteor shower on the hill by Kat’s house, and I knew that this was going to just be another “romantic situation without someone to be romantic with”, unless I did something about it. I asked Leon if he would’ve liked to accompany me, and he was glad. We knew that that night, we were finally going to practice some “sexual liberalism” (which Leon still refers to as “playing”).

Autumn, Kathleen, Maggie, Loppy, and a few other friends of mine knew what I and Leon did that night; they witnessed it. Starting at 11 AM, everybody was huddled together on a few blankets laid over the dusty dirty on top of the hill. At first, I and Leon cuddled to keep each other warm, but…we ended up making out.

My hormones were shooting with joy. Mentally, I guess I was okay.

Around 2 AM, I and Leon decided to descend the hill and find a private place to just chat. We settled for a play structure and sat on its stairs. Made out some more, and then we got to talking. It turned out that things with his boyfriend just weren’t going to turn out well at all. Leon revealed to me some very shocking things about themselves—the couple that I had envied since the day they got together. [Unpleasant details.]

We also talked about [my first crush, let’s call him “Vance”], who Leon had known for about three years…Vance was now a huge party boy/drinker, but he was only on the verge of becoming one when I had still liked him. Time and boys changed him drastically.

I came to the conclusion that relationships were shit.

And then surprisingly enough, we talked about religion. Leon practiced Buddhism, but he said that he was really a theist but didn’t have a specific god or deity to pray to. However, I could never really picture Leon praying, or just being religious in any kind of way. I explained that I considered those who prayed or turned toward religion were only making a vain last-minute ditch effort to fix or understand something that they and everyone else failed in trying. I had never prayed [to anyone/anything else] for anything in my life, not even to have a chance to be straight when I was going through my sexual identity crisis.

Lastly, we discussed me and “how I was doing”. I was doing fine enough, but I was sure that I wouldn’t be having any kind of stable relationship any time in the next year or two. Leon asked me what I was going to do when he would go back to school, and I divulged that I had already started considering a few different guys to “play” with.

I looked at my watch; it was almost 3 AM, the supposed start time of the grand meteor shower. Leon and I headed back up the hill, and the whole group eagerly looked up at the sky.

One hour passed, and we all had yet to see anything thrilling. I and Leon decided to head back to my house. When we got there, we went up into my room and headed straight under the covers of my bed. [Blah blah blah.]

When we finished, we cuddled until we fell asleep. The next morning, I drove Leon back home.
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Two weeks later, I would meet Trung, and he would be the one to get me back up on my feet.