“Alright Willard, look a little to the left… good. Good! Gee, thanks for volunteering to model for my photography class Will, I sure do appreciate it. You really make this old bridge more interesting, the colors will sure pop.”
He stood and looked around nervously, “Well you’re my best friend, Peter, but… are we almost done? My mama will scold me good if I turn up with my church shoes and shorts all dirty.”
“…Your mama wore her house shoes to church last week, do you have somewhere you gotta be?” I tilted my head, advancing the film in my Brownie.
“No it’s just…” he stood, rubbed his arms, and looked around. “Peter, I’ve been hearing rumors about you. Queer rumors. Cindy Kate told me you got in trouble at school for kissing a boy at gym.”
“Willard!” I began, my face hot. “That’s all malarkey. You know Cindy Kate is a gossip!”
“I don’t wanna be mistaken for queer, Peter,” he shuffled his feet. “My daddy hates queers and I’m too old to get the belt anymore…lord knows what he’d do to me.”
I lowered my camera, my face furrowed in confusion. “You don’t even know if those rumors are true yet you don’t even want to be seen with me anymore, is that it?”
“Those rumors are true though aren’t they? I’ve known you since we started elementary school together, Willard… you never looked at a girl right. Remember when we found that book of sexy pictures at the library? You spent a lot of time looking at the male ones. And in the locker room I see where your eyes wan-”
I step back as if he’d slapped me, “Peter! I don’t – how can you think that about me? I don’t even know what to say.”
Peter gave me a hard look. “You haven’t denied it.”
I sigh and ran my fingers through my hair, disturbing the pomade in it, “Fine. Fine. I kissed Freddie in gym, but only cause he asked me to. I might like boys a little bit, but I don’t see what’s wrong about that."
Peter look betrayed. "I had a feeling. I stood up for you too, told them Freddie was lying but I had a feeling.”
We looked at each-other. Then Peter said something that infuriated me, “..We watched a documentary, you know on the film projector in health class? It said queers are often pedophiliacs… you haven’t done anything like that- have you?”
My jaw dropped and I balled my fists into rage. “Of COURSE not! Peter how could you THINK that about me? That’s lies, that’s what that is! I haven’t had no impure thoughts like that!” I gasped, “Is THAT why you don’t want to be seen with me?”
Peter looked embarrassed, like he knew he’d gone too far. He worked his jaw for a moment then said, “Maybe it’s a good idea if you only use the photographs of me with my shirt on.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes. “You were my best friend,” I said bitterly, stuffing my camera equipment back into my bag. I turned heel and stormed off the abandoned bridge in the other opposite direction we’d come.
“Peter..!” I heard Williard’s sad voice call out after me after as I left, “Wait please, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Oh you better not come too close!” I yelled back, still walking, “I might molest you cause you know, all homosexuals can’t control themselves! I’m going to go find me some Boy Scouts and wave my johnson at them!”
“Willard! I’m sorry!”
But by then he was out of earshot. I kept a brisk pace into the town on the other side of the bridge until I found a gas station. I went behind it under a big oak tree, knelt down, and cried into my handkerchief. I felt so stupid to think Peter was my friend, and I felt even more like a dummy for thinking I could use that alone moment to ask him to go to the high school social with me. Gosh, I didn’t understand at all these feelings inside me, and now I had no one left to talk to.
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Post is fictional. Source is listed as “Frederik L by TeeJott.”
