anamnesiac

c. senior year, high school
we were in some kind of gazebo when he told me that he was gay and that our teacher had tried to touch him. he put his head in my lap and cried. i loved him so much at that moment and was sad it had taken him so long to tell me. all i could think about was where i had been when it was happening, down the hall in another hotel room. i had known at the time that something was not right.

he was so confused. he said he was going to leave school, graduate early and go to europe. and he did. he was my closest friend at the time. i had been in love with him and still was, though our relationship had changed even before his revelation.

it was raining later that week when i drove my friend and our teacher somewhere. i don’t remember where we went. i focused on the windshield wipers as he told me not to tell my mother who was a teacher at the same school. i told him i wouldn’t. my friend was quiet.

everything seemed very different after that. our teacher disappeared from school for a few weeks and the play was cancelled. the prime of miss jean brodie. i was jean brodie. when he returned, the dynamics between us were completely changed and my friend was gone. it was just he and i. i felt him watching me.

many of my friends from that time talk about how they were hurt in some way by him. he affected me deeply but i was never hurt, or not significantly. at some point, i decided that i needed him more than i needed him to be punished for what he did.

he is still teaching. that is the part that bugs me now.