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Trayton - Four years ago

G irls. Girls. Girls.

By the time I reached the age of ten, it was all about girls. If you didn’t want to ask a girl out, it was weird. If you didn’t comment on how pretty a girl was, it was weird.

I hated it because I didn’t look at girls like that. I wanted to, but I didn’t get what was so amazing about them.

What I did like was the idea of love. From a very young age, I always craved to know what true love felt like, especially after my mom left me a note saying goodbye and telling me one day I would understand.

“One day, when you fall in love, Trayton, you will understand why I’ve had to leave.”

All she ever did was watch movies with lots of kissing and read books that made her smile more than I or Dad ever could. I asked her once what love felt like because I didn’t think I had ever experienced it. I remember her looking sadly at me and saying, “The movies and books say you’ll know it’s love when your heart aches just to be near that person. The nausea when you’re apart consumes your body and mind. Butterflies flutter in your ribcage, and one glance at that person releases them, swarming your body and leaving you floating and happy. It’s an exhilarating rush, like a rollercoaster ride, where fear and excitement blend into pure joy. But it’s also the quiet moments of peace, where simply being in their presence and sharing the silence speaks louder than words ever could.”

I wanted to feel that. And I think my mom did too. I think that’s why she left me. I think she wanted to go find that love. My dad’s love was his work; it was never my mom. And my love? I don’t think it was enough for her.

I wanted to know what was so good about love that she left me for it. So in elementary school, I had a girlfriend, Natalie. Every guy in my class liked Natalie. They would leave her notes on her chair, and their eyes would follow her on the playground. But I didn’t feel how I thought I should have felt. For a while, I thought I was broken; I thought something was wrong with me. Because I hated every single minute of being with Natalie.

I hated the feel of her soft skin when she’d try to hold my hand on the playground. I hated her dull eyes that would capture me anytime I was near her. Where was this sparkle they talked about in Mom’s movies? I felt nothing when I looked at her.

On my eleventh birthday, I went to the lighthouse near home, my refuge from the chaos of my mind. I went there to escape, to find solitude like I always did when my head got too loud. But on that day, I wasn’t alone. I met a boy there. He smiled at me and said, “Hi.” I asked him why he was there, and he just shrugged, his cheeks turning a deep shade of red before he dropped his head. He didn’t say much, but just sitting with him was enough. In that moment, with his shy smile and the way he made me feel seen, I realized I liked him a lot more than Natalie. I went to that lighthouse every day for two months straight. He was there again and again. There was a strange, exhilarating excitement whenever I saw him.

I was eleven years old when I realized I wasn’t broken.

I just didn’t like girls. I liked boys. I liked this boy. But why? He always sat there with his hood up. He barely spoke to me. He never told me his name, even when I told him mine. But he was peace. He was calming when I needed it. His smile stood out against the darkness of his hoodie that framed his face, and although I could barely see his eyes, I used to catch the redness creeping up his cheeks when he smiled.

He just smiled at me and went red a lot. But god, that smile—it did things to me. It was like a light piercing through the shadows, making my heart race and my palms sweat. I liked it. I think I went red quite a lot too.

I stare down at my lucky coin, flipping it between my fingers, remembering the day he gave it to me.

“What is this?” I frown down at the thin silver coin that’s engraved.

“Call it a lucky coin,” he mumbled.

I squint my eyes and read what it says. "Fuck Yes." I laugh, placing my hand over my mouth because I swore.

“Turn it over.” He smiled.

I turn it over and read "Fuck No." I frown up at him. “What does it mean?” I’m confused about why he gave it to me.

He shrugged. “Whatever you want it to mean.” And with that, he stood up and left.

I ran down the stairs of the lighthouse and kissed him on the cheek to say thank you. My lips tingled all night.

I went back the following day. He wasn’t there.

Or the day after that.

Every day for a month, I went back.

I cried that night. I didn’t even cry when my mom left.

The words they used to describe love—I had that. I was eleven years old when I felt all of it. Then, I didn’t know what it meant, but it sure felt like what Mom described.

It sucked.

Nobody warns you that first love can change you forever.

Nobody tells you how hard it is to breathe when that first heartbreak hits.

And nobody tells you that first love cuts the deepest.

I never saw him again. I never got that feeling again.

Until I saw him .

His eyes sparkled like shooting stars against the night sky. His smile was a beam of light in my otherwise dull life.

For the second time in my short eleven years of life, I felt them—the butterflies, the rush, the excitement, and even the peacefulness he created that surrounded me whenever he was close by. At that moment, I felt everything.

It was the first time I didn’t think about the boy from the lighthouse.

Over the years, my happiest moments were spent with him, sharing peanut butter cups. We always got a pack of three, and he’d split the last one so we could share. When his hand accidentally brushed mine, I felt it—an electric zap straight to my chest. Thousands of currents shot through me, making my heart race and flutter.

For four years, I thought I was in love with my best friend. I stood by his side, hoping he’d feel the same one day.

And he did.

When we were fifteen, we shared our first kiss. I’ve never felt anything like it.

He would watch me for hours while I trained on the ice, and his face lit up like the night sky on the Fourth of July whenever our eyes connected.

But then things changed—he changed.

I’ve learned that movies and books deceive us. They don’t tell you about the other side of love—the side that feels like thousands of knives piercing every butterfly that once swarmed your body.

Nobody tells you about the feeling of having your heart stamped on and shattered.

Nobody tells you how much it fucking hurts.

Here I am, sixteen years old, staring at the third person to leave me, the third person to break my heart.

I stare at the boy, who just shattered my soul into tiny fragments, while he kisses another guy.

The boy I have loved for the last five years.

The boy I gave myself to on my sixteenth birthday.

The boy who was my best friend.

Today will always be the day I remember that I, Trayton King, switched his feelings off and vowed never to fall in love again.

Fuck Bexley Anders.

Fuck love.

And, to the guy who is currently staring straight at me while kissing the boy I love…

FUCK YOU, Daxton Rivers.