“I can’t help it: I laugh.I don’t mean too, it just kinda comes out on its own. I smoosh my hands against my mouth to block the sound, but this causes me to snort, and snot comes out of my nose. I try to cover it up and jerk my left hand up, but it bounces off my nose and I poke myself in the eye. My eyes water as I hiss and knuckle my eyeball, but I’ve still got snot on my hand and gets all up in there, making it burn even more. Ow. I want to turn and run, but I’m temporarily blinded by my own devices and I know, I just know, that this big kid is probably some popular jock and I am forever going to be stuck with the nick-name Booger Eye Snot Face. I ask God quietly if he wouldn’t mind opening the ground beneath my feet and allow me to fall down a chasm to save me from myself. The ground doesn’t open. I’m still laughing, but it’s that high-pitched thing I do when I find something really funny. I hate that laugh. It always sounds like a clan of female hyenas all going into labor at the same time. Yip! Yip! Ayyyyyyyy! Yip! Yip! Ayyyyyyyy”

“But he came, when I was at my darkest. I prayed him down from the sky, and he came in a flash of blue fire that lit up the heavens. I know he came by his own choice, but he came because I called him. He came when I could no longer take the weight of the world on my own. He came when I needed him the most. He came and saved me from myself, saved me from the waters that rose up to my chest and over my head.”

“I sit up straighter and puff out my chest a little bit, unsure why I'm doing so even as I do it. I know when I speak I'll have dropped my voice an octave to make myself seem more manly, and when I shake he hand, my grip will be tight and strong. Stupid, I know, but I'm a guy. It's what we do.”

“This is your home.” He reached up his other hand and gripped my face, pressing down hard against my cheeks. I nodded. “Say it!” “I won’t run,” I whispered as I watched an angry tear trickling from his eye. I leaned forward and licked it away.”

“He stared up at me, and even as the house fell apart around us, even as drops of fire rained down from the sky, his hand raised and brushed a lock of hair out of my face, and I felt his stomach rise as he breathed in deeply.“You,” he whispered. “You’re a boy?” His hands cupped my face, and a tear streaked down my cheek onto his fingers. “I dreamt of you but… but I never thought…”

“You don’t ever doubt me again,” he said hoarsely before his mouth grazed my nipples, first the left and then the right. His scruffy beard scraped the skin beneath raw as he went back and forth. “I will fucking kill you if you ever doubt me again!” he snarled. My eyes rolled back into their sockets at the weight of his words, the desperation in his voice matching the desperation in my movements. I moaned as he bit my nipple harder, almost chewing it between his teeth. I was trapped underneath him, and even though I knew I could push him away, I also knew I wouldn’t. “You answer me when I’m talking to you! ” he roared.“I won’t,” I breathed, my hands in his short hair. “Oh, God, I won’t.”“You won’t what! ”“I will never doubt you again!”“You’re damn right you won’t.”

“You can’t tell a little kid that you swear to God over something and then not do it. You may effectively ruin my childhood.” He looks off into nothing, a wistful expression on his face. “Gosh, think of the therapy bills. Not to mention how I’ll probably never be able to have a normal relationship when I’m an adult. I’ll live with you forever and become a cat lady.” I cock an eyebrow at him. “You hate cats.” He rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah, now I do. But I won’t have a choice. It’ll be inevitable. And I’ll probably have to throw birthday parties for my feline companions where I bake them cakes out of Fancy Feast. All because you went back on your God swear.”