As I stroll through the green garden, which glows in the sun’s shine, I press down on the petal of one of the many pink peonies that line the path to Lake Sussic. I hold it down for a couple of seconds, letting its perfume reach my nose, then release it and count the number of swings up and down it takes for it to stand still once again. I look ahead to the lake’s crystal clear water, from which the sun’s rays glisten, and see him.

Peter.

Just the thought of his name makes my whole body shiver.

From this distance, I can hear him, and, like the songs of sirens which seduce sailors, his voice ushers my body forward and beguiles it to disregard my brain. My eyes become watery, and with every step I take towards the lake, my heart slams harder and harder against my chest. Whenever I see him, I feel like I’m in some state of dreamy consciousness where everything becomes more beautiful and more painful at once and where...

I glance over my shoulders. Have I been thinking aloud? Is anyone behind me? Did I stare for too long?

We’re at summer camp. The end of August is near. I haven’t seen my family in months (not that it matters) and I’ve barely made a single friend. Also, you could say I have a crush. Crush. What a euphemism.

Approaching the water, I fling my towel on the grass and proceed to struggle out of my shirt, which takes a few awkward seconds longer than it should. I drag my feet to the ice cold water, which soon enough is up to my thighs, my knees, my waist. I have to will myself not to stare at him, but he not just a him: he is a force that tears my chest from within.
This is the location where I first talked to him. I’d told him about the lake shells I’d found, but he’d doubted there were any. When I showed him one he was fascinated, claiming he‘d failed to find any himself.

I turn my eyes to the water, but as soon as they meet my reflection, I wince and look up. There is not a single cloud in the radiant blue sky. It’s so serene it almost distracts me from... Why can’t he just look at me? Just lock his eyes with mine and...

“Pat!” I hear Silvia, the aforementioned barely-made-friend, call out.I pretend I don’t hear her.
“Patrick!” she says, raising her voice.
“HEYSILVIaWhAtSgOiNGON?!” I say, a tad too fast and loud, my voice cracking. I fake-cough twice.
“I need a fourth person for volleyball, wanna come?” she asks.
“Ummm..."
If I reject her offer, it’ll seem suspicious.
“Sure, I love volleyball.”
So I drag myself out of the lake and pick up my towel, rubbing with it my legs, my arms, my chest, my hair, until there is not a drip left. But no matter how much I dry myself, I’m brought back to the lake, and I feel like I will drown.

                                                                   . . .

At night, all campers lay down by the campfire, me next to Silvia, watching as the flames spit out embers and consume the crackling logs. Looking up, we can see the milky way spread out across the night sky like celestial smoke.

“Meteor shower’s about to start soon.” Silvia says.

I shrug and turn my eyes to Andromeda, which shines unusually bright. The constellation was named after the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia, who chained the girl to
a rock in the sea, where she was to await a gruesome death. However, the hero Perseus saved her from the monster Cetus, they later married, had children, and lived happily ever after.

My mind flashes back to everything before June. I think about the last day of school, when I walked alone through the halls of the large concrete building as I passed gunmetal gray lockers. A classmate had just come out, but no one cared. Or at least that’s what they said. Grow up, it’s 2018, no one cares if you’re gay, straight, or bi. By this point, coming out of the closet is so attention-seeking, I’d heard. 

This was the reason I needed to get away from home, I needed to get away from the incessant, oppressive sameness of every day. Those tiring same thoughts I couldn’t live with anymore, the slow destruction of my will every time I heard that word, always the same one, thrown around every day around the same halls like any other word.

I close my eyes and breathe in the crisp air. When I open them again, I see a streak of light fly past the thousands of other stars. Gasps erupt all around me. Another one! I hear, and see a second comet through the corner of my eye. Soon enough, they start to cascade from the cosmos like the embers that spew from the campfire.

“Make a wish.” says Silvia.

Something magical stirs in my stomach. After the cosmic shower, Peter and his group of three other friends start to walk toward their cabins, when he stops to turn around and look in my direction. He stares for a few of seconds, but I dart my head straight down. What if I look awkward?

After he leaves, I tell Silvia:
“Well, looks like someone’s got a secret admirer.”

Silvia chuckles and smiles knowingly:
“Pat, I don’t think Peter was looking at me...”

My heart jumping out of my chest, I put on a confused face, as if I had no idea what she could possibly be talking about.

“...I think he was looking at you.”

For the first time in a long time, I’m able to breathe out, my body is light as a feather, and I get an electric feeling deep in my gut that nothing will ever be the same.

                                                                   . . .

The next day at breakfast, my stomach feels queasy, so I only grab a peach from the fruit basket and wait for Peter to arrive. Am I actually going to confess? To distract myself, I flirt with the fruit, caressing the fuzz on its skin and tracing it from the stem end to the tip as I wait to bite into it once he arrives.

When he does, my heart becomes a bomb on the verge of explosion. To speak or not to speak? Some invisible force comes over me and I rise from my chair, but, as if gravity had released its grasp on me for a split second to then punishingly regain it, I fall back down. I need to talk to him, I think. It’ll kill me if I don’t.

I’m going to count to ten, I tell myself. Once I’m done, I have to go over to his table.

One: without even noticing, I stick my thumb into the peach's flesh.
Two: juice overflows from its skin
Three: Peter and his friends rise from their tables and walk directly towards me.

I stop counting. It would hurt too much if they walked right past me. So I awkwardly leap out of my seat as I bump into the table, and rush towards the exit. When I look back, I see the peach as it rolls from one side of the porcelain plate to the other, uneaten, unbitten.

                                                                   . . .

If it hadn’t been for the faint rainbow that showed up at the Lake Sussic later today, I might've admitted defeat. So after I finally decide to muster up some courage, I rush past the
pink peonies and see him there, splashing water onto his friends. I decide to wait on the grass, since it’s too chilly today.

“Hey, Pat!” Peter yells at me from the lake.
I pinch myself.
“Look what I found!” he then pulls up a large pink lake shell. Water cascades from it as it gleams in the sun.
At a loss for words, I give a thumbs up.
As they stroll out of the lake, one of Peter’s friends splashes water on him from behind.

He tells him to stop. He doesn’t.
“Quit being such a faggot!” Peter yells.
I don’t register the word at first, but when I do, my heart sinks.
All of a sudden I start hearing the buzzing of bees, smelling the sticky mixture of sunscreen and sweat, and feeling the prickling of the pointy grass all over my burned back, whose skin is nearly peeling off from sunburn. I can’t wait to get back home.

I should be livid, aghast, yet, somehow, I’m not even a bit surprised. After all, it’s just more of the same.