It all started when I was a young boy. My sister knew I wasn't like the other kids. I knew I was different than them, but I thought I was just being myself, and they were being themselves. I thought we were supposed to be different as children.

Yes, I loved playing with little toy cars as a young boy. I loved playing with marbles, and playing handball. I had no interest in baseball or football, or the various other sports that young boys watch and play with their fathers. No, I was more interested in watching movies with my sister, and watching her favorite bands perform with her when they were on television.

Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to form opinions of things, the band The Police were no longer active. However, my oldest sister had taped everything she had ever seen on television regarding them, and we watched them often. I liked the posters on her walls, and we both had a crush on the lead singer.

Of course, only my sister knew I shared a crush with her. I never really felt the need to discuss it with anyone, but she knew. Luckily, my father never found out, or I think he would've killed me.

My childhood wasn't an easy one, I suffered some severe injuries at the age of six that I don't really like to talk about. The injuries left me in a wheelchair for five years, and I had managed to make two or three good friends during that time. Though I never let anyone but my oldest sister know about them, I was afraid of what my father might do to them if he were drunk, or that my mother would chase them away if she got angry with me or if they tracked dirt into the apartment.

My closest friend and my sister, Diana, helped me to walk again by pushing me not to give up. They would gently take me from my chair and carry me a few feet away, setting my feet down on the ground and supporting my weight enough that I wouldn't fall. After surprising the doctors with my ability to stumble around, I was given braces for my legs, and crutches for the days that walking was even harder for me. You know, those bad days we all encounter that makes everything much harder than it should be.

Anyways, one day after school, my best friend came over to where I was sitting in the little outdoor lunch area in the small courtyard of our high school. He looked like he was going to be sick, and asked me if I could keep a secret, and if I promised not to hate him for what he wanted to talk about.

Concerned, I agreed that I wouldn't hate him, and I really only trusted Diane with my secrets, but if he didn't want her to know I'd never tell her.

What he had to say made my eyes widen and my heart race. All the while I was growing up, I found myself more attracted to the boys in my classes than the girls. Yes, I got along with girls just fine, and I didn't act like one of them, I always preferred to look at the boys. When I had met my best friend, my eyes seemed to prefer him especially. As we grew older, I found myself more and more attached to him to the point that it was sometimes painful; but I never voiced this.

He felt the same way, but unlike me, he confided in me how he felt, and asked me not to hate him. I told him I felt the same, and under the noses of everyone, we began dating. Only Diana knew we were together.

Oh, it felt so wonderful with him. I had never been so happy in my life. At the age of fourteen, we gave ourselves to each other, and though I knew we were both too young, nothing in the world meant more to me than him.

Now, I don't condone young relationships, especially those of a sexual nature. It's my belief that such things should be put off until later on in life, after high school and sometimes even after college. Young minds, bodies, and emotions are forever changing during those years, and they make many mistakes. Teens can't think clearly while drowning in their own hormones, and should never try to swim in the hormones of another teen.

Even though I knew this at a young age, I threw it away. Logic and common sense were meaningless to me when I looked into his eyes.

My euphoria wouldn't last, though. Somewhere around the middle of the year, when sixteen was too far behind me and seventeen was too far ahead of me, Jackson approached me at the table where our relationship had been reborn into romanticism. Myself already in college, I had always made it a point to meet him at the high school when his classes ended; I always arrived about half an hour early, just to make sure I would never be late. Always appreciative of this, he wasn't on this day. He seemed angry at me, though I hadn't given him a reason to be.

He informed me that over the last three months he had been falling in love with another one of his classmates, and he was angry with me because he wanted to be with the other boy instead, but that he and I were too close that he couldn't just leave me. I was horribly confused. I had developed a crush or two on other boys during our relationship, but it had never been more than a simple crush, and I had never wanted to leave Jackson for even a moment.

I didn't understand how Jackson could be angry with me that he was too involved with me to be able to leave. I wasn't holding him hostage, at least, I never thought I was. We never made plans for our future, I never pressured him to do anything; everything we did together was spur of the moment and completely consensual. At least, I always thought it was...

Confusion and sadness are never a good combination. I told him that if what he needed was for me to release him from whatever hold he felt I had over him, that I did. I didn't want him anymore if he could be angry at me for the fact that he loved me. It wasn't fair and I didn't want to be involved with someone stupid enough to feel that way. It was the most painful lie I had ever forced past my lips, hurt and angry tears stinging my eyes and tightening my throat with every word.

Jackson looked completely heartbroken, like I had stabbed him, and I couldn't understand why. Had I misunderstood what he was trying to tell me? I never got the chance to find out if I had or not. He ran away from the table; from me, and didn't come back to school the next day. Or the day after that, or the day after that, until two weeks had passed.

I received a phone call from his mother, asking to see me. Thankfully, she had found out about us the summer before, and hadn't protested about our relationship. She also knew how my parents were, and wasn't about to let them know I was attracted to men.

I hesitantly went to Jackson's house, completely unsure of what to expect. I was horrified at what I saw when I arrived. The coffee table had been pushed against the wall, a photograph of Jackson in the middle of it, surrounded by dozens of candles and a handful of his favorite possessions. I felt like I had died seeing the shrine in the memory of my lover.

His mother informed me that he had fallen into a deep depression, and had stopped eating. The evening before she had gone to check on him to see if he wanted some soup, and found him hanging from the light-fixture in his bedroom, with a long, handwritten letter that closer resembled a novel lying underneath his dangling body.

It was addressed to me, his mother, and the other boy he had fallen in love with. When I asked her to see what it said, she shook her head slowly and patted me on the shoulder, telling me that I didn't need to know, and to move on with my life. This further confused and horrified me, and I pressed her to let me read what his last words were to me. She refused again, and told me that the only thing I needed to know was that he didn't hate me, and that he had been depressed for several months, and it wasn't my fault.

That stung me even worse. I hadn't even noticed that he was depressed. Was he just really good at hiding it from me, or had I been stupidly oblivious to what was right in front of me? I was busy with college, the youngest in my class, sure I had a lot of work to do, but I always made time for him. Was I just too exhausted to notice the trouble he was having?

I never got to know the answer to that question, either.

Jackson's mother gave me several of his belongings, and told me that I would always be welcome in her home, regardless of what happened or became of me and my life. Even more confused, I nodded stupidly and left, feeling incredibly sick and wondering what it all meant.

I went back to my dorm room and called Diana, who came to stay with me for several weeks, making sure I took care of myself and did everything that needed to be done. Neither of us went to Jackson's funeral, and neither of us answered the phone when his mother would call to check to see how I was doing. She was worried about me, as was obvious by the messages she left on the machine. But I just didn't have it in me to talk with her, and I think Diana felt the same way I did.

I had never dreamed that my life could become even more complicated than the suicide of my lover and the depression that followed it.

I was horribly, horribly wrong.