The Jabberwock

Cole is the first and last boy I’ve ever loved. When we were little people used to say we must like each other because of how much time we spent together, and we were annoyed beyond reason. I remember a teacher once even gave us the nickname  “Coleio and Juliet”. Cole was one of my first friends, and also technically one of my first enemies. We met when we were four years old in kindergarten and both inexplicably hated each other, I really don’t remember why. We were always seated next to each other in class because our names both start with C, and we would openly throw insults and elbow each other so much that we had to be split up. I came up with the best insult– “Your name’s Cole because that’s what you get for Christmas”.

Neither one of us really had friends, so we’d both just wander alone at recess. Until one day, out of the blue, I asked him if he wanted to meet my imaginary friends, and somehow we went from being enemies to best friends from that day forward. My sister, my mom, my classmates, and my other friends would tease me relentlessly saying that I must have a crush. I never understood it because I genuinely didn’t have those feelings for him, but I also didn’t really understand what those feelings were supposed to be like. 

Cole was my first kiss, but not actually. One day standing in line to walk out to recess, the girl behind me tripped and pushed me into Cole, and us being silly little kids who had no real concept of kissing, we thought that because we touched faces we kissed. We called that “the secret,” but not in a romanticized sort of way, we were just fairly embarrassed that that could have happened. It was something we laughed about a lot and bonded over how we thought the idea of kissing was gross. Now I know why that idea of kissing was so gross to us. 

I think when I was seven or eight years old and my friend Talula started talking to me about boys and all of her crushes, (insisting that I had a crush on Cole) is when I tried to piece together everything I knew about romantic love from movies, TV, and what I’d always been told. I thought about it for a long time trying to think if there was anyone that I felt that way for. Then I had this sudden realization that I felt like I could tell Cole anything and might even be able to talk to him forever. When I thought about the people in my life I loved, he always came to mind. I loved the way we laughed together and that I never felt the need to lie to him about anything the way I fudged the truth to impress Talula. I realized that when I went to school in the morning, he was the person that I was excited to see, and whenever any small silly thing happened in my seven year old life, he was the person I wanted to talk to about it. I even thought about how on a superficial level I wasn’t drawn to his appearance, but I figured that if I ever fall in love with someone one day, it won’t be because of the way they look. Cole was just one of my favorite people.

So I decided that’s what it meant to have romantic feelings for someone, which at this point I thought I’d never experienced for anyone. I was relieved that I finally had a crush like I was supposed to, and more than anything I was excited to tell Talula. That Monday I went to school and gathered my two girl best friends at recess for a confession. I dramatically said;

“I… like… Cole”, and then covered my mouth and ran away to the opposite end of the playground, hearing their gasps behind me. Then as the school day went on, saying it out loud had made something feel not quite right. I started to get very uncomfortable with the idea of a romantic connection to Cole. The more I thought about it, the more strange it seemed. I agonized over it that day, not understanding how I could feel so much love for Cole but feel unsettled at the thought of romance with him. I was only seven years old but I was somehow able to piece together that I loved Cole in a different way, and that I convinced myself I liked him after years of everyone telling me that’s how I felt because eventually I believed them. Years later I’d find out that Cole had the same experience, and that it turned out we were both gay all along.

When I was little I thought that I was incapable of having crushes, but I was just looking for them in the wrong places. I didn’t even know what being gay meant at the time. All I knew is that I felt differently about Cole than I did about any other boy, it was like I found an answer to the wrong equation, but I didn’t even know what the real equation was. It had never occurred to me that a girl could even like another girl, so I dismissed all my feelings of affection and longing for my female friends as typical experiences that every girl has. I remember being so drawn to one of my close friends that it felt like a magnetic pull. I always wanted to touch her and be around her. I loved the way she always smelled sweetly and had shimmering soft skin, I loved her deep brown eyes and full fluttery lashes that gave me butterflies. I beamed at the way she would text me “I love you” and I’d replay it in my mind throughout the day and before bed when I wanted to smile. Then when I said I love you back I didn’t even realize how much I meant it. I thought everyone felt that way about their friends.

Cole tells me today about his similar confusion, about how he thought in the same way I did; that if there was any girl he could have feelings for it would be me. About the equation he also had to write himself. About eventually giving in to what people always told us, and what they didn’t tell us. But we both came out to each other in our pre-teens when we could finally make some sense of our identities. I can’t help but laugh at the coincidence and smile at how we always had someone we could relate to through all of our typical queer teen calamity. Now when I say I love you to Cole I know exactly the way I mean it, and that it’s still probably more than I’ll feel for any girl.