Axel and I get to the mall just before one. We find our friend group- Keira, Cody, Peyton, Daily, Audrey, Emma, and Jennifer- at a Starbucks near the entrance. And we enter holding hands.
Keira is the first to notice- probably because she's one of the only two people that knew about us before, and Daily is kind of oblivious. She sits up in her chair, completely abandoning her previous conversation with Audrey. "Nash! Axel!"
I give her a small grin. "Hey."
She's trying very hard not to be obvious about the fact that Axel and I are very clearly holding hands, I can tell. Most of the group is now looking at us though, so I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of time.
Daily coughs in a very suspicious manner. "Well- um, you guys are standing pretty close together."
Axel gives him a look. I try not to laugh.
Peyton looks up from his phone to glance at us. "Daily, they're holding hands. You're an idiot."
"I noticed that!" Daily protests. "I just wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not! So I didn't want to say it out loud in front of everybody just in case!"
Peyton doesn't bother responding to that, eyes back on his phone.
Of course, now that Peyton's mentioned it, everybody else notices. Axel and I share a smile as we sit down with the rest of our friends, all of whom are now basically yelling at this new revelation.
"Are you guys together?"
"When did this happen?"
"Is this why you guys were always..."
I leave Axel to field his friends' questions as Keira leans over to me, smiling a little. "So you are together."
I grin. I can't help myself. "Yeah."
"And you're coming out now? Based on your reactions when I found out, I figured you'd be ruling Narnia for years before you followed the White Stag out of the closet."
"We had things to worry about. Now we don't."
"Well, I'm glad it worked out," she tells me, smiling as she goes back to her coffee. I glance back at my boyfriend, who is now telling the story of I taught him to play trumpet better and he taught me how to make friends, and then we ended up together (leaving out the bits about his parents). I lean against his shoulder, and he pauses to give me a smile and kiss my forehead.
This, of course, merits a round of 'awww's from his audience.
Finally, we move on and go bowling and then for ice cream, then to a movie where I lean against Axel and he puts his arm around me, and all our friends pretend not to be sneaking smug glances at us every five minutes. When we finally go home, Axel kisses me goodnight- outside my house. In public, technically. It's amazing.
All my life I've been concerned with the kind of person I am. Especially in comparison to everybody else, and specifically those who seem to have just generally better lives. I always thought people were better than me naturally, by design. That I was dealt a bad hand in terms of looks, charisma, fortune. And I mean, maybe I was. I can't change my genetics, and I'm not the best looking guy on the planet. I can't pretend to be someone I'm not, either- I'm not super friendly and warm and generous, and I can't control the family I was born into, and it's unfortunate that I'm not rich and my parents are never around.
But maybe it's the things we focus on that matter. Maybe it's not about the situation I was given, but what I chose to do about it. I mean, I'm not a philosopher, but I've been a lot happier since I've started letting myself be happy, instead of constantly being angry about things. And I don't know if it's a coincidental turn of events or some kind of 'perspective determines your reality' sort of thing, but my situation has seemed a lot brighter lately.
For example: instead of being super resentful of Axel, I learned to be understanding and not completely rude and generally not focused on what he has that I don't. As a result, I've got a boyfriend who I love, who loves me, and I'm so happy every time I even think about him.
Also: Instead of arguing with Keira all the time, and thinking of our friendship as nothing more than mutual toleration because we're both hard to stand, I trusted her and focused on the strong points of our friendship. Now we're closer, argue a lot less, and we're both happier around each other.
And then, after a whole life of thinking about everything I didn't have, I started appreciating the things I do have. Instead of moping about what I wanted but lacked, I tried to be better. That was a choice, and it's yielded much better, happier results for me than what I was doing before, which usually lead to guilt and anger in some fashion or another. So... yeah.
Life still isn't fair. I'm still not a perfect person. But I'm happier now, and my life feels more full than it did before. So maybe it's not all about how nice your life decided to be. Maybe it's just what you make of it. Maybe it's not the kind of person you are.
Maybe it's the kind of person you choose to be.
END
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