This wasn’t something he had asked for. He hadn’t ever dreamed that this would happen to him but now as he lay alone in his bed, cowering under the covers he realised that this had and was happening; and there was nothing he could do or say to try and change it.

For months he had tried to deny it, pushing those thoughts that he got when he was alone in bed as just his brain giving him shocking images so that he would stay awake and not let his body rest like his muscles ached for him to do. As the thoughts became more frequent and more detailed he had started to wonder if there was in fact something wrong with him. Maybe there was, maybe it was just a phase of curiosity that he was falling into that would soon pass. That first night when he had dreamt clearly about it he had prayed to God that this was just a phase, no one would ever understand.

His mother had always told him that being comfortable with yourself was one of the hardest thing a person would ever have to do and he had found it to be the easiest. He had never had body issues, mental issues or plaguing thoughts of paranoia like most of his friends had gone through when they were teenagers, he had sailed through it all with a grin on his face and just thought that it was the laid back family he had come from that had enabled to do that so successfully. Now he just cried himself to sleep as the pain of his situation was multiplied by a million just because of his old job description.

Why did all of the girls make fun of him? Why did they run over to him pretending that they liked him and calling him good looking when really all they were doing was mocking him? Did they really want to make him feel worse than he already did? Critics called him talentless whilst his peers made sarcastic remarks about how his voice and choreographing was improving everyday. They just kept him around to make themselves look better, he knew it. Compared to them he was nothing, he was an ugly loser and they all knew it. That’s why they drew so much attention to him that he had never asked for. That’s why the called him the joker of the band, because to them, he really was just a joke.

Once upon a time he had been able to be alone, he had actually enjoyed it. He hadn’t had a problem with how he looked or who he was. Mirrors didn’t bother him, he actually enjoyed styling his hair in the mirror and looking at himself as he did it but now? He couldn’t look at one… Put him alone in a room for more than ten minutes and he just couldn’t handle it, he would break down into tears and smash every mirror in the place. To avoid looking in mirrors at all he had shaved off all of his hair so it would require no styling, now all that was there was a thin layer of fuzz that wouldn’t budge even if you wanted it to. He was no longer required to look in mirrors which meant he no longer had to cry.

If you asked him what had caused this sudden change of perspective and self image he could tell you if he wanted to. He wouldn’t. But he could. When he had been happy and confident he had been completely comfortable with himself, but once he really did find his true self, and how he did truly feel he just couldn’t handle it. In other people he had never had a problem with it, but when it was in himself it was just something he couldn’t deal with. How could you deal with it? Everything he had thought since he was young would have been a lie, he would have been living a lie and telling himself lies just so he wouldn’t freak out. Once he had finally come to terms with it, he had seen himself in the mirror for the first time and he hadn’t liked what he had seen.

In the mirror he saw something that people talked about in hushed whispers. Something that everyone would say they were fine with but would really talk about him behind his back and recoil in horror if he ever tried to talk to them about it. He was something that was illegal in four states in America and was something that had been a topic of controversy for over fifty years. What he was even went against God! They had always said he was a bit of a rebel.

If it had just been his thoughts on the matter, he probably wouldn’t have taken it so badly. He probably would have been fine and had just taken some time to accept himself and gotten on with his life but that wasn’t what had happened. He didn’t just find out that he had changed, but that his feelings for one of his best friends had changed as well. He had fallen in love with his best friend.

For months he had deliberated it over in his head, what he was going to do about his feelings. It was only one cold night in Toronto that had made him confess his feelings. They had both been sitting on the edge of the veranda and Ben had said to him to tell him what was wrong. So he had. The look of disgust that fell into his eyes was something that would be imprinted on his memory forever and yet it was something he wished he could forget in less than a second. Not only had Ben grabbed him by the throat and screamed at him to take it back, to say that it was a lie or he would throw him off the edge of the veranda, but he had kicked him out of the band. Ben hadn’t been able to accept it so he decided to reject it and him in the process.

Ever since then he had just laid in bed and drifted from day to day just trying to get his life back in order. He needed motivation, something to make him get out of bed and go for something again. Ben had been something to work towards but now that he despised him with every fibre of his body, what was left to work for?