Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out

and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love. ~ Neil Gaiman

~`~

"I don't want anything from you."

Those words...a simple statement from Sydney Lane's lips freed me from years of

shenanigans and pubescent beliefs about who I needed to be in order to gain acceptance. Gone was the compulsion to sustain the insatiable appetites of my friends by stealing bottles of liquor from my father's well stocked bar.

"I don't want anything from you."

She had uttered the phrase when I tried to force an invitation to my infamous New Years' bash in the palm of Syd's outstretched hand. At first, I had taken it as a dismissal. A reminder I was not welcomed in Sydney Lane's precious inner circle and then she elaborated.

"You run around here like Al Jolson in black face." Syd's eyes were cold as she spoke, "Smile stretched across your face, while you sing and dance a jig, like some modern day minstrel show."

I never told the lovely and talented Ms. Lane I skipped my happy ass to the library right after our exchange and thumbed through the encyclopedia until I found the entertainer she compared me to. It wasn't a compliment, not in the least.

She made me think.

"You're nothing more than a clown to them, the ass of their jokes, the idiot who brings them free booze and begs for their friendship, it's pathetic, sickening, and a little bit sad."

She crushed a part of my spirit that day, but over time she slowly repaired the damage she had done. Restoration came in the hand gripping mine and pulling me from the circle of degenerates who hung in my corner of the cafeteria. We sat in the middle of the school's cobblestone court, bundled in wool jackets, gloves, with cable knit beanies on top of our heads, while we nibbled on peanut butter and honey sandwiches she made in morning before she hopped the train and rode into the city. We talked about things I could never reveal to the brat pack. My love for all things Motown, the stacks of spiral bound notebooks holding the jokes I had written, and outlines for one man stage shows and larger than life movie ideas. She listened as I recounted my favorite Depp lines from the previous week's episode of 21 Jumpstreet. She didn't bat an eye, when tears threatened to spill from my eyes when I shared the darkest family secrets my parents' had hoped I had forgotten with every birthday I celebrated.

"Just be yourself Lincoln, that's all I want from you."

Sixteen years later, those words...a simple statement from Sydney's lips still did things to me, I couldn't quite comprehend. It was never about the sex. Not even when I slipped between those full, voluptuous thighs for the very first time and exploded less than thirty seconds later.

There was a memory to be forgotten.

With senior year just around the corner, a summer wasted, kissing, hunching, and groping every girl other than Sydney Lane while watching Cinemax after midnight on mute; I decided to take fate into my own hands. I had grabbed a breast, awkwardly jerked my dick in front of my then high school best friend, and swore my pleas to lose my virginity were only for practice...an opportunity to adhere to the status quo.

In the end I had Syd convinced the idea would erase our lack of experience and make us prime candidates for bigger and better conquests. Only my excitement won the battle over successfully mimicking every move I had seen on thirteen inch television screen, and my release came without a full pump, and those bigger and better conquests, were replaced with the two week waiting game for Syd's elusive period.

Even when I disappointed, when she bit that full bottom lip, rolled those gorgeous brown eyes, and slid from beneath my convulsing frame, she didn't look at me different...not then and especially not now.

Sure things had changed.

Seconds shifted to minutes which evolved to hours and showing Sydney how I felt went beyond the strokes or dips of my tongue into the undeniable sweetness she possessed. It was in those stolen moments and the silence hanging in the balance just before she climaxed, the most honest words I had ever spoken eased from my lips.

"I love you Sydney."

I will always love Sydney.

I have always loved Sydney.

George Harrison penned the tune in 1969; there was something in the way...

It had always been about how Sydney made me feel.

In Sydney's arms I felt like a king.

I was simply me.

The knowledge was always confirmed in the ease with which she knew what I was thinking and the soft smile that curved her lip and her answer to the question she didn't have to ask. Substantiation was given by the innocent fingertips that danced along my back and yielded not so blameless thoughts. It was in Syd's tiny hands when they gripped each side of my face, and forced my eyes to the deep brown orbs that held the keys to my soul.

"Where are you?"

The concern in Sydney's voice pulled me from the past and back to the present. I couldn't answer any question for fear that the guilt would unbridle my tongue and speak for me. I kissed Sydney, in part for distraction, and the other half to erase the distance that fed the gaping hole in my chest.

The questions ceased.

Doubt dissipated and what remained was only what existed between us.

~`~