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Pen name: Wanderlust
Entry title: Four Little Letters
Rating: G
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Four Little Letters

I’m going through changes, Nikki. I mean….we all do eventually, I suppose, but today’s been too much, too fast. Needs transition. Something like, "And all these changes are making me wonder or some-such. I'm starting to wonder things 'Things' is a word that should be used only when needed. In this case it is not. . Why fate ever let me meet you. Why you ever loved me. I never wondered those things before. Again with the transition. Because this is the beginning, the reader knows nothing of this 'secret', or what is has to do with the narrator wondering. Stay on topic, or give transition. I kept your secret, yes. But that shouldn't have made you obligated to be with me. And now....I'll never know if you really loved me, or if you just felt you owed me something.

This isn't the best opening. It throws us into a bunch of ideas that we know nothing about. Even just a short, maybe two sentence, paragraph before this would make it better.

Since you’ve been gone, I’ve just been sitting in my room, thinking. Not about today--I was almost prepared for that--but….about the time I came close to losing you, but didn’t. The 'close to' implied that the narrator did not loose Nikki. Was that time the reason that you been taking care of yourself? I don't understand why the narrator almost loosing Nikki would make Nikki take care of his/herself. Did Nikki almost die? I'm not sure. Was that time the reason you’ve gotten careless? Those last two sentences are contradictory. If Nikki was taking care of her/himself then he/she wouldn't have gotten careless.

I remember it like it as well as if it had happened yesterday. This It was back before we were truly together. We’d known each other for about four months, remember? And I already felt more comfortable around you than I’d ever felt about around any of the close-minded Bible thumpers in this town. (Are they the reason, Nikki?) Anyway....yes, you had told me almost everything about you. But you kept one secret, Nikki. One very big secret….



I grew up in here in Milestone, unlike you, who moved here from New York City. That must have been quite a change for you, Milestone being the very small, very religious little hamlet that it is. It's quite far from any civilization and from any ideas that the Bible might discourage or does not explicitly allow. The last half of that sentence is awkward. I don't quite get what it's saying. I think it's saying that there's no place near it that doesn't follow the Bible, but I'm not sure. Homosexual love simply doesn’t thrive here.

You suddenly change tenses in that last paragraph, and it's kind of confusing. I can't tell whether you're doing it on purpose- or whether you're still telling a story of your past.

But ours did, Nikki. Yours and mine. We had to keep it a secret, but….we loved each other. For better, for worse, forever.

Then again….we never really were like other people, were we? That was made obvious by the secret you kept from me. This secret just keeps randomly showing up. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to it. It seems as if it's there to just complicate things- and for no reason but that. The secret I found out one day when I came over to your house to study for those stupid finals, the ones you always hated with every fiber of your being. I hated them, too….we all did, even the best students.

I was always the smart one of the two of us, you said. So you wanted me to help you cram for the finals, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to complain.

I had no idea what I was walking into, Nikki.

Your mother wasn’t there when I came over, and you weren’t answering the door. I knocked for almost ten minutes before I tried the knob and found that it was open. The house was as silent as the grave as I walked through the sparsely furnished room and up the rickety old stairs. Your room was at the end of the hall, but and when I found it, I pushed the door open only to realize that you were not there.

'Did he forget about our study session?' I wondered, feeling a strange sort of gloom hit me at the idea. I didn’t know, then, why I felt so thoroughly disappointed, but I didn’t have time to rationalize it, as I became aware of strange sounds coming from the adjoining bathroom just as the thought occurred to me. Frowning in confusion, I shoved open the door to the bathroom, and forced back a gasp of shock.

I’ve never forgotten the picture I was met with that day--of you huddling over the toilet, spewing all sorts of foul-smelling muck into it, and shaking harder than I believed it was possible to shake. Your body was more fragile than a leaf being battered about by a hurricane force wind, and you were sobbing brokenly when you finally finished and rolled over weakly to lean against the sink.

When your eyes met mine, the lost, frightened look there was enough to break me from my spell. I hurried over to the sink, opened the door underneath it, and fished out a folded up towel, which I wetted liberally with cold water before I knelt beside you and pressed it to your sweat-soaked forehead. We stayed like that for a long time, completely silent--I didn’t know what to say, and you had no breath to say anything with.

“What happened?” I finally asked quietly after about ten minutes, my voice shaking as hard as your body still was.

“….Nothing. I just….got sick.” Your voice held a forced note of determination.

I stared at you for a moment, then stood up to wet the cloth again. “You always were a terrible liar--I learned that after knowing you for a week.” I stared at myself in the mirror--the red hair that was flung haphazardly all over the place,and the face that, at the moment, was pale enough to be mistaken for the facethat of a corpse. I was shaking almost as hard as you were. New Paragraph “Come on. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” You grabbed the sink and hauled yourself up to stand on trembling legs, and it occurred to me that, occasionally, even a black man can look extremely pale. I imagined that your face was the color of your creamy blond hair, which you had told me you inherited from your father, but that imagination was false. You were, however, a whiter shade of pale than I had ever seen a man of your color wear. 'A whiter shade of pale' makes no sense in this context. A black man cannot be whiter. Perhaps something like, 'Paler than a man of your color' or something.

I yelped as you let go of your precarious hold and hit the floor again, and I wetted the cloth and knelt down beside you once more. “You’re obviously not. What happened? When did you start feeling sick?”

“….Was that a serious question?” Why doesn't Nikki think it's serious?

I sighed in exasperation as you tried to get up again, and, having learned my lesson, I moved quickly to your side to support you. Much to my surprise, you didn’t refuse the shoulder I lent to you, but, rather, accepted it gratefully and used it as we moved into your room. “It was a serious question. Come on, Nick….why won’t you talk to me?” I assisted you onto the bed and then stood and went back into the bathroom to re-soak the cloth.

“I am talking to you,” you replied stubbornly.

“You’re hiding something. I can tell,” I called back, filling one of the paper cups by the sink with water, flushing the toilet, and returning to you. I pulled the covers up to your chin and sat down next to you on the bed, handing you the cup of water and then absently pressing the towel to your head. My mother had always done this for me, and it had always made me feel better--not the wet cloth, really….that was pretty worthless. But it always made me happy to know that she cared. I wanted to give that same gift to you. “Come on….tell me what it is.”

“Nah, never mind, it’s nothing,” you told me, trying to force yourself into sitting position before I forced you back down. Which I did, before you’d actually gotten anywhere. “Look, can we just….study? Like we planned?”

I couldn’t ignore that pleading tone in your voice, so I sighed and stood. “Keep that on your forehead. Where are your books?”

“Top desk drawer, where they always are.”

“….I think we may have discovered the problem,” I teased as I went over to the desk and tried to pull open the drawer, only to have it resist stubbornly. Frowning in annoyance, I pulled harder. “Your desk is giving me lip, Nick!” I whined.

You laughed, and, although it was a tired one, it was very real. “Yeah, it gets stuck sometimes. You just have to pull really hard.”

So I did as you said. I gave the drawer a vicious yank….and quite suddenly, it was jumping out at me, and its contents were spilling everywhere.

I saw you move immediately to make mad dash to pick it all up, but you sank back onto the bed, turned faintly green, and then made another rush to the bathroom. It was a moment before I really understood why you made that attempt to move, but it all became clear when I stood up to rush after you, and my foot kicked the pill bottle that was lying at my feet. Frowning, I leaned over to pick it up….and everything fell into place.

You managed to pull yourself up on your own this time, and were leaning heavily against the sink when I came in. “Oh, thank you, Jesus,” you rasped., “C’mon, Riley, get over here….I need the shoulder again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly, my voice completely devoid of emotion.

“….Riley, what….?” You turned around slowly, and then blinked at the pill bottle in my hand., “Where did you find that?”

“It flew out of the drawer when everything spilled. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Riley….can we just….not do this right now?” you asked, your voice tinged with anger as you went slowly back to your bed.

“We damn well will do this right now. Nicholas, how could you not tell me?”

“It was real easy, actually,” you muttered, pulling the covers over yourself.

“But I could have helped. I could have--”

“What?” you interrupted angrily. “What could you have done? I’m going to die, and unless you have some magical cure for an incurable disease hidden up your little Irish sleeves, it’s gonna be a lot sooner than it should be. And nothing you say will make that okay, Riley. Nothing.” Wooooooah. What? A paragraph ago I totally thought that Nikki was an adict. Not...what, with cancer?

I blinked, and felt tears come into my eyes in spite of my best efforts. “But still….I could have….been your friend. I could have supported you, I could have….done something. I could have….” The tears spilled over now--I had always been a bigger crier than most boys my age. “Oh, God, Nick….” I whispered helplessly.

Your face softened, and you said softly, “Hey, Riley….Riles, it’s okay. C’mere.”

I pushed myself out of the wooden chair I had been sitting in and walked shakily over to the bed, throwing myself onto it and curling up against your chest. Your arm came around me, and I hid in it, trying to force all the thoughts that were crowding my mind into some coherent order so that I could speak. All that came out, though, was, “I’m sorry, Nick.” My tears were showing no signs of slowing--in fact, they seemed to have begun to come more liberally.

“Sorry? For what?” yYou asked, lifting your head slightly to look at me.

“For….not being the kind of person you can trust, or….tell things to.”

You smiled, a real, genuine smile. “Riley….don’t be an idiot. I trust you completely.”

“No….you don’t have to. We haven’t known each other long. I haven’t earned my place as your secret keeper yet.”

“No, it’s not that. In the first month that I knew you, I knew for certain that I could tell you absolutely anything. I’ve….never felt that way towards anyone before.”

“Then why couldn’t you tell me?”

“I….didn’t want you to have to know….to have to live with the secret. You’re too young to have to carry something like that.”

“I’m not--”

“You are. Riley, I got all of this shoved on me. I have to deal with it. You don’t. And I….didn’t want you to have to.”

“If you’re carrying it, then so am I,” I insisted stubbornly, and I felt you smile.

“Fine, have it your way,” you teased.

“Can I….do anything to help?” I asked, wiping away my tears. It felt silly to for me be crying when you were the one who deserved to be doing the crying.

“No. It’s not something that can be helped. Just….be here.”

I smiled. “I can do that.”

That night was a turning point for us. You and I spent the entire night spilling our secrets, and our fears. We took turns crying on each other’s shoulders, and, while you felt silly, I helped to get rid of that relatively quickly. Get rid of what quickly?

The barriers came down, and that night, you and I had our first kiss. It was rather odd, to have such a wonderful moment spring from such a tragic discovery, but….it felt right.



And that was the day I learned your secret. Things changed after that, but….for the better.

AIDS. That Those four little letters can cause so much trouble it amazes me. But what is even stranger, is how those four letters can bring two people together in a way that I never thought possible.

That, to me, is the most amazing part, Nikki. Our relationship flourished through public disapproval, our own teen dramas, and a (quite literally) deadly secret. We won, Nikki, in the end. Wherever you are now….I hope you know that.

Where are you now, Nikki? Heaven? Are you happy? Do you think about me? Do you miss me?

....Do you still love me?