2001-08-12 - 10:05 p.m.
Guest Spot: An Apology
Guest Spot: An ApologyGuest entry by Drallak:
High school was never easy.
I'd like to say that I was popular. I'd like to say I was out and proud of my sexuality. I wasn't. No - an all-boys school never really seemed the appropriate venue for announcing to the world that I liked 'my own kind'.
Tragically, I was correct.
There was another boy in my year. I didn't know who he was until my fifth year, when we all turned sixteen. At that point, the whole school knew who he was.
He came out to two of his closest friends. By the next day, it had spread to everyone.
He was shunned. Almost completely. For the final two years of school, I don't think that he exchanged more than two words with anyone who wasn't a very good friend of his.
It embarrasses me. To this day, I feel guilty. All the time I acted, laid low and even got a girlfriend to cover myself, he had the courage of his convictions.
Still, I never spoke to him. I was scared of being tarred by the same brush. We weren't friends - an excuse I use to explain why I never stood up to the crowd.
I should have done. Not just for him, but for myself and everyone else at that school who felt the way we did.
I saw him a few weeks ago, working behind the counter at the cinema. He smiled while I cringed. I was tongue-tied, all the old shame flooding back. I wanted to tell him that I respected him. I wanted to apologise for not talking to him, not opening others' eyes to the misery we were perpetuating. I wanted to lean over the counter and softly kiss him.
I didn't say anything. I just bought a ticket.
Perhaps this entry will be as far as I will ever go to say 'I'm sorry'.
And yet I can't help feeling that I wanted to say this just to make myself feel better. For those of you shaking your heads at my selfishness: don't worry - it didn't work.
