3

I thought he would never speak to me.

Mew was sitting on the nickety window frame, watching the rain become one with the seawater.

That abandoned stone house had become our refuge ever since we discovered it. And over time, and after thousands of adventures there, we made it our own.

Every corner told a story. And each of those stories alwaus had only him and I as protagonists. And no one else.

We had made a pact at the age of eight: we would not take anyone else there. We had made anotjer pact at eleven: we would be friends forever. And when I turned thirteen, just Mew read a strange book of reincarnation, he proposed a new pact: that I would not stop looking for him in my next life.

'Do you remember our pact, Gulf?', he told me suddenly as if he had been reading my thoughts.

Mew always seemed to have that gift.

'Which one...?'

'The pact we made at the age of seven...'

I did not have to try to remember. Each of those pacts were engraved in my heart.

'It was raining, the same as now...', I said, 'Although we were in December and not in August. We made the pact not to keep any secrets.'

'I swore to you that day that I would not keep any secrets from you. Because that day I finally realized why I felt different from others. And I wanted to tell you. I tried to work up the courage to tell you. And it took me until today...'

I stared at the rough sea and sighed in frustration.

'You are angry, right?'

'Yeah...'

'Because I'm gay...'

I bit my lip. Of course that was not what made me angry. And deep down I was angry that he thought so.

Did nothe know me? I, Gulf, plagued with all kinds of defects, angry, moody, foul- mouthed, womanizer, but I was never the author or participabt in a homophobic act or thought. It hurt me that my best friend thought that about me.

I sighed again and Mew took that frustrated sigh as an affirmative answer. I watched his eyes, he was crying. His lip trembled, as it always did when he was afraid.

Seeing him like this gave me the courage to speak:

'It's the same if you are straight, homo or...hippogriff...!'

To hear his laugh in the midst of his tears, untied the knot in my chest.

'I'm angry because you didn't tell me. i wonder why. And I wonder what other secret you have kept...'

He bit his lip nervously. I knew him too well. I knew what that meant. It meant that there was anotjer secret. And it meant that he was going to start talking. A long, academic monologue, riddled with odd words and dates and facts from the hundreds of books he had read.

He spoke that eay when he wanted to scape or divert attention.

Ususally I paid little attention to him every time he did it. But this time I sat next to him and listened. Feom that day on, I promise myself to listen with selfless attention to everything Mew wanted to tell me. Because deep inside, I suspected that perhaps my best friend had tried to tell me his secret many times, and until now I had never listened enough to understand...