Hugh

“You know when you’re in love,” Hugh said, animated. “When you don’t want to sleep with them.”

It was lunch break in school, the sun was barely emerging and the two boys sat in the shade. Tommy gave Hugh a flat “What?”

“Listen,” Hugh replied, unfazed. “You know you’re at this age, when you want to get into the pants of every single semi-attractive girl who passes you?”

“I guess…” Tommy said, slowly.

“You do,” Hugh nodded. “Course you do; you’re fourteen how can you not? Hormones”- he waved his hands- “everything. But that’s infatuation. When you’re in love, you don’t want that. You want looking and listening.  For a good while, first. Then you want touching.”

Tommy Rennon had just made the mistake of asking Hugh about his new found love Cassie Cartwright. It had been an unhealthy relationship at first; Hugh had been raised on clichés and was certain a Valentine’s rose would melt her heart. It almost did, but the highest level of heart liquefying went to Hugh when he got that smile back in return. It was the smile that said “God bless you”. The smile that said “How sweet”. That dangerous smile that tells a man “There could be something here” when the woman really means “I do like you, but please continue doing stuff like this, not too needy though, else it’s never gonna go anywhere. Don’t think this solitary rose is enough to win me over. You haven’t quite yet.”

But Hugh, of course, being a dumb boy instantly assumed Cassie’s head was over her heels in a split second, and did almost nothing to further their relationship but stare. Cassie sure stared back, but only to see if he’d actually hurry up and do something. He didn’t at first, just wasted the hours away with observation on Cassie that bordered on creepy- they were friends, not too close, but they had known almost nothing about each other. By watching Cassie, staying close to her conversations in class- he had some input occasionally, it wasn’t quite stalking- he had managed to deduce that their interests were somewhat similar, with a couple of important aspects; they were both close to God, and they went to the same church.

It was a huge church in the Bible Belt, with countless numbers of pretty, young, blonde girls- you couldn’t blame him for not noticing her- but Hugh almost kicked himself when he heard her utter the words “My pastor, Father Illis.” The number of times he must have missed her! So this was the perfect place to speak to her, close to the heart of Jesus. He felt an overwhelming confidence, now. His prayers on Saturday night were filled with thanks, and he awoke on Sunday morning with a Cheshire Cat grin. When you really like someone, your happiness outweighs your nerves.

He had told all this to Tommy, but still got a confused gaze back.

“I don’t need your life story,” Tommy said. He ran a comb through his shiny black hair (yes, he outed as gay a couple of years later, if you’re that kind of person) and returned to his quizzical look. “What were you saying about touching?”

“No no,” Hugh shook his head. “It’s the stuff before the touching you need to focus on- after the rose, when I was an idiot?”

That quizzical look again. Tommy was the kid who listened- he loved stories, and listened to any and all gossip without any intention of blabbing- and gave good advice. He was well liked.

“Okay, listen,” said Hugh, taking a breath. “I’m gonna go on a tangent here.”

Tommy raised his hands in a “go right ahead” fashion.

“Okay,” Hugh said again. “You know when you’re in love with someone-“

“When you don’t want to-“

“That too, shut up. You know you’re in love with someone, when- with all the innocence in the world- you can just look at them, you know? Absolutely everything they do is interesting. You know they have flaws, but you ignore them. Cassie talks too much, I don’t care. Gives me stuff to listen to. You start to get to know everything they do- their ticks, their quirks, how they move, how they speak. When you’re in love, you want to know everything about them, and not just what they do over the weekends. And you start seeing small things that most people wouldn’t notice. Like the back of her neck is so damn smooth you just want to stroke it. And she sometimes has that strand of hair that you could brush back, and get an excuse to just feel her hair because you noticed how shiny it was. Fluffy too, ya know?”

“I’m pretty sure this is some kind of weird obsession you’ve got going on here,” Tommy looked genuinely concerned. “Listen, if you’ve been staring at this girl for so long you know the layout of her hair, you might want to step back a little bit.”

But, when Hugh had actually got to church and sought her out the following fortnight, it didn’t seem like that at all. There were no friends here to embarrass him- his parents were at the back of the crowd of people and let him make his way up to nearer the front when he said there was a friend of his here. He had spotted her earlier- it was relatively easy once he actually looked. He poked her in the back lightly a couple of times, hoping for the best.

“Rose Boy!” her eyes lit up, and Hugh’s heart seemed to freeze back up and melt again in a matter of a couple of seconds. “I had no clue you came here- thank God for this, right?”

And Cassie hugged him, and at this point of the story, Hugh turned to the touching he was talking about.

“So, when you’re in love wi-

“Obsessed with someone.”

“When you’re in love with someone,” Hugh continued, frowning. “Every single touch feels like a miracle. Even that tap on her back was like the start of a big adventure-“

Tommy rolled his eyes.

“And when she hugged me- my God. It was like a first kiss. I’ve hugged girls before, course, been kissed- ironically, which sucked- by one or two, but this one two second hug just blew me away. I could feel each of her fingers, where they were on my back. I could feel exactly where the pressure was from her arms. My face was in her hair, and I still remember the smell and the texture. Fluffy.”

He smiled broadly.

“Cause the next stage,” he said. “Touching- is exactly that. You’ve got to know what she’s like, how she moves, what she looks like. Then you want to get to know that stuff physically, ya know? You want to stroke the hair, brush her cheeks, hold her hands. But you don’t want to have sex with them. When you’re in love, everyone wants to take it slow. You don’t feel like it’s right until you’ve really got to know them. And we did this stuff, man. After church we got together- there’s a field out back, pretty private, lots of trees. We just sat there forever. My parents didn’t mind, they’re push overs, just gave ‘em a call. We weren’t even talking for most of it, we just held hands, brushed each other’s hair. I mean- we made sure we were both okay with it. She flat out told me “I really like you, Hugh.”

“You didn’t tell her you loved her, did you?” Tommy said, worried.

“Nah,” Hugh shook his head. “I watch TV, I’m not an idiot. I just told her back, “I like you too”. That’s when we held hands and we looked into each other for ages. Her eyes are blue, but it goes green round the edges- you notice stuff like that when you actually love them.”

Tommy rolled his eyes again, but he was enjoying it really. He still loved listening to people’s stories.

“And then we kissed,” Hugh grinned. “And then we prayed- thank the big guy, ya know?”

And these are some of the basic events one must remember to understand Hugh Lemming’s killing himself.