Warning: This story contains references to suicide, but nothing graphic. There's also a brief talk about religion (if that needs a warning).

***

These days, I find ever more often that my walks with Laika lead to the cemetery. She knows the way already. She rubs against my leg and pulls me to your grave as if she knows where you rest. She sniffs and pokes her muzzle in the soil. She misses you too. The flowers on your grave have bowed their heads under last night's rain. I push them up with my finger, for a moment.

***

I like telling myself it's Laika who brings me here every day, but I know it's my heart. Three months. Three months already since ... But I know you haven't been here anymore for longer than that. And yet, those three months seem longer than all those years I knew you.

***

I saw you for the first time while I was walking Lena. You sat on a bench by the playground, alone. You were staring at the empty playing equipment in the drizzle and I wondered if you even saw that.

"Everything all right?" You abruptly turned your head and looked at me with big eyes. You had make-up on. Subtle, but unmistakable. It was smeared out a little. I had never seen a boy with make-up. Or were you a girl? Ah, who was I to judge?

"Everything all right?" You mumbled something and looked at your knees. "What did you say?"

"Everything all right. I came here to be alone, so go away." You snapped, but luckily not like a dog. Your voice was clearly that of a boy. I waited two seconds before I walked away. When I looked back, you were broken. A young bird that had fallen from its nest. I think you cried, but I couldn't see it well through the rain. I wanted nothing more than to hug you.

***

The following day, you sat there again. I let Lena run loose and slid down the bench towards you. You said nothing, seemed to not even notice me.

"The rain makes your make-up run." You startled, averted your face, inched away from me. I laughed. "I'm not going to hurt you. I don't judge."

"Mind your own business, woman."

"If you come with me, you can wash your face and get a mirror to redo your make-up. And tea." Now you sat at the utmost edge of the bench. You kept your surly silence, until Lena came up to beg for a reward after all her running. She licked my hand and I groaned. You laughed. It surprised me you had such a clear laugh. "Do you like dogs?"

"They are the kindest creatures on earth." You slid a little closer.

"Her name is Lena. Say hello to the boy, Lena."

"Aaron."

"Say hello to Aaron. Paw. Not to me." You laughed again and scratched her head when she laid a paw on your leg. A huge difference with half a minute earlier.

"My invitation still stands."

"I'm not allowed to go with strangers."

"You're also not allowed to skip class. And you know my dog."

"You're not working either and I don't know you."

"I'm a librarian, and I only have to work later. And I'm Ruth."

"Okay. ... I'll go with you, ma'am."

"Ruth."

"Huh?"

"No ma'am. Ruth." I smiled.

***

We stayed silent while we walked to my house, but it was a nice silence. Lena constantly danced around you. She liked you and that made me happy. Her intuition was infallible.

"You can take off your jacket and shoes for a while. I'll show you the bathroom and make tea in the meantime. Do you like lemon tea?"

"Lemon tea?" You sounded so eager. The enthusiasm on your face made you five years younger.

"So, yes."

"With as little sugar as possible, please."

"As you wish, your majesty." You frowned, and then smiled.

When we were each warming our hands on a cup of tea, I got straight to the point. "Tell me, what's all going wrong in your life? A boy your age doesn't sit on a bench in the rain without a reason, and certainly not during school."

The broken bird appeared again. You squeezed your cup. "What do you care. It's my life anyway." You spoke listlessly, without anger.

"It's your life, yes, but that doesn't mean it doesn't concern me. It's my duty as a human to care for my fellow humans."

"Then you are the only one to do your duty, ma'am ... Ruth." Your bitter tone cut through my heart.

"Is it so bad? What's going on at school? Why are you skipping?" You shook your head. "Are you being bullied?" You froze. "Because you wear make-up?"

"I have friends."

"You can be bullied if you have friends, too. Does the school not intervene?

"I said I'm not being bullied!"

"Tell me what's really going on then."

You moaned. "They - the others - laugh and call me 'girl' and 'gay' and 'fairy' and the teachers hate me. They find me stupid and lazy and just laugh along."

"And you don't call that bullying? Oh boy. I understand why you're skipping then, even if I can't approve. And what do your parents think?"

"My mother thinks nothing because she killed herself."

"... I'm sorry. I can't imagine what I would have done without my mother. What about your father?"

"He thinks I'm not a real man, a good-for-nothing, that I deserve it all."

"Nobody deserves injustice or suffering, no matter how different you are."

"Go and say that to him."

"If you want." That shut you up for a while. We were silent, but it didn't bother you and I liked that. I love people who can be silent with me. If you can't be silent together, how can you truly communicate?

"I'm leaving."

"Okay. You can come back whenever you need me. You know where I live."

"Why would I need you?"

"I'd be blind if I didn't see that you're having a hard time and I'm offering my support. A compassionate ear. A place to be together without having to say anything." Your eyes drifted across the table, my face, you looked me in the eyes and they glid across the table again.

You stood up. "I love your dog."

***

That bitter but oh so brittle side of you, I miss it. I lash out sharply against my friends these days. I don't have any patience left. I sleep poorly. Remember how I hated candles so much? Now I'm burning scented candles, with pine scent, because they remind me of you and they calm me down. Sometimes I listen to that song of yours, from the Beatles. 'Yesterday'. I cry out my grief with Laika. What did you do to me?

***

We met up at a café. It was warm, so we sat on the terrace. We chatted about graffiti as an art form and then lapsed back into silence.

"Ruth ... Are you religious?" I almost choked on my tonic.

"Why that question?"

"Last week I saw you have a bible and ..." Your eyes stuck to your glass and you pursed your lips.

"Would it make a difference if I was religious?"

Your eyes hooked into mine. "Yes. You are religious, aren't you?"

"Why? Why is that a problem? Why do you have something against believers?"

"Dad and Jacob. It's the reason they hate me. Because God made me a man and I try to go against that, so I'm a sinner. Their God is only an excuse for intolerance. As if you should shoot all wolves because one wolf ate Litlle Red Riding Hood."

"Jacob. Your brother, you mean?"

"Yes, him. Who hits me and calls me names because I'm not a real man." You spit out the words and gurgled.

"I'm not going to deny that some people abuse religion, but for me, that's not a reason to not accept people, on the contrary. Did you know 'religion' literally means 'connection'? You can't judge us all by the same standards."

"But how can you believe in a guy like that who sits quietly on his cloud and meanwhile lets us suffocate in his mess? Who only had to snap his fingers and poof - there you had the earth with all the trimmings! You'd have to be blind or extremely stupid."

"I don't believe in that either. I believe in a human God, a loving God, one who suffers just as much as we do, who is us and not necessarily a man. You can't equal faith to the traditional dogmas of the Church. And I'd prefer if you stopped talking in such a derogatory and insulting manner about believers because it hurts me." I was hyperaware of each word while I spoke it because if I wasn't careful, I'd sound angry.

"Good. For you," you grumbled. You said nothing, then smiled at me all the same and asked if I was going on a trip that summer.

***

Sometimes you rang my bell in the middle of the night. The first time I didn't want to open the door since I was only wearing my nightdress, but you kept ringing. When I saw through the peephole it was you, I opened anyway. You put your arms around me and sobbed noisily. I rubbed your back, but all the while stood there stiffly. Never before had you shown your emotions so openly, had you so tightly clung to me. You were so 'needy'.

"Ssh, Aaron, calm down. It can't be so bad. What's wrong?" You kept crying, with screeching strokes. I led you to the couch. You smelled like alcohol, lots of alcohol. Your clothes, your breath. Would that get my couch dirty? Either way that was a concern for later. Because you kept crying, I took you in my arms as if you were a small child. "There, there, relax. I'm here. You're safe here. It'll be okay. Ssh." When finally you didn't shake anymore, I asked again: "What's wrong?"

"Je ... Lore me hait. Elle ne me veut pas." The alcohol brought out your mother tongue.

"Why does she hate you? How so, she doesn't want you? What do you mean? Who is Lore?"

"La plus belle fille du monde. She goes to my school."

"You mean you're in love with her?" I assumed you were gay, but apparently not.

"Yes."

"And you told her that this evening, but she rejected you." You cried again, more softly. "Oh boy. That's not fun, of course, but it's part of the game, you know."

You nodded, sobbed, pulled up your knees and leaned on them with your head. "But she said ..." Your voice broke. "She said that I'm not even a real boy. That I'm perverse. That she'd be ashamed to walk down the street with me."

"She shouldn't have said that. She should have remained friendly when she rejected you. I know it's no consolation, but ... Someone who reacts like that, you don't want a relationship with her, do you?"

"But she's right. No girl will ever want to walk down the street with me. I'm only half a boy. Pourquoi est-ce que je ne suis pas normal? Pourquoi est-ce que je ne suis pas une fille?"

"Do you want to be a girl?"

"No, but it'd have been easier."

"True, but you shouldn't want to change yourself for others. There are girls who do accept you the way you are."

"I'll never encounter those."

"You don't know that."

"You don't understand." I shut up. After all, your situation was not mine. The night started to weigh on my eyes, until all of a sudden, you spread out the contents of your stomach on my floor. I sighed. I was too tired to get angry and as long as you were so drunk, it wouldn't matter anyway. I first fetched a glass of water for you, before I cleaned everything up. You stuttered excuses that I ignored. I took off your dirty clothes, dumped them in the washing machine and put you to sleep in the guest bedroom.

It wasn't the last time I saw you drunk, but fortunately, still the only time I had to clean up your vomit. In the morning you were terribly ashamed. I almost pitied you, but I decided you'd deserved it to simmer in your fear for a while, to shiver for my anger. You fled from my house.

***

You loved playing with Lena. When she died, you mourned her like a good friend. All the more enthusiastic you were when we bought Laika together. You could play with her for hours, almost tirelessly. Often you came over, just to spend time with her. She let you forget, blew the thought mill in your head to a halt. Like alcohol, but healing.

That afternoon, you both ran rounds in the garden. You tossed up leaves, that subsequently fell over you in a colourful waterfall. Laika jumped and bit at the leaves, you roared and danced on. You picked helicopters up from the ground and looked with open mouth how they fluttered down. Colour in your face, dishevelled hair: you were beaming, enough to still warm me when I think back to it. I should have taken a picture. I only have the picture on your funeral card and as you look there, I don't know you like that. It's not you.

That time, you were already done after an hour and you came to sit with me. You drank, pursed your lips, frowned, stared at the lawn. How could you switch in a second from carefree to tormented, from child to adult? After all those years, you still were an enigma to me.

"Ruth." You sounded deadly serious. "We've already known each other for eight years now, but I wondered ... Do you actually see me as a friend?"

I had never thought about that. Yes, how did I actually see you? "You know I care about you. You're always welcome here. I'll always help you if I'm able. But I'm almost thirty years older and I tend to shield myself. We ... Our lives are so different. We have totally different interests. ... We don't see each other regularly. The last time has almost been a year now. You ... You can't understand my world and I yours. You can't help me with my problems. In my opinion, we can never be equals. And our relationship is solely based on the support you need, to offer you warmth, a home. Don't you think so?"

"So that's how you see it." Your tone was flat. You tapped your fingernail against your glass and studied a scratch in the table. "I would have called it friendship. I thought it was enough that I care about you, that I trust you, that there's nobody I'd rather have in my life. But apparently, I don't have friends because all those others are birds in the bush, I realise now. Apparently, you are equally unreliable.

That stung. "Aaron, you ..."

You hit the table, jumped up. "Tais-toi! Ne fais pas comme si t'étais gentille! Femme infidèle! Conne! Pute! Chienne de chaleur!" I didn't understand much of your last words, but that they weren't very proper was clear. "So that's what I am for you. Je ne suis que le fils pour les moments où t'en veux un. C'est ça, n'est-ce pas? Course we can't be equals if you always mother over me and refuse to see me as an equal!"

"I don't mother over you!"

"Tell me another. I never should have believed you. You let me believe I was someone, that someone cared about me, but apparently, you don't give a damn."

I jumped up as well. "I fucking care! I cleaned up your vomit when you were drunk, your addiction keeps me awake at night, I've given you money that you use to bring about your own downfall!"

"Money, don't talk to me about money! You live on your own in a house with a garden that's thrice as big as the house where I live with my father and brother! You don't know what it's like to be poor." You stomped away, but I ran after you and grabbed your shoulder. You shook my hand off.

"Aaron, please, maybe I don't understand you, but that's no reason to throw away our whole relationship, is it? You're still always welcome here."

You paused, looked back. Your shoulders drooped and the sorrow dripped from your face. "I would miss Laika too much." Pain and relief fought for the upper hand. You came back, but only for my dog, as it'd started. But you came back, and that was the most important.

***

You came back and we settled our argument, but it was never like before. You were skittish, reticent. You didn't trust me wholeheartedly anymore, you came less often - even less - you were more sombre. I saw you weren't doing well, but I didn't dare to ask. I should have asked, I should have said I was wrong. I was wrong; you were right. Of course we were friends. I don't see you as the child I don't have, but I can't love you more. I love you so much that my body seems too small to contain all that love. I shouldn't have compared my friendship with you with my other friendships. Not that it was better or worse, but it was different, as every relationship is 'different'. And maybe also more intense, precisely because of our age difference, because it wasn't natural and easy.

My friends try to comfort me in my sorrow for you, but they don't know you and they know nothing about my relationship with you, so they don't understand what I saw in you, the depths of our relationship. It feels like I lost a part of myself since you're not here anymore. I should have died first; you still had a whole life. 'And not so much the going hurts but being gone.'  You made me a better person, but insight always comes after the fact. Now I feel so guilty. I saw it was going badly, but I didn't ask about it as I did before. And I was the reason you were doing so badly, my words.

***

I still don't understand why, despite everything, you still trusted me enough to send me a farewell letter, only me. Why me? You felt so lonely, you wrote. Nobody cared about you, not even me. You didn't have friends. There was nothing left to adequately ease your pain. You couldn't sleep and if you did, you had nightmares, alcohol numbed but not enough, drugs the same and eventually, even Laika couldn't comfort you. She reminded you too much of me. As long as you thought you had at least me as a friend, you wanted to live, but after ... Knowing that I meant so much to you that your life stood or fell with me, tastes bitter. Why couldn't we give you the warmth you craved while you lived? You father cried, you know? That tough, distant man showed everyone his tears. People did love you. If it came down to it, your father didn't care you wanted to wear make-up even though you were a boy.

***

I have copied your letter so I have a memory of your words and writing, but I burnt the original. I buried it under the maple tree, the one you always played with Laika, where you caught helicopters and took a shower of leaves. When Laika dies, I'll bury her there as well. Whenever I look outside then or I seek shade in the summer, when I see helicopters fly or the leaves fall, I'll know you're closeby. That you're still alive and blooming. That you never wholly died.

***

Author's Note: This is the translation of a Dutch story I wrote two years ago for a local contest (which I won) and the prompt 'friendship'. I wanted to write about a straight boy who still had 'feminine' characteristics, mainly a boy that wore make-up. (He could be bi or pan, of course, but in my mind, Aaron's straight. Ruth is bi, though.) I also wanted to portray an unusual friendship and a little mental health through the eyes of the people around.

While there are certainly things that could be better, this story is very close to my heart. I personally have several friends that are much older than me and there are always people who doubt our friendship.

Lastly, while not especially relevant, this story is set in Belgium and Aaron's from the French-speaking part of the country. The French should be clear enough from the context, but I can add translations in the inline comments if anyone wants those.