Julian Sanders didn't live to satisfy people's expectations. At least that's what he told his parents when they persuaded him to think about his sexuality. To consider wanting to be gay.

He had told them countless times that it wasn't a choice. He didn't choose this. He didn't choose to be gay, it wasn't his fault that he preferred to kiss guys rather than girls.

It is who he is. No one can change that. Especially not the magazines of half naked women his father kept shoving under his bedroom door hoping that his son would feel some sort of attraction to the opposite sex.

What Julian's father didn't know was that despite the loud music seeping out from under the bedroom door, Julian was actually about twelve streets away in the park scouring for a good-looking guy he could make out with. His luck however seemed not to be working because the only thing interesting in the park was an old man who seemed to be talking to the pigeons he was feeding.

Julian sat on the wooden bench for a while, head tilted up at the sky as he stared at the clouds. Not because the clouds were interesting but because Julian always tends to look upwards when he was searching for a solution. But this time his problem was more complicated considering how he didn't know anything about the problem.

It was a boy. And it wasn't that Julian had a crush on him, in fact he hadn't even given much thought in that direction. He was just curious which was normal for him.

He'd seen the boy everyday in the past two weeks, on his black bicycle pedalling furiously, wild dark brown hair blowed back by the wind. It had been the same for a whole week, the same expressionless face, the same unruly hair, same strong clutch on the handles.

Julian had seen him everyday after school going in the same direction that led out of the town. And so Julian wanted to see if he'd still go the same way on the weekends so he had randomly decided to drink coffee in the Café that the boy occasionally stopped at. And when the boy had finally made an appearance he had followed him afterwards, to a lake just at the end of the town.

Julian had expected the boy to do some fishing, stare at the sunset above the lake, dip his legs in the water....hell even just swimming would have been alright. What he had done next had almost given Julian a heart attack.

Julian had watched the boy swim to the middle of the lake and then dive to the bottom of it. He waited for a minute, then two. When almost five minutes were over, Julian started to panic. He was halfway into unbuttoning his jeans when he heard a splash.

The dark haired boy was back above the surface, one hand covering his face and another brushing back his hair. Julian could sense the self-loathing roll off the dark haired boy and had wondered if he thought no one loved him.

The dark haired boy thought that no one loved him.
But Julian knew...that no one loved Julian.