Sunshine Days - Chapter 10
After their brief stop by the river to wash off, David and Jonathan walked along the trail for a while in silence. Jonathan kept his level of sight at the ground, scanning at least five feet ahead for any rattlesnakes that may be hiding along the dirt path. David walked beside him, bouncing on his heels obliviously and humming a little cheery tune to himself. They had gotten quite far down the trail before Jonathan picked his head up from his concentrated stroll and looked around curiously.
"Wait... Are we going the right way?"
David turned and looked at him. "Yeah, I think we are..." He looked around him as if he were just noticing his surroundings for the first time since they started back on the trail.
"Because this all just seems really familiar. I feel like we've already passed this stuff before."
David scratched his chin. He turned facing in one direction, then the other. "Huh..."
"And it feels like we've been going downhill this whole time. Weren't we going uphill most of the day...?" Jonathan frowned, regarding the pup doubtfully.
David nodded, "Yeah, I think so...Maybe the trail started going downhill where we stopped."
"I don't think so," Jonathan sighed, rubbing his paws over his face. "I think we've been going in the wrong direction this whole time."
They both stood there, looking down either side of the trail in an attempt to figure out which way to go. David finally conceded that there was a distinct possibility that he might have misjudged the direction in which to get to the campsite.
"Maybe we should keep heading this way..." David offered, pointing down the direction where they were heading.
"Why? I thought you said you wanted to go camping," Jonathan said.
David shrugged, "Well, it'll take us longer to go the other way since we've been walking this way for a while. Plus the sun's gonna be going down soon. We might as well head back to camp...if that's where we're heading." He added, still holding on to the idea that he was possibly right.
"Yes," Jonathan said with growing frustration, "I know we're going the wrong way. We went off the path to the left and went down to the river! Remember? " He smacked his head lightly, "We came back up the hill and turned left on to the trail instead of right!"
Jonathan sat down on a rock and rubbed his face in his paws again. He jumped back up when it occurred to him that snakes could be just about everywhere his eyes weren't looking.
"Well..." David said softly, "We can still go back to the cabin. I don't mind not camping..."
"But we'll get in trouble when they realize we're gone!" Jonathan snapped back.
David flinched a little. Jonathan saw it and felt guilty, having not intending to sound so malicious despite his foul mood. He'd been walking around all day in worn out sneakers, battling allergies and feeling the hot sun on his neck, then he peed his pants after getting into two life-threatening situations in less than 15 minutes, and then they were heading in the opposite direction of their original destination. Although Jonathan wouldn't have enjoyed the camping experience all that much, it was still the focal point of the whole trip and the sole reason he endured everything that had happened that day. While he'd be more than happy to sleep in a bed rather than on a pile of dirt and rocks, it still irked him that all this endurance was for ultimately nothing.
David shrugged his shoulders a little and said softly, "At least we're not lost...We can get in trouble when we're back at camp but we can just tell them we got mixed up and went in the opposite direction. It's not like they have to send out a search party though, right?"
"Yeah, but Leader Eddie and the others won't know that. How will they know that we went back to camp and didn't just get lost in the woods?"
"Cell phones? Walkie Talkies?" David said.
"Oh, right..." Jonathan looked back at the ground sheepishly. He imagined he'd heard a little bit of sarcasm in the canine's response and felt it was justified, given the way he'd treated him.
"Sorry I snapped at you," Jonathan said after a short while of walking.
David smiled good-naturedly and shrugged it off, "It's nothing. It's been a pretty wild day."
"Yeah...wild..."
David grinned and nudged Jonathan with his elbow, "I was pretty scared too, you know. When we ran into that snake?"
"Yeah, but you weren't the one that nearly walked into it. You weren't the one that wet your pants either," Jonathan shot him a look that was both joking and self-depreciative.
"No. But I was still scared for you..." David said in a soft and honest tone.
Jonathan nodded lightly as he looked over at David. "Thanks..."
"For what?" David asked.
"Well, for stopping me from running into that snake. I probably would have stepped on it if you hadn't screamed at me. And you stayed with me when I was having an asthma attack...and taking me to wash my pants off in the river." Jonathan listed them off on his fingers as he said them.
The white fur on David's face turned bright pink. He shoved his paws into his pockets bashfully and shrugged. "Aww...It's nothing. You would've done the same thing for me, I bet."
"Maybe," Jonathan said with a grin. He nudged him back with his elbow.
They walked on as the daylight started to dim, casting a low corona of orange and red at the horizon. The bright, azure sky from that afternoon turned into a much deeper blue above them. The air had cooled as well, giving them goose bumps under their fur as they walked in the elongated shadows of the pine trees. They walked most of the way in silence, before Jonathan broke it with something that had been on his mind for a while.
"David?"
"Yeah?" David turned and asked cheerfully.
"Is being gay a bad thing?"
He saw the light go out of David's eyes almost instantly and that smile tried to stay on as he looked away. "Bad?"
Jonathan nodded, watching him closely.
David's expression went to a distant look of gloom, made even dimmer by the fading light of day. He looked as if he were being forced to think of something that he didn't like to contemplate.
"I guess it depends on who you talk to..." He said softly, with all the exuberance gone from his voice.
They walked in silence again, feeling the tension of a taut tightrope between them as neither one spoke. Jonathan wanted to know what made some people say that being gay was a sin and why others say it's perfectly fine and normal. While Vince had told him that being gay wasn't evil or sinful, he'd heard from other sources that contradicted his cousin.
"But do you think it's a bad thing?" Jonathan asked.
David looked over at him with a small enigmatic smile. "Me? Well...There are things that I know and things that I feel. I know my parents say it's wrong, I know the people at my church say it's wrong, I know Avery and just about everyone else says it's wrong, and I also know that God says it's wrong. But for me...it's always felt right. From the first boy that I kissed to the first time I got one up the butt, I knew it was right for me..."
Jonathan winced at the last part of his monologue. He offered a challenge. "Well, you said you've never been with any girls before. How do you know they wouldn't be right for you too?"
"I don't really think about girls like I do boys...They're not really the same. I tried thinking about girls a few times while I was jerking and it kept going soft." He chuckled. "Is that a good enough answer?"
Jonathan shrugged, not really having an argument for that.
David continued. "No...I've never really been all that into girls, man. They just don't do anything for me like guys do. I know it's a sin and everything but...it just feels so right, you know? Like, how could this be so wrong if it makes me feel happy inside?"
Jonathan nodded. "So...do you think it's a bad thing?" He reiterated.
David was meditative for a lengthy pause. "Yes...I do."
Jonathan was surprised by his answer. He decided to dig a little deeper. "Then why? Why do you do it anyway if you think it's a bad thing?"
David sighed and looked down at his feet as they walked. "I do it because...because I know in the end it doesn't matter. I could try and be with girls but I'd never be happy. And it wouldn't change how I feel on the inside. I'd probably spend all my time thinking about being with guys instead of my wife. I couldn't do that."
"To her or yourself?" He asked, referring to David's future, non-existent wife.
David shrugged. "Both...it'd be lying. And I know God probably hates liars as much as he does homos. Either way, I'm already doomed to Hell. So what does it matter? I can either be happy here on Earth or miserable, so I might as well make the most of it before I spend the rest of eternity burning..."
"Don't say that," Jonathan said, feeling a little sad and guilty. By the morose tone in the pup's voice, he could tell he made a mistake by bringing up the topic with David. He had touched on a raw nerve that maybe he should have left alone.
"It's true," David continued, "God doesn't want me in Heaven. I don't think he even loves me. Why else would he create me just to put me in this no-win situation unless he cared about what happens to me? He made me this way. I told you about all those things that I like, remember? I told you I'm a freak. I'm a fucking freak and God doesn't want freaks like me in his kingdom."
Jonathan noticed that the pup was growing more agitated and upset. He could see in the fading daylight hours his chest rising and falling rapidly and he could make out tears swelling in his eyes. He'd seen the perpetually cheerful David look depressed or sad or contemplative but this was something entirely new and disconcerting all the same. David had even cursed out loud, something he didn't think he'd hear from someone like him. He felt the panic rising in his chest, wondering what he should do to comfort the pup or stop him from crying. He was never good with handling other people's emotions, not even his own.
"Please don't..." Jonathan said nervously.
"God made me this way, right? So he knew when he made me that I'd be a...a f-fucking freak. I w-wasn't a mistake. He just made me so he could send me to burn in Hell forever. God d-doesn't love me. God h-hates me," David said, choking on tears. He had ducked his head down and his eyes clenched shut in anguish as tears rolled down his thick snout.
Jonathan was ill prepared to handle an emotional breakdown from someone he considered a friend. He felt especially rotten since he was the one that had brought it all up in the first place, feeling responsible for the pup's reaction. He attempted to console David by awkwardly putting a paw around his back. David turned himself around and held on to the surprised tabby, hugging him close and crying into his shoulder. Jonathan looked both concerned and uneasy about the situation, unsure of how to proceed. David's body trembled and shook as he made ugly, pitiful howls into the cat's neck, seeking some kind of solace in the embrace of another male.
"I don't wanna go to Hell..." He sobbed, muffled by the shoulder.
Jonathan rubbed David's back comfortingly, desperately searching his brain bank for a combination of words that comfort the distraught canine. "It's okay..."
They stood there in the middle of the path, hugging one another while David let out what had been bottled up for so long. Neither one spoke until David eventually calmed down and sniffled wetly as he pulled away from Jonathan. His eyes were bloodshot, his muzzle was damp with tears, and his nose was runny. He smiled a little awkwardly and folded his ears back, apologetically brushing off the apprehensive feline's shoulders.
"Sorry about that..." He said sheepishly, his voice gravely from crying.
Jonathan shook his head and gave him the best smile he could. "I-It's fine...Feeling better?"
"A little, yeah," David nodded and wiped his nose off on his wrist, snorting softly. "Sorry...I didn't mean to freak out on you like that."
"It's okay. I think we all need to get stuff off our chest like that sometimes. It sounded like it'd been on your mind for a long time."
David nodded and sniffed again. "Yeah...it's something that I don't like to think about a lot. I get upset when I do."
The two walked along silently again in the direction of camp. The sun had almost completely gone down behind them and the first stars of the evening were not making their appearance in the deep purple sky above them. They passed over the bridge they had crossed before when they started on the trail, knowing that they were getting closer to the cabins. Jonathan was grateful to see the familiar landmark as he was to be off his aching feet. He thought maybe he'd sleep in late tomorrow morning, just because.
"So..." Jonathan said, with caution this time, "About what you said... Vince told me that there was nothing wrong with being gay. He said that God loves everybody, even people who do bad things. I don't think God would really hate you just for being you."
David smiled half-heartedly and said, "I know...he told me the same thing too. But I read the Bible verses that say it's wrong. They said it's an abomination for guys to be with guys. You can't really argue with what the Bible says, can you?"
"Maybe..." Jonathan offered, wishing there was some way he could bring the pup back to normal. He'd pretty much give anything to have the old happy and hyperactive David back.