I thought I had him, but he almost got away. I couldn’t let this be like Katy Perry’s “The one that got away”. JJ was the first kid I ever known whose life was so similar to mine. Tough relationship with his father and it’s hard to make friends, so staying secluded always felt best. People were always talking behind his back saying things like “homo or emo boy”. Basically, he was given the Single Story of a young homosexual emoboy. Fortunately he wasn’t alone.

One morning, I was sitting with a group of friends at the front entrance to the school. The bell was about to ring, and everybody wanted to leave that frozen cold winter air. Snow was falling, it covered the ground like it had rained marshmallows. With each step my feet felt like it was on cloud 9 and getting ready to sleep. I lost feeling in my hands, they were frozen like clay after being heated in the kilm. Out of nowhere my friend J.T whispered “homo stepping out the car looking emo again”. I was being a bystander to that comment.  He wore these black and blue DC shoes, with a black pair of pants and his black Aeropostale long sleeve. His hair was long enough to cover his eyes, but was able to flip it out of the way with the classic Justin Bieber hair flip.His hair is slippery, slides through your hand like spaghetti. Not to mention he always had earphones in his ears. His head was always drooping over into his phone like a baby finding their toes for the first time. So all I did was stare with an occasional smile from time to time, afraid to say anything because there I was wearing my black pants, with a pair of black Nike shoes and a black turtleneck sweater.  My hair was also long too, it was thick with kinky naps. So if you tried to put your hand through it, it would feel like a poodle's hair tied in knots. I’m an emoboy too.
The day came in art class, I finally said something

“Why the F*** are you sitting here?”

I tried not to look into those long flowing eyelashes, too see what facial expression he was conveying. I knew that if I looked up he would have looked at me so destroyed, like seeing godzilla annihilating china for the first time.  Although I vaguely remember that encounter he wouldn’t let me forget from that day on. I didn’t know why I said it at that time, but I guess I was scared to be seen talking with him. I felt horrible, because I had a homosexual older brother who had passed. It was adding insult to injury. I could have talked to my mom about it, but I decided to handle it myself. That night on the radio, a song came on that would make me act. Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away”. As I tapped my feet to the beat, tears began to roll down my eyes like niagra falls. My heart skipped a beat, like a scratched cd repeating that same beat. Then everything went black as the pavement, I’d fallen asleep. I knew something was going to happen.

JJ sat at his table in woodshop, and my best friend was sitting on my lap. JJ was watching us, like a hawk in the sky and I was his prey. After my best friend moved, JJ sat on my lap and instantaneously my heart and mind started to race. Those stereotypes replayed, “Homo, emoboy”. Nothing made sense anymore; I was engulfed in that polo scented cologne he was wearing. It’s like he wanted me to get whipped on it.Whipped like the cool whip you put on a pie, all swirled making you lost in it’s rich taste. You’d feel as if you took a bite into heaven, and everything made sense.  He had given me his number so I can text him, but I lost the number. He gave it to me again and we began to talk. I’d became an upstander as our friendship began.We would stay up really late at night, you couldn’t hear nothing but the wind whistling, as it blew that crunchy old leaf off the tree. It sounded like adding milk to a bowl of Rice Krispies cereal.

This homosexual boy that people would talk about had become my best friend and my loving boyfriend. This accidental friendship changed me because it showed how much can change when you let one “homoboy” in your life.

This to me shows that nothing will change if you let a stereotype or a Single Story stop you from exploring. Even if we're convinced that something's not right because someone with Power says it, then we will never be able to think for ourselves and pass judgment based on what we see and experience.