Race With a Heart
Chapter 129: Love Requires Bravery

Chapter 129: Love Requires Bravery

Dave knew the feeling of love!

He immensely loved his parents and younger siblings for whom he sacrificed his future without complaint.

To Sid, Dave had always been a wonderfully caring friend, and he was anxious for Sid to suffer as little as possible at the hands of his father.

So yeah, Dave knew what love was, just... not romantic and not... erotic. Sid blushed at the word. He himself, of course, couldn’t say that he had any experience or knowledge of any of these two loves, but he was only seventeen (although his eighteenth birthday was approaching) and he knew that despite his boasting and joking, probably all of his friends were virgins . Everyone thought about sex to some degree, talked about it, and fantasized about it alone or with friends, but somehow few had practical experience. So they relied mainly on the knowledge available on the Internet. There were also some love poems that the teacher talked about at school, but who would listen to her?

So, as a matter of fact, Sid didn’t know romantic or erotic love either. It is true that Dave has started to appear in his fantasies recently, but was it love?

Sid, exhausted by strange thoughts, threw himself hard on the bed. He covered his head with a duvet and decided to seek advice from someone experienced and someone he trusted enough to share his problem. He had to ask what is love between a man and a woman or... between two men.

***

"Martin ..." Sid spoke softly and shyly. At this point, the boy should be at school, but after a hard night, he really wanted to talk to his older friend as soon as possible.

"What is it?" Martin asked.

Martin didn’t look too well himself and Sid knew he was worried about Paxton, but Sid could hardly find a place for himself. It wasn’t really about him, it was about Dave, and it was worth doing everything for him.

"May I ask you a few questions about, um, private matter? No no!" he corrected immediately, as he was not going to question Martin’s intimate life, only in general terms, but found that the subject he wanted to raise was very private after all. "It means..."

"If they’re not too private, I’ll tell you about them, okay?"

"But they probably are. I mean ... It’s about sex ... and love ... "

Could there be anything more private? Sid realized suddenly that in fact the questions he wanted to ask were too personal and all red, eyes fixed on the ground, began to back away.

There was a struggle in his heart and head. He wanted to help Dave, and to do that, he needed information, but his innate shyness and acquired willingness not to burden others (which his father had driven into his head with the belt) were too strong for him.

"No, no, forget I even asked ..."

Sorry, Dave, I’m not that brave ...

"It’s fine. Just ask," Martin encouraged. "I still remember what it’s like to be in high school and... have questions. Is that why you didn’t go to school today? "

Sid, all red, took a deep breath. Martin, with his light and friendly approach, encouraged him to ask questions himself, so the boy felt a little more confident. He found a bit of the courage he had just lost.

"Yes, I wanted to talk privately," he admitted to his older colleague. "I knew Teddy was going to be in the meeting in the morning and ... I’m sorry to bother you at a point like this, but you know, this whole thing with you and Steve gave me a lot to think about ... How is Steve?"

Martin’s face lightened a little, but at the same time his eyes became a little sadder. But that can’t be possible, thought Sid.

"Pretty good," said Martin. "He has a hard time staying in the hospital and he looks very bored. Tomorrow he leaves the hospital. So, what did you want to know? "

Sid wanted to ask the best question so as to get the best answer. At night, unable to sleep, he thought about it for a long time, and finally decided that with Dave one problem was especially important.

"Do love and sex always have to go hand in hand? Can you love without sex? "

Martin was surprised by the question. He probably expected a question like ’what’s the best position’ or ’does it hurt a lot to be with a guy?’ He probably thought he would hear a question about the technique of sex, not whether it was necessarily needed in love.

"You know, I never thought about that," admitted Martin, and he looked really thoughtful about the topic, "but if you can have sex without love, I guess you can have love without sex."

Yes, it was a logical assumption, but was love logical?

Sid sighed heavily.

"Does ... this have to do with Dave?" Martin asked carefully, anxiously. "Has something happened to him?"

Sid sighed again. The secret that Dave had been hiding for so many years was very painful and very intimate, so Sid couldn’t reveal it so easily, even to those he trusted. After all, he himself did not want to talk about what his father was doing to him. But if he and Dave remained silent, he would not find any help for Dave. Sometimes you have to speak, say something out loud so that people who can lend a hand hear it, look at the problem from a different perspective, as Martin did for Sid, but if Sid had the right to decide for Dave who to tell and from whom to keep a secret? There was also the issue of shame that Sid understood so well. Exceptional shame carried within the victim.

"I think this is a very private Dave affair," he replied quietly.

"But if Dave needs help now ..." Martin responded lively. He was ready to immediately take action to help his younger friend.

"It’s in the past," said Sid. "Just ... Not every past can be easily forgotten."

Martin sat on the hood of the car.

"But you can change the perspective with which you look at them. You know, I have bad memories too," he began to say. "Soon after I started meeting Steve intimately, my friend wanted to do something ugly to me. You know, ugly in the sense of ... "

Sid’s eyes widened. Did he mean the erotic meaning? Was Martin also molested?

"I was very surprised," Martin continued, "because I’ve known him for years, and even though I knew he wasn’t a saint, I never suspected that he might want ..." Martin shuddered in disgust. "I was furious and shaky. I couldn’t leave the bathroom for a long time. It was... gross. But I had Jack as my friend and Steve as, you know who, so this memory doesn’t bother me that much anymore. Yesterday I spoke to this colleague about this incident and found that he very much regretted what he did. "

"But Dave was younger and he didn’t have Steve or Jack ..." Sid blurted out.

"So after all ..." Martin sighed, looking down at the ground.

"Forget I said something ...

"You like him, don’t you?" Martin asked without looking up. "More than a friend, right? That’s why you asked me for love without sex. "

Sid felt his throat tighten with terror. Martin saw his emotions so quickly? Did he understand them better than he did?

"Yes," he admitted, his voice breaking. "But if he is so much against gays and has reasons for it ..."

"Don’t cry" Martin growled, which for him was a strange behavior. "Every fear, every pain and every prejudice can be overcome. It will be difficult for you, you may get discouraged, but if you really love him, you will fight. I won Steve’s love, and he too had his resistance. If you love, you must be strong and you will surely succeed! "

Sid sniffed and rubbed his eyes. Martin is right! Dave did not see Sid as a potential love partner and he considered male-male relationships to be evil incarnate, but if Sid gives him good, sincere love, he may be able to reach Dave’s heart and cover up the traces of that terrible event. Or at least it could ease his pain. Sid just can’t expect too much at once. As a victim himself, he understood that it is not easy to open your heart to someone enough to trust them and let them go to the most intimate places. However, they were very good friends with Dave, so they already had a large dose of trust between them. Now only Sid had to make sure to take their relationship a step further without losing what they had until then. So Sid will have to be very careful but also show more initiative, and that was a real challenge because of his innate shyness.

He would have to dare, however, as he did now with Martin.

Martin helped him by giving him courage, but he himself ...

"Then why are you crying?" he asked an older friend.

"I’m not crying," he replied. "I am sad about what happened to Dave and I know it will be very difficult for you to win his favor, so I am sad about it too, but I am not crying."

Except Martin didn’t look up to show that his eyes were dry and his voice sounded like it was coming through a very tight throat.

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