[Drama] Looking Westward

[Leo Eskandari]

A ray of light broke through the gray clouds to illuminate a large figure at the edge of the cliffs near the lighthouse. Leo sat cross-legged before a makeshift cairn of mismatched stones. Against that stack of rocks was propped the framed photo of a red-haired woman with generous freckles and a warm smile standing with her arms on the shoulders of a boy in his early teens with hair the same shade of red. It was one of the last pictures of the both of them together that Leo had.

"Hey mom," he said in the general direction he thought Boston to be.

"I'm sorry I missed talkin' to you the last two... anniversaries. A lot has happened. So much that I didn't get to."

"I'm... different. Someone hurt me, turned me into something you wouldn't recognize. I barely do."

Pausing to wipe his eyes, he said, "And if you were still here, I'd... I'm sorry, that's not fair, I just... I miss you. I miss the way your nose crinkled when you laughed. I miss how you'd hug me every day before school no matter how much I felt too old for it. I miss how you always knew what to say when I was down. I need that most of all."

"But... it isn't all bad. If all the pain hadn't happened, I wouldn't have..." he said, a smile peeking through the sadness, "I met someone better for me than Molly ever was. Someone who made me admit to myself something that's been weighing me down for as long as I can remember. You probably knew even if I didn't, but I need to say it."

"Mom, and Dad wherever you are, I'm gay. A big gay mutant," he said with a happy grin, "His name is Ainsley and he's wonderful. He doesn't care what I look like, that I'm at least twice his size, or that I have enough issues to keep the magazine business afloat for another decade. I think I... I think I'm in love, mom. I thought I loved Molly but that was just a mirage compared to how I feel about him. Even though I've been through hell, he makes me happy again."

His grin devolved into something melancholy. "I just wish you could've met him. You'd like him."

(open for eavesdroppers and snoops, and sentient rocks because sometimes we have those)