A Little, Lost was originally published in ‘When You Read This I Will Be Dead... – An Anthology from Michael Terence Publishing’, which you can buy here.

​

My left foot landed.

 

I'm so grateful I’m not gay. That really wouldn’t have gone down well at school.

 

Everyone thought that I was a big mouth and that I talked too much, but I was actually very quiet. Every time I did say something I tried to make it funny, so it was noticed. It must have seemed like I was always talking. Sometimes people laughed and sometimes they didn’t and it was that uncertainty that made me nervous every time I spoke.

​

I told a group of boys that I liked watching the Teletubbies when I was fourteen. They laughed. I used to like it when people laughed at the few things I said and so I told some more people that I liked the Teletubbies. People continued to laugh so I continued to tell people.

​

I got on well with girls, which made my dad proud of me, though I never understood why. When I was fifteen, I found out that none of the boys at school liked me. Liking the Teletubbies wasn’t a good joke. People had laughed, but not with me, at me.

​

My right foot landed.

​

I was much younger when I tried on my mums make up – maybe six or seven. I only did it once. The lipstick broke and I stained the carpet with the mascara, which made my mum cross.

​

“Why did you want to put on Mummy’s make up?” I remember being asked. It was odd because I’d never been asked why I did all the other naughty things I did. I was just told that I shouldn’t do them.

​

“I want to be like Mummy”.

​

My left foot landed.

​

I understood my dads pride at me having female friends when they started to grow breasts. He thought I’d made friends with them to play the long game – friends now and something else later.

​

I loved dinosaurs when I was younger. I still love dinosaurs. That’s something from my childhood that never left me. There are lots of things that never left me. I still like trains but I never play with them, I still like party rings but no one ever offers them to me and I still like women’s clothes, but I don’t wear them anymore.

​

My right foot landed.

​

I met Santa one year. Actually, I met him most years but one year stands out to me. The room had been decorated to look like Santa’s grotto and there were baskets around the room, each with different unwrapped presents in them. After Santa had met us all and told us to be good this year, we were allowed to pick a present each.

​

There were cars or dinosaurs for the boys and floral stationary sets for the girls. I didn’t make this distinction and I liked writing stories so I picked up a stationary set.

​

I’d made the wrong choice.

​

I do still watch films about dinosaurs, but I don’t think it has anything to do with he floral stationary set. I just objectively think that they’re awesome.

​

My left foot landed.

​

Eventually, I made a friend who was a boy. Most of his other friends were girls too.

​

I’d actually become slightly more popular as my secret study of what made people laugh had become more successful, so I held a party at my dads house. At the end of the party my friend and I shared a bed because his house was a long way away. When my dad came home from his night shift he saw us both leave the same bedroom. He smiled at us, said hi and then went to bed. My friend left and I watched TV.

​

We still hung around with our girl friends too, but it seemed more normal to be friends with another boy. It helped us to fit in more at school. All the other boys were friends with other boys.

​

When my dad woke up later that day, he asked if I was gay. He wanted me to know that it was ok if I was. I’m lucky to have my dad, but as I’ve said before, I’m not gay. That wouldn’t have gone down well at school.

​

My right foot landed.

​

I never liked sport much because I’m not very competitive and it doesn’t really have a plot. I didn’t see the point of finding out if I liked watching sport or not by watching lots of different sports, but I did it anyway, because maybe, if I found a sport I liked, I would be more normal.

​

After a while I began to wish I could tell my dad I was gay. He really would have been fine with it and maybe then I would make more sense to him; my large collection of musical DVDs, the sheer enjoyment I got from dancing like Freddie Mercury, my clothes. People at school called me gay to insult me, so when my dad asked me if I was gay, it felt like an attack, but it wasn’t.

​

Wrestling has a plot and I did quite enjoy the storylines between matches, but then I realised that I could watch similar storylines in soaps without having to endure any fighting, so I started watching Home and Away instead.

​

My left foot landed.

 

As for playing sport…

 

Football - too long.

Rugby - too confusing.

Cricket - I’m no good at catching.

Basketball - ditto.

Ice hockey - I don’t want to get hurt (and if that wasn’t a possibility, the person in goal shouldn’t have to dress like they do).

​

The main thing that put me off all of these sports though, was the prospect of letting the other boys down.

​

Netball - I’m not a girl.

Regular hockey - I’m not a girl.

​

Girls don’t get as many options in sport do they? I’m sort of jealous of that.

​

Home and away got pretty good in the early 2000s. When I told people that I liked it, some of them laughed, so I stopped telling people that I liked it. I’m not falling for that again.

​

My right foot landed.

 

My friend who was a boy pretended to like football. He didn’t really like it though. He talked about it with other boys but I was often with him when the games were actually on.

​

We watched one game at my dad’s house. My friend talked about Coldplay all the way through it. When he talked about the match to other boys at school he didn’t mention Coldplay once, nor did he mention that by the time the game had finished, we had started writing funny poetry together. I didn’t mind though. I understood.

​

He said that he liked the Olympics too, but it wasn’t on that year so I don’t know if he was pretending.

​

My left foot landed.

​

The year before I went to university I started running. With each step I found myself further away from people.

​

My right foot landed.

​

Who am I? Am I who I am supposed to be?

​

My left foot landed.

​

Am I real man? And if not, is my dad still proud of me?

​

I think so yes. He is. But what about everybody else? I don’t fit in. Are girl’s clothes on boys funny, or do I just like them? Does that even matter? I think it does.

​

My right foot landed.

​

It does matter. It clearly does matter. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that thing I said three weeks ago. It was a bit camp. I hope I fall in love one day. Girls don’t fall in love with boys like me though, do they? I wish I was gay.

​

Girls fall in love with men and I’m not a real man. I’ll probably die alone.

​

These are the things I used to think when I was running. That’s why I spent my time running.

 

My left foot landed and I was miles away from everyone.

​

When I left school I met a girl and I used to wear her coat. I liked the way that it pulled my body in at the waist, making my shoulders look bigger. She liked that too. I also liked the fluffy hood and the diamantes around the stitching on the pockets.

 

I began to run less often. My right foot landed.

​

Eventually, people caught up with me and I was no longer alone. My friends who are girls. My friend who is a boy. My dad. They all caught up. The girl I met after I left school made me understand that it was ok for me to be who I was and who I still am. I don't know her now. I know me.

 

My left foot landed. My right foot landed and I stopped.