Anthem

By Ryder Smith

An Aromantic Love Story

Told Out of Order for Dramatic Effect

September

I’ve never experienced a love like this before. 

His perfectly tamed, flowing brunette hair. His round, almost frameless golden glasses signifying that he’s clearly queer. I have no idea what his relationship history is, but that’s not important; I know. I can see us together in my mind and in my heart. We sit in our kitchen thirty years from now, watching our adopted children make a mess. There are two, no, three of them. One of them, our youngest, is sitting on the hardwood floor, crayons in hand, skillfully missing their pre-prepared canvas: a single sheet of printer paper already covered in scribbled colors. Another, the middle child, is riding a plastic bike-toy, also very colorful, narrowly avoiding dozens of fragile items throughout the house– the home. The third, the oldest, is calmly taking a snack from the fridge. They’re the most mature, but still not old enough to try to stop the others from wreaking havoc. 

I can’t see our children’s faces, their hair, their genders, their forms. They’re amorphous ideas of familial love in cute sailor outfits and tutus and graphic tees. These kids aren’t real; hell, they won’t be born for at least twenty years. One person, though, is real: him. He looks just about the same, maybe with a gray streak. It was probably shocking to him at first, but he’s making it work. He tried other styles of glasses, but always reverted back to the classic round rim. In my vision we hold hands moments before having to clean things up. We look into each other’s eyes and sigh in understanding. They’re just kids. We won’t have these moments forever, so we’ll cherish them now. I’ll cherish them now, thirty years early. 

August

He’s an acquaintance from choir. 

Moving to a brand new high school isn’t the simplest thing a person can do. I know that’s the single-most-cliché thing someone can say, but it’s absolutely true. Entering a school district filled with years-long established friend groups is tough. I barely manage to make more than one friend my first day, and we aren’t particularly compatible as friends. Everyone else is either genuinely uninterested or flat-out mean. I don’t feel great about this. 

It’s day two and I have my first choir class. It only happens three days a week and the first day of class happened to be an off-day. I walk in and almost immediately feel welcomed. The choir director is kind and the classroom culture he’s cultivated is open and caring. I don’t think I’m ready to tell anyone that I’m bi yet, if I even am. I’m probably just straight and confused. I’ve only had crushes on girls, but I’ve felt sexually the same about boys and girls. That is, of course, little-to-not-at-all. I guess I’m a late bloomer. Maybe I’ll have myself a man-crush soon, or maybe this whole “sexually different” thing will fade away. 

That’s when I see him. 

I was always the tallest person in my class, or one of the tallest, at least. He’s barely five feet tall, and I feel like, at almost six feet, a tower over his tenement. He has an average-looking face for someone who just finished eighth grade. I obviously don’t feel particularly confident in my own face, but I don’t care about that stuff much yet. I barely know him, and I have little individual interest, compared to the rest of the choral crowd, in getting to know him any better. We’ve met. We’ve spoken. We don’t really know each other. 

He walks past me. We lock eyes and greet for the first time. I am unimpressed. Maybe I’ll get to know him as the years of high school go by. Maybe I won’t. Honestly, I think I’ll be fine without him. 

May

I haven’t even met him yet. 

I’m not gay… right? I mean, I’ve met gay people in the past, and they’ve been cool. People have asked me if I was gay, so many people, and I’ve always said no, because I’m not. I know I’m not. I think I’m not. I know I’m not. I can’t know in eighth grade, right? It’s too early. I know a few gay people in my year, and I believe them completely, but I can’t know. They’re so sure of themselves, but I just can’t be. Is that a double standard? Do I know what a double standard is?

I stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom on the second story of my home. I stare at myself, locking my own eyes. My hands are still slightly damp from washing them. My comfortable socks balance on the coarse bath towel on the tiled floor. Sweat forms on my back, sticking me to my shirt. My senses go numb as my head empties of thought. My mind is a temperamentally swirling sea of colorful emotion, unable to settle on one for long enough to commit to a feeling. Without any conscious desire, speaking only from the depths of my mind and heart, I open my mouth. 

“Oh my god,” I say softly, “I’m bi.” 

January

He’s one of my closest friends. 

We’re sitting in choir. We obviously aren’t supposed to be talking to each other at this point, but that isn’t stopping us. We’re perfectly socially established in the choir. No students are going to tell us to quiet down and the director hasn’t noticed us yet, so we keep whispering to each other. He’s a bass and I’m a tenor, so we’re sat in different sections. The basses and tenors, though, were put next to each other, so on particular days of good luck, we still sit next together. This was one of those days: one that can facilitate a forbidden conversation between tenore and basso. 

Even looking back from later that day, I still have no idea what we were talking about, but I never forget my delivery. We lean close to each other after the director begins conducting the other sections. If any one part is going to sing first in a song, it’s the sopranos, and because the section is so big, as well as being placed on the opposite side of the room, he and I had perfect audible and visual cover for our conversation. I know my part is coming soon. The basses and tenors sing at the same time at our first entrance of the piece. We have to be quick with what we want to say. We get a few sentences into our conversation. The altos start singing. I can feel where we are in the music deep in my heart; I need to wrap this up. Luckily, I find a joke, a joke so stupid it would make him laugh long enough to cut off the conversation. The time to sing is coming closer. He says something. I say something. He says something. Two more measures. Then, I pull the trigger. I’ve budgeted my time perfectly. I tell the joke and, without even taking a breath between, I immediately turn my head away from him for my entrance. With the same stored air I lead the final sentence of our conversation perfectly into singing. His entrance is, of course, at the same time as mine, but he laughs so hard he can barely pull himself together ten seconds later. Luckily, he stifles it enough to not tip off the director. 

He laughed at my joke. He really liked it. 

August

Who was he again? I can’t quite remember. 

Have I had a crush on anyone before? I feel like that’s a weird question to ask, but it would be good to know. Of course I have! I can count at least four since first grade. Well, crushes generally don’t start that early, and all of the crushes since I was ten have felt the same as their earliest counterparts, so maybe it’s something else. 

What if I haven’t had a crush before? Is it possible that I imagined a crush over people I thought were cool, but never fully got to know? 

My crush in first grade, I only ever really met once. We played together for one recess, and it was one of the best recesses of my life, but we barely talked again after. Still, I considered myself as having a crush on her for another seven years. 

My crush in fourth grade wasn’t really my crush. She was my best friend’s girlfriend, or at least as much of a girlfriend as one could have in elementary school. I’ve always felt bad because I only started having a crush on her after they had broken up; I wasn’t honoring the “bro code.” I knew, though, that if she was desired by my friend, then it would stand to reason that she was traditionally desirable, so that meant I had a crush. You know, this logic is starting to feel less sound. 

Change topics! Numbers three and four, sixth grade. I had just changed from my public elementary school to my private middle school. It was a much smaller class, and I hadn’t quite picked up on the vibe yet. A week had passed, and I was starting to meet people I’d eventually find friends. Two people ended up standing out. One was very theatrical, and she really liked a shirt I got from a concert, so we shared a music taste. The other was weird, and a bit outcast-y, but in a good way. It was also difficult to be an outcast in a class of 61. Of course, I still made it happen for a good few months, but that’s besides the point. I had two new crushes, and absolutely no intention of making a move. 

I still loved the two from elementary, meaning that throughout sixth and seventh grade I had four concurrent crushes. I even wrote a few crappy poems about number two for a class project. Thank god I don’t have access to them anymore, but that is love. You write the poems and you pine for a while and you only interact with them every so often because that’s the magic. That’s what I’ve been told, I guess. It’s what they do in all the movies. If I follow those steps, I’ll eventually get to the point where I can dramatically profess my love and happily ever after. I create some fuss that’s so endearing they have to say yes. That’s love. 

Or maybe it isn’t. Movies, books, shows, print ads, and all the rest aren’t totally accurate. They fictionalize and dramatize everything. Have I fallen prey to the allure of a good story, believing it to be perfectly true? I don’t tend to think in movie logic in other places, so why do I do it here? Am I desperate? Am I lonely? Am I aroma–

No. No. No! Obviously not. Aromanti–… that thing is something that only people online are. I’ve certainly never met one of them, and I can’t imagine there are any more than ten of them on earth. I’ve definitely… probably… likely been in love before. Yes, it is statistically the most likely that I have actually had crushes. Of course, there are also some subsections of that group that don’t have crushes until later, so maybe I’m that? No. I’ve had crushes. They’ve been real. I won’t accept this, and I won’t be questioning it further. 

I will continue having crushes. I will marry someone someday. I am going to force myself to forget about it. 

November

He’s a really, really good friend. 

I can’t believe it. He’s actually auditioning for the musical this year! I can see him up on the stage. He had always put sports ahead of musical theater before, but today he’s joining us. Rehearsals for shows here are an intense process, sometimes staying until eight of nine PM. Getting to have around five hours with him is going to be amazing. I’m completely sure I’m not in love with him, but I can’t wait to be around him for this process. 

The director is known for not making any cuts, and this is an ensemble-driven show, so it’s possible we end up close to each other on stage a lot. We’ll sing and dance and share stories and eat dinner and be happy. We’ll be happy together. 

May

He means a lot to me. 

We walk next to each other, getting ready to leave for the day. He says he’s already working on his letters of recommendation for college. I can’t believe he’s getting started so early. It’s really smart. He’s really smart. I’d like to say I’m doing the same, but I’m not really even sure how to ask for them, so I’ll just wait until we’re all asking for them so it feels less weird for the teachers. I want his confidence. He has an amazing style. His hair is so perfectly groomed. His voice is so warm. I kind of want to be him sometimes, but I suppose I’ll settle for being with him. We’ll grow closer and closer as time goes by. We still have another full year together before we go off to college. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up in the same place. We can keep doing choir and theater together. Nothing will stand in our way. We’ll work with each other forever. 

October

He’s the love of my life, and I see us together forever. 

He walks down the hall towards me. Our lockers were placed right next to each other this year. It’s only been a couple of months so far, but I’ve already really cherished it. The amount of love I feel for him is overwhelming. It’s like I’m seeing the entire world through a pair of sunglasses tinted to a lovely light pink; everything is perfect. I see our perfect home, perfect kids, perfect relationship… perfect him. 

I’m not sure if I got to our lockers early, or if he’s getting to them late. I haven’t checked the time. He’s all I can think about. We may have been friends before, but now we’re in love. He’ll love me one day soon. Maybe he already does! Maybe all I have to do is make the first move. Of course, I’ve made zero moves on any other crush in my life, but he can be my first. This is the man I’m going to marry. This is the man I’m going to sit on the porch with as we grow old. He’s holding a baseball, throwing it up some ten inches, not even a foot, and catching it again. I’m knitting a sweater or a scarf or a blanket or anything. Anything at all, as long as we’re on the porch and he’s throwing the baseball and I’m knitting, because that is the end goal. That is perfection. That is what I’ve known all my life to be true. It’s been pounded into me by every fairytale, show, movie, book, commercial, print ad, article, parent, teacher, friend, and every other person and piece of media I’ve ever come into contact with, so it has to be right, and it has to be mine, and it has to be him. I know I’m only a kid. I know my brain won’t be fully developed for almost a decade. I know everything about this. I fully and perfectly understand how our futures will unfold, and how they’ll unfold together. He is mine. I am his. Here he comes. 

There he is, walking from far down the hall. He flows down his path towards me in a way that makes me feel he had to be my one, truest love, gliding like a medalist on the ice. I had seen us moving in together and raising a family in my sleepless thought. I would close my eyes and construct a vision of the children we’d adopt and the house we’d buy. This is the culminating moment. He’s really on his way. 

My head suddenly becomes devoid of all concrete thought. I don’t feel empty, just formless. For a few seconds, the only thoughts being processed in my mind were the ones in my deep subconscious, so far back even I couldn’t guess as to what they were. I have become a being of pure action, my brain in the middle of a total reboot. I’m being updated and restarted, turned off, only to be turned on again later. In this state my body is taken by the subconscious, a vessel in its process. I have no real idea of what’s happening in the deepest niches of my mind. All I know is the physical movement I make for that brief window of thoughtlessness. I move as if I’m executing a line of command, the monitor at the front of my mind still powered down. 

I look at my open locker. Then I look at him. Then I look at my locker again. 

I turn back towards him one more time. 

Then I look at my locker. 

Then I power on. 

It’s… fake. It has always been fake. 

No crushes. No love. No future. No happy. No kids. No scribbles on the hardwood floor. No bikes. No fridge. No end goal. No story. No fairy tale. No happy ending. No parent. No teacher. No print ad. No baseball. No yarn. 

Then I calm down, just in time to have my revelation, my Jesus with a sword in his throat, my har megiddo, my New Jerusalem. 

“Oh my god,” I think to myself, completely silently, “I’m aromantic.” 

Epilogue, June

I truly believe we’re friends, and that’s okay. 

It’s the last day of high school. I’m sitting next to him on the bus on its way to graduation practice. As a treat to the seniors, the last day is always classless. We get a catered breakfast from the school, and then we’re shipped off to the place we graduate. Today is just practice, a simulation of graduation’s logistics. We won’t even be walking on stage. All we’ll have to do is sit in our seats and listen to people tell us how to walk on stage. For now, though, we’re on the bus. 

We talk. We laugh. We join and exit group conversations. It’s an enjoyable time, one last hurrah for our four long years stuck together. I know I only felt like I had dreamt up crush on him because of a societal pressure, building up around my submarine on the brink of complete collapse, like being crushed by an amatonormative hydraulic press. My world wanted me to want him, and I was just a victim of it. He’s also fairly straight, too. From a be gay, do crimes perspective, I do kind of hope he has some awakening someday. From a being friends with his girlfriend perspective, I hope that awakening is bi, because they’re cute together. 

There are plenty of types of aromantics; It’s all a spectrum. It could theoretically be possible that I’m a more specific type of aro, but, to be honest, I don’t think I am. I’ve had my fair share of deep, resonant emotional connections with people and they neve end with crushes. The only people I ever thought I loved romantically were those who I didn’t really know. Of course, when he came along, I felt the same. I feel kind of bad for him, ever since I told him he was my aromantic awakening. He thought it was funny, but I still think he deserves better. Though, he has his girlfriend, and they’re doing well, so maybe I’m just anxious. I’m also so happy that he’s been in my life, not only as a catalyst for my better understanding of myself, but as a friend, a really good friend. 

I know I’ll see him again. We’ll come back and see musicals and plays and choir performances. It’s the first day of pride month, and I know I’m aromantic. I feel good about that. I can learn to love myself for who I am without a romantic over-encumbrance taking over my mind. I can continue loving my friends in a way my brain will stop confusing for that same weight. I’m excited to go to college and be out. I can’t wait for him to go to college and become successful. I’m excited, and I’m aromantic, and I’m content. 

Ryder Smith (they/them) is an aroace writer currently studying English and Italian at the University of Pittsburgh. They primarily use their writing to promote aromantic and asexual representation and acceptance.