To Do It Scared

"I'm scared."

My heart tugs in that unfortunate, all too familiar way, and I tug the sobbing teenager toward my chest so he can cry it out that way. He is me. At least he used to be, only existing amidst the feeble tendrils of my own brain. Now, as I write feverishly each night trying to put the stories in my head to paper, he - CJ Williams - has become something more concrete. His own person, set apart. Bit by bit, between the black and white glow of the computer screen, he has become something real and breathing and alive. Something separate from me, something that will live on past me. Someone who matters to people other than myself.

And now he is crying his eyes out, because I, the author of his story, have sentenced him to a fate worse than death: falling in love. Already this is something heavy enough to weigh down any typical adult, let alone a hormonal kid. Love is butterflies and painful swallows, heartbeats and sinking stomachs. It is more terrifying than the most grotesque monster I could ever conjure up in my frankly unhinged head, and I can conjure up quite a lot. But I didn't stop with love, not for CJ. Couldn't.

I had to make him fall in love with another boy. A laughing, freckled, bright-eyed boy who looks at CJ as if CJ hung the stars and makes him believe it might actually be true. A boy who listens to all of CJ's secrets and holds his hand like it's a crime to let go. A boy who is perfect in every way, except that he is, in fact, another boy. For CJ, that is the trouble.

I remember what it was like before. When I still exclusively wore clothing that covered my knees and belly so as not to be a distraction to anyone. When I sat in a hard pew every week, clutching desperately at the book that was supposed to hold all the answers I needed, searching every page and finding nothing I could hold on to. When every word from the pulpit felt like a punch to my gut, squeezing me smaller and smaller until I couldn't recognize my own reflection.

"What will they think?"

CJ is blubbering now, frantic and near begging. Familiar.

"What will the people at the church think? What will my mom think? I love her so much, and I can't disappoint her; she matters too much to me. What will my dad think; what will God一"

Each word of his stings, brutal and all too personal in its rawness. I am reminded, just as I have been hundreds of times, just how similar my story is to his. Minus the superpowers and grand "save the world" plot, I suppose. But superpowers are nothing compared to the giddiness of looking in the mirror and seeing the self you can actually breathe with.

He wants me to tell him he is good. That he should play it safe and stomp those wicked feelings right into the ground, never to see the light of day again. He wants an excuse, any excuse, to be the same as he has always been, all false smiles and never quite fitting into his own skin.

He knows I won't. Because he is me, and we are both tired of squeezing ourselves into molds we outgrew years ago.

But because I am not cruel, and because I can see the pain darkening his young eyes, I take his face into my hands and smile at him. I pretend for just a moment that I am all-knowing like an author of a future bestseller should be, ignoring the blaring reality that I am just as clueless as he is a lot of the time. Clueless…or terrified, it's mostly the same.

"You know you can love him scared, right?"

He blinks once at me, and I can see his thoughts running at breakneck pace. Silently, I apologize to him for writing my own anxiety into him. It was bound to happen, certainly, but it's a heavy burden to carry along with everything else in this life.

“You can and should love him scared, because to pretend you don't is to deny a part of your soul. Your soul is the most important part of you. Without it, you wouldn't be alive. You'd just be a zombie. And I'm not interested in writing any stories about zombies, so you can't be one of those.”

His chuckle is thin, and I can tell he's still in his head. That's okay. We've got more than enough time.

After a while, however, his eyes slowly clear, and I can see him again. The real CJ, bright-eyed and witty and smart as a whip. He smiles shyly at me, and I know I've gotten to him.

"I know I can."

His voice quivers just under the surface, but I can hear the certainty of it, and I know he'll be okay. He is me, after all, and he can't have faith if I don't too.

"Hey, Crystal?"

I jump a little at that, because it will never not be a strange experience to hear one of my own characters speak to me as if he is real (he has always been real, ever since he showed up in my handwritten journals ten-plus years ago).

"Yes?"

"You know…you know you can write me scared, right? My story?"

I laugh, because it is just like CJ to use my own words against me.

"Touché. And yes, yes I know."

He nods, more knowing than a bundle of words on a page should be, and he doesn't say anything more. Neither do I. Writers only say the words they need to say, after all, and nothing more needs to be said in this moment. So we just sit together for a while, knowing nothing of the contents of the next chapter. All we know is to face it scared, because somehow, impossibly, we will both be okay.