Love is like the rising of the sun or the blooming of a rare tropical
flower.  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it creates something of great
beauty, gradually filling the heart with this most delicate and precious
of emotions.  Intense searching is needed to find it, and then must be
nurtured, tended carefully to prevent it from fading. 

Bullshit.

The so-called experts who fill the books and talk shows with their crap
about 'gradual' love have obviously never been to the Stanley Raymond
Kowalski school of romance.  Don't know what they're talking about. 

See, love has nothing to do with sunrises or flowers.  It's more like
being hit by a train.  One minute, you're cruising along, feeling more
or less okay, the next...WHAM!  Sionara, you poor bastard.  It's all
over.  One big aw fuck moment, and you're the latest one of Cupid's lost
causes. 

Love is looking across the cafeteria, and aw fuck, it happens.

There's the trays of grayish veggies, pressure-cooked within an inch
of their lives.  There's the chicken ala king, with the little rubbery
chickeny bits smothered in thick yellow stuff that looks and tastes like
elephant snot.  There's Mrs. Frish, with her support hose and her blue
eyeshadow and the hairnet too big over her dyed black hair.  Just like
every day.  And there in the middle of middle school lunch time hell,
an angel appears. 

I've been going to this school long enough that I know I've seen her,
but I've never *seen* her. 

She's got this hair that looks like someone poured gold down her back,
all the way down to her waist.  Big, sky blue eyes, without a lot of
makeup like some of the girls.  Just enough to make her look a little
grown up and pretty enough to make my eyes hurt.  Someone at her table
tells a joke, and she's laughing so hard that her jello salad is in the
grips of a serious earthquake on her tray.  It's a perfect laugh, like
bells and birds and wind chimes.  She's tall and slim and so graceful
that I know she dances, and I thank God for every formerly-hated hour
in Mr. Himmerman's dance class. 

Then she looks at me, just for a moment, and I'd sell my soul if only
she'd do it again.  And again.  Forever doesn't seem long enough anymore,
because Cupid's dead-on, and I'm just bleeding my heart all over the
chicken ala king that I wasn't gonna eat in the first place. 

I'm in love, and I don't even know her name.  What's more, she's a goddess
and I'm the skinniest, nerdiest thing the eighth grade's ever seen. 
She's obviously from money, and my dad's a meat packer.  She's sitting
in the middle of the table with the coolest guys and most popular girls,
and I'm off in the corner with the other social rejects.  The captain
of the football team is offering to carry her tray, and the only thing
I play is chess.  I'm screwed, and I don't even care, because odds are
just some  stupid thing that other people believe in. 

Of course, love is also about losing it.

Love is getting my heart ripped out eighteen years down the line.  It's
too many nights spent dancing with air and getting drunk and crying like
a baby, which is even worse when no one is there to make me feel like
an idiot for doing it.  It's throwing picture frames across the room
and cutting my fingers on the glass when I try and put them back together
and bleeding all over the rug and not feeling the pain. 

It's thinking I'm gonna die and knowing I'm not and wishing I would.
It's swearing that I'm never gonna let that particular train hit me again,
and that if Cupid so much as looks in my direction, I'll stick those
arrows up his ass. 

Love is seeing Cupid laugh in my face.

Love is looking across a couch in the middle of a guy's night out, and
aw fuck, it happens. No, better rephrase that.  First time was an aw-fuck.
This time is an AW *FUCK*! 

This is Cupid laughing his ass off at the expense of his favorite mortal
bull's-eye. 

There's Han Solo on the television screen, ducking the Millennium Falcon
through those asteroids and being just too cool for words.   There's
the pizza box on the table from our usual delivery place, with the grease
spots and a couple shreds of gluey cheese the only thing left of the
medium pie with pepperoni and pineapple.  There's my can of beer and
his can of ginger ale, both half-empty.  There's the wolf, sprawled on
the rug, trying to hide the red sauce on his nose.  Just like always.
And there in the middle of introducing someone to the classic cultural
institution that is Star Wars, an angel appears. 

It's not like I haven't seen him every day for the last year, but I've
never *seen* him. 

He's leaning forward on the couch, staring at the television, chin balanced
on his hands like a kid.  He just got a hair cut, so his hair is just
barely too short to curl, kinda bendy-wavy, the color of good black coffee
and so soft-looking that it makes my fingers itch.  Eyes that are blue
or gray or green, depending on what he's wearing and what split second
I happen to be looking at him.  Bit of pizza sauce on the lower lip that
seems almost obscene as it just sits there, waiting for that moist, pink
tongue to whisk it away.  Perfect profile outlined in silver because
of the TV light.  It's the kinda face that makes me hate most guys, but
I can't hate him because if he *does* know he's that mind-twistingly
beautiful, he doesn't do anything with it.  Nothing on purpose, at least.

Then he looks at me, and says something about heroic archetypes and somebody
Campbell, and he could be talking soup for all that I'm listening, because
my head and my heart are imploding and exploding at the same time.  Time
stretches out and squeezes in. 

I know that it's written all over my face, and I hope he'll think it's
indigestion.  It's killing me, but I don't want him to ever look away,
and I would give anything if I could just stop this moment right here.
Keep this instant for at least a million years or so, because Cupid just
landed another one dead center. 

I'm in love, and this time, the little bastard is really playing dirty,
because this is my best friend, of all people!  What's more, he's a *guy*!
As far as I knew, up until about three seconds ago, I was straight. 
This is not what I had in mind. 

Besides, even if my sexuality has gone berserk and started chasing after
gorgeous Canadians, it doesn't really matter.  I *know* he could give
straightness lessons to a ruler, because he's a *Mountie*, after all,
and so deep-down-good that it makes my heart hurt to even think about
what it must be like to try to be the nearest thing to a saint I figure
ever existed in this fucked-up city. 

He's got an IQ like Einstein, and I can't string together a decent sentence
half the time.  He's all about control, and I think that patience is
heating your instant coffee in the microwave instead of getting the hot
water  straight from the tap.  He'll taste, touch, or smell anything
to solve a case, and I get the raging heebie jeebies just from thinking
about the morgue.  He looks like he's been saran-wrapped, and I've got
permanent three-day stubblies and hair that's been styled by lightning
bolt. 

Love is realizing that I'm really, thoroughly, completely screwed, and
I swear I can actually *hear* Cupid yucking it up. 

Now Fraser's eyes are getting a little pinchy, and his lips are moving
in a way that kinda looks like 'Are-You-All-Right-Ray?' 

Aw, fuck.

Love is sadistic.

THE END