Chapter 1

I’ve always been scared of water. Not like I can’t take a swim at the beach, nor I can’t enjoy a pool party without getting anxious, but the deep waters. Staring into the vast blue ocean – my favorite color, ironic – can make me wonder what it would be like to drown. To be submerged while the water takes away my life. And this is what I’m feeling right now and the only thing I can make myself remember is his face.

I’ve betrayed you, my love, and I feel alone.

University of Oxford, October 3rd, 2013.

I had to cover my face from the brightness of the sun and as fast as I wished, the light adjusted.

I was walking around campus with two of my gym bags filled with my stuff, hanging from my shoulders. I can’t begin to describe how beautiful and remarkable these old constructions of Oxford University are. I fell in love with them the minute I received a brochure back home. Almost the entire city is the university campus as buildings old enough to tell an epic story sit still watching us humans go about our life.

I took a left at the Museum Road, under the countless trees and walked till the street became as narrow as it could, only fit for two people walking by at the same time to find the address written on the flier from my freshman kit. Opening the blue doors for the double storage Victorian building, using the tag in my keys, I found a board with the residents names and there it was, washing my doubts away: “Michael Harry, Room 7”.

The directions indicated to take the stairs up and to my right, the last door had a sign with the logo of the university and my room number. I unlocked making as much noise as I could to warn my possible–already–inside–roommate that I would come in in a second and he should hide anything he wouldn’t like to flash me.

Getting to my dorm room, I found myself in a large bedroom designed for two people. The twin beds were placed against the corner walls, each had its own corner window and were equipped with white sheets. The night stands were a palm of distance away from each other and the dressers at the end of the beds, separating the sleeping area from the studying tables like two half walls.

I expected to have a male roommate arriving any time now as I saw no clue of another person's belongings inside the room and we all know the mess a guy is able to make of a nitty room like that. I put my things away, my intimate clothes in the drawers and my shirts folded while waiting for someone to get in, but nobody arrived. I settled my laptop on the right-side table and fired it up.

As I stared to the screen requesting a password, I drifted my thoughts to my parents and a punchy feeling sinked in my stomach. I’ve never told them I hated our little city, neither I’ve told them I was gay before leaving, for a matter of fact. I’ve waited 18 years in silence, not being able to live my true self, not being able to experience what I saw in series and movies: two guys kissing, truly loving each other plus the horny part of it. I knew the feeling of touching another man, but as tiny as Oxfordshire was no one wished to be the first gay out in public for the whole city to know his name.

But now everything would change. I was a solo grown man, living in the big city with no parenting supervising and I would discharge a few years of horniness on the first stranger to cross my path. That’s for sure!

I heard a knocking at my door and I opened to see nobody there and a flier pinned on the frame of my door.

University Gay Society
Every Thursday, 8 p.m.
Conference Room A, Clarendon Building
Come meet us at our drinking parties for new members

As my prayers were answered.