It was the 4th of July, 2001. My family was barbecuing and watching the fireworks. On the radio, Bon Jovi's "It's my life" was playing. The night was sultry. Everyone's eyes were on the sky.
I was a junior in high school and I knew this was my one chance to sneak away. I walked as quickly and as quietly as I could. I got in the car and under the cover of the sounds of the fireworks started the engine and slowly pulled out of the drive way.
I had been working at Wendy's for several months now and I had a spare set of keys. I opened up the restaurant. It was completely dark as I knew it would be. I switched on one of the lights. I needed a signal.
I waited with bated breath. Slowly, the minutes ticked by. It had been fifteen minutes. I started to think that it would never happen. I started to feel terrible. There was no way that he would come, right? We were in small town West Virginia. Things like this only happened in the movies and none of those movies happened in small town West Virginia.
It was five more minutes and if it were five more than that, I would have left, when he showed up. We hadn't been friends in school. I was the kid in the AV club and he was the kid in shop class. We didn't have much in common. It was purely by chance that we learned about what each other was hiding and since then we had started to spend time together.
It was initially about finding a shoulder to cry on but then it became about telling each other about our dreams and desires. I was 16 and it was the closest thing to love that I knew. But in a town like Wayne, there was no place for a love like ours. So, we hid ourselves as best as we could.
But at that time, in that Wendy's we didn't need to hide anymore. We met that night and gave in to our passions for each other. It wasn't long, it couldn't be. We left after a half-hour. We weren't the same people any more and that was the greatest half hour of my life.