Chapter One: Just Like Magic
There is a creek that runs through the woods behind my house. At one point along the creek there is a big wooden bridge that connects one side of the land to the other. No one really knows where of how the bridge got there only that it has been in this spot since my grandfather’s father lived in the house that I now reside in.
Sometimes, when the weather is nice and the day’s work is done, Tom and I will go down to the bridge and dangle our legs off the edge so that our feet can skim the cool water below. We sit there and we listen to the sounds of nature. It is almost as if the trees whisper to us as we relax there gazing at the stars hand in hand.
Often I dream about Tom and I loving each other. Sadly, I know that is never going to happen because he is a few years older than I and I know that he would never be interested in a child like me. He holds my hand as a brother would hold his sister’s hand, not as two lovers would. He cannot see that I love him.
Tom works on his father’s farm across the way. As I make my way home from Riverside High School on my bike each day I always look for him in the fields. He is almost always there. I fell no shame in watching him work; even when he is shirtless with his tan muscles gleaming with sweat. Most of the time, he will look up and wave as I ride by.
The thing about small communities is that everyone talks about everything. People in the town think it is strange that a man Tom’s age has not had a woman catch his eye yet. When people ask my father’s opinion about it he just rolls his eyes and says “Tom will find someone on his own time, he is still young.” Then he will turn and wink at me like he is the keeper of some hidden secret.
Tom is the son that my father has always wanted. My mother has had me and only me. When I was younger I could always hear them fight in the night after they thought that I had gone to sleep about my mother not giving my father a son. But as I grew older and it became apparent that I was going to basically be a boy in a girl’s body on top of Tom being around so much, I think that my father grew content with what he was given.
There is a creek that runs through the woods behind my house. At one point along the creek there is a big wooden bridge that connects one side of the land to the other. No one really knows where of how the bridge got there only that it has been in this spot since my grandfather’s father lived in the house that I now reside in.
Sometimes, when the weather is nice and the day’s work is done, Tom and I will go down to the bridge and dangle our legs off the edge so that our feet can skim the cool water below. We sit there and we listen to the sounds of nature. It is almost as if the trees whisper to us as we relax there gazing at the stars hand in hand.
Often I dream about Tom and I loving each other. Sadly, I know that is never going to happen because he is a few years older than I and I know that he would never be interested in a child like me. He holds my hand as a brother would hold his sister’s hand, not as two lovers would. He cannot see that I love him.
Tom works on his father’s farm across the way. As I make my way home from Riverside High School on my bike each day I always look for him in the fields. He is almost always there. I fell no shame in watching him work; even when he is shirtless with his tan muscles gleaming with sweat. Most of the time, he will look up and wave as I ride by.
The thing about small communities is that everyone talks about everything. People in the town think it is strange that a man Tom’s age has not had a woman catch his eye yet. When people ask my father’s opinion about it he just rolls his eyes and says “Tom will find someone on his own time, he is still young.” Then he will turn and wink at me like he is the keeper of some hidden secret.
Tom is the son that my father has always wanted. My mother has had me and only me. When I was younger I could always hear them fight in the night after they thought that I had gone to sleep about my mother not giving my father a son. But as I grew older and it became apparent that I was going to basically be a boy in a girl’s body on top of Tom being around so much, I think that my father grew content with what he was given.
