Brave Feeling

Jordan realized he was just staring into empty air for five minutes, probably looking like an idiot. He hadn’t talked to his friends during the whole week. Although they went with Jordan on a trip to Bohemia before, his three closest friends left for the States to celebrate Thanksgiving. He missed them, especially Taylor. He missed laughing with Taylor, caressing Taylor’s blond hair and looking deep into Taylor’s blue-gray eyes.

“What’s with you, Jordan?” said Mr. Kašpar.

"You seem like you’re not on this planet with us today. Come on, try to focus.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” said Jordan, sensing blood rushing to his face, making him feel extremely embarrassed. 

“I’ll focus now.”

Listening to Mr. Kašpar’s endless lectures about the 20th century's conflicts bored Jordan to death. Every time he walked into the classroom, he knew that zoning out into his own bubble was the only way to survive the class. It wasn’t the subject; he enjoyed history and even researched about the cold war on his own. But the way Mr. Kašpar taught it made him uninterested in every word he said. And after that one trip two weeks ago, Jordan had a lot to think about.

On the bus home, Jordan opened the Snapchat app on his phone and saw he had a video message from Lydia, his other friend.

"We’re coming for ya, Israel!” said Lydia in the message with Taylor and Jolana behind her, smiling at the camera. 

Jordan took a selfie and over enthusiastically wrote “Can’t wait to see y’all!” and sent it back to her as an answer.

He took out his earphones, pulled them up under his shirt, put them into his ears and went into the music app. He had downloaded Troye Sivan’s new album Blue Neighbourhood the day before and still hasn’t listened to it. He clicked play, sat back on his seat, and looked out of his window. Outside, there were hundreds of people trying to get home from work, stuck in traffic, wasting their lives. But Jordan wasn’t thinking of that. In fact, he wasn’t even properly looking at all the cars. He was just noticing the red lights on the back of the cars, enjoying the new album, and thinking of Taylor. He had never bonded with someone so much as he did with Taylor. And tomorrow, his friends were returning, and he would see Taylor again. He couldn’t wait.

The next morning, Lydia got on Jordan’s bus and immediately took the seat next to him, hugging him and making weird sounds as she always did when she was excited.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in ages!” said Lydia with a grin on her face, from ear to ear, inpatient to talk to Jordan. “How have you been?” 

“I missed you all so much." 

“Did you miss anyone in particular, huh?” she said, her her tone of voice begging for all the details, although she already knew them.

“I mean,” Jordan started to respond but he didn’t know what to say, “Yeah, I have been thinking of someone in particular. How much did Taylor tell you?" 

“I know everything.” Of course she did.

“Oh well, then I don’t have to tell you anything, do I?”

“Oh, come on! I wanna hear it from your side,” she almost shouted.

“Ok, I’ll tell you.” Jordan said, unwillingly.

“Remember how after we landed in Prague, we went to that shopping mall as a group?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah.”

“And remember, how we separated?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, my jacket was in my suitcase but I was super cold. I told Taylor that I was cold and Taylor offered me a jacket. So I took the jacket and I wore it for the rest of the day,” Jordan said, his eyes brightening.

“Oh my gosh… Taylor didn’t tell me that!”, Lydia said.

“So, we walked around the mall and then we saw this vinyl record store. I thought that was pretty old fashioned, but I didn’t mind. I mean, we were in Europe. Taylor called me to the back of the store to show me an LP. In Taylor’s hands I saw George Ezra’s Wanted on Voyage and I wanted to scream out loud, because I’ve never met anyone who actually listened to George Ezra.”

“George who?” Lydia asked uninterestedly.

“Exactly,” Jordan said, making his point.

“We were freaking out about the fact the we both listened to him. And then we shared some more singers that we both liked, and Taylor mentioned Troye Sivan. And you know that Troye Sivan is pure perfection.”

“Yes, you won’t stop talking about him.” Lydia said, again annoyed, but still excited to hear the story everyone’s been talking about.

“And so, in that moment, for the first time in my life, I felt brave. Brave because, my whole life everyone’s been laughing at me for my music taste,” Jordan said with a sad voice.

“Ok, sorry. Continue,” Lydia knew he was talking about the times she made fun of him for his music taste.

“And with that brave feeling,” he took a deep breath, “I asked Taylor out,” Jordan said with the biggest smile Lydia had ever seen on him.

“And Taylor said yes. After dinner, we went out to the Czech coffee shop, and drank coffee. We talked about so much stuff. Taylor’s really interested in politics, like me. Taylor hates Mr. Kašpar, like me. Taylor has so many stories about Argo, Taylor’s dog, that just crack me up. And, Taylor is very intelligent, smart, but also beautiful,” Jordan said and at that point it was very easy to read his emotions. He liked Taylor a lot.

“And? What else happened? You know,” Lydia said, “You know what I mean!”

“Oh well. Then we went outside and sat on the bench. It was snowing. Taylor loves snow, like me. And then I looked into Taylor’s eyes and I said I found them beautiful.”

“Aaand?”

“And then he grabbed my neck and kissed me.”

Hunter, Nan. The Boy Scouts and Culture Change. Digital image. Hunter of Justice. N.p., n.d. Web.