Isak:

Hey guys, I'm here to tell you a story... my story. About how I fell in love, about how I succeded and especially about how I messed up... a lot.

Let's start with my first year in highschool. I was still in the closet and recently moved out of my house. The thing was that my father had left my mother because he could no longer handle her mental illness, and left me to take care of my ill mother at the young age of sixteen. I resented him for that, and resented my mother for not accepting that she wasn't ok and needed professional help. She also was so religious and always sent me these quotes from the bible about ways to save my soul. She didn't even know I was gay! So, you'll deduce I had a lot of anger and resentment bottled up inside of me. Not to add the fact that my best friend, the one I had a crush on and help me discover my sexual orientation, started dating this beautiful girl named Eva.

I wanted to hate her, but I couldn't, she was and is a great friend of mine. So I did what every gay guy in the closet did, hook up with a lot of girls to make any rumors about me being gay go away. I wanted to try to break them up, but I couldn't go ahead with it... until Eva cheated on Jonas with Chris- a third year. Then I had the perfect excuse to make them break up and have my best friend back, I told Chris' girlfriend about what happened, after Eva confided in me and trusted me not to tell anyone, and then let the drama begin. Eva found out about what I did and didn't talk to me for a whole year. Jonas was single again... but it broke my heart to see my friend so sad. Not to mention that the guilt ate me alive.

So, to try to take my mind away of things I began a lot of fights between the top two 'gangs' of Oslo- The Penetrators and Yakuza. Drugs and alcohol didn't work anymore, which didn't mean I stopped using them. However, it all changed when I met Even during my second year. Slowly I began falling for him, not even knowing that he had a girlfriend stopped those feelings from growing. I still acted like a bitch, that didn't change. I used a very nice girl Eva, another Eva not Jonas' Eva, and tried to forget about Even. I felt like a jerk for hurting such a good girl, that truly liked me. It still didn't stop me from ditching her and Even's girlfriend during a pregame before a Halloween party. Which lead to her outing me to the whole school, even if they were only rumors at the beginning.

Sonja was acting like Even's mother not girlfriend, trying to control him. He snapped at her in public which caused her to go to the bathroom embarrassed, being followed by Eva. Even took that chance to convince me to ditch them and have a little adventure with him. We ended up breaking into a house of someone he knew and kissing underwater, in the indoor pool they had. Our first kiss, one taken out of a movie, was interrupted by a little blonde girl. We rushed to get the hell out of there and mounted Even's bicycle back to my place. Luckily the girls were gone by then and we were the only ones there, my roommates out for the night.

We spent the whole week-end in our own world, in my room. Kissing, cuddling and getting to know each other better. I even forgot about one of my friends' birthday- I was such a little shit back then. A few days later Even discreetly called my attention during gym class and silently told me to follow him into the lockers. Then he told me something that made my heart jump with joy: he had broken up with Sonja. We could be together without me being his dirty little secret... but in a way he was mine, because I wasn't ready to come out yet.

But that happiness was short lived. Before the rest of the class came into the lockers I said something very stupid, something which I, yet, did not understand how much effect would have. I told Even, even if it was grudgingly, about my mother being mentally ill and how much better my life would be without those kind of people in it. I didn't really mean it, I was hurt and angry at my parents for not taking care of me... for abandoning me. Even later that night sent me a text telling me we were moving too fast and needed space. That space meant that I found him hooking up with his ex-girlfriend during a party, which lead me to get into a fight with a friend when I stormed out.

I tried to forget about him, to fix stuff between my friends and I. They were starting to get worried about me. So I took Jonas out for kabab, then told him I liked someone and that's why I've been acting so strange, I asked him to try to guess. He began listing the name of girls he had seen me around. When I told him it wasn't a girl, he didn't even bat an eye, and joked about it being him. I quickly replied exclaiming 'NO'. I've never been so relieved in my life. Then I also discovered that I never really liked Jonas like that, he was... safe. I would have never come out of the closet with the excuse of not wanting to ruin the friendship I have with my best friend... my brother in everything but blood.

Afterwards, I came out to my other two friends, Magnus and Mahdi. They also weren't bothered by it, they even helped me text Even a night when we were drinking in the kitchen of the Kollektiv. When he didn't reply, I really thought I had lost him, you'll know my surprise when he showed up at my door. I ended up kicking the boys out and loosing my virginity to him. Everything was perfect for a while, until he told me he had booked a suite for us in a fancy hotel of town. I excitedly followed him, loving to being pampered and taken care of someone who cares about me. Residual effects because of what my parents did to me.

That night was incredible, the sex was even better. But Even was kind of strange, chipper, more hyperactive... as if he were high. Then, while I was lying face down on the most comfortable bed I've ever been on, he said he would go to McDonalds. It took me a few seconds to figure out he didn't put any clothes on before leaving the suite. I changed quickly and ran after him, his clothes with me. I've never been so afraid before, I could only think of the things people would do to Even. In the midst of my fear I finally admitted to myself that I loved Even and I don't know what I would do if I lost him.

At the end, I had to call Sonja, she knew him better after all. When she told me that she would take care of it, I relaxed a bit, but not completely. When she got off the taxi, in front of where I was waiting for her, and told me the police had Even in custody, I wanted to follow her. But of course she stopped me, yelling at me about how stupid I was and how I didn't understand anything. She told me that Even was bipolar and the only fucking reason why he was with me was because his brain was playing tricks on him. She mocked me about ever believing Even would really love me, that I was just another impulsive decision Even took and at the end, like he always did, he would return to her side.

If seeing them kiss broke my heart, her words, then destroyed me. I locked myself in my room and didn't leave, investigating all I could about bipolar disorder. Even kept on sending me messages, but stopped when I asked him not to. There was a lot of stuff I needed to think about, my head and heart were a disaster then. Even though he didn't text, he still was in my every thought. It didn't matter that he was absent for the rest of the week, I saw him everywhere. Then Magnus called me out on my bullshit when I told the boys about what happened, his mother is bipolar so he knows a lot about it. Then he scolded me for believing the words of Even's ex-girlfriend about his feeling for me. I admit that I felt kind of stupid when Magnus said it in that tone- as if he was talking to an idiot.

That weekend, during a concert in the church my parents took me to- to try and fix things between us. I got a text from Even, which was more as a suicide letter than anything else. It freaked me out, I didn't care about my parents by then. I just wanted to make sure the man I loved lived, so I ran to the place we first really talked- where he told me he would be. And assured him, he was not alone, that I was there for him. I spent the rest of his maniac episode with him, it was the stage of depression. After that, things looked up for us, we spent Christmas eve together- I hosted it that year- and the following day I met his parents. The following weeks, before getting back to school, I gathered all the ones I had hurt these last years and apologized to them. They took my apology much better than I had expected.