Homecoming

“Do you think I’m gay?”

I say this as nonchalant as possible while I focus on the tennis ball I’m bouncing off the wall in my room as I sit on the floor and Nate does homework on my bed. I don’t look back because I haven’t made total eye contact with him since I opened the door for him an hour ago and noticed the hickeys covering his neck and collar bones.

Since the blackmail via text has come to a surprising halt, I feel myself again. I feel as if for those weeks I was dared to step out my comfort zone, I was also dared to step out of my skin. And now that I don’t have to anymore, I’ve stepped back into myself. So I feel more comfortable just saying things on my own terms. I don’t feel pressured to have to talk about things that I’m being forced to do. Now that I’m back, I can just sit and think about things…like where I stand and my tested sexual orientation. And ask Nate when I just can’t figure it out.

“No,” he says and I glace back slightly to see him because I can’t read what’s underneath that ‘no’. His pencil is in his mouth and he’s looking down at his notebook. I don’t turn fast enough and the ball hits my side. Even though I feel comfortable talking to Nate again, I don’t think he does with me. We kind of switched places, when I was freaking out, he was calm. Now that I’m calm, he’s freaking out…I think…just internally or something. Everything he’s been saying is one worded or distracted, like he’s barely paying me any attention. And I know I’ve gotten over that huge bout of selfishness- but really, it seems as if he could care less about absolutely anything that has to do with me.

The apartment intercom buzzes and though my mom is right next to the front door, she’s busy finishing some huge Saturday dinner, so I go to answer.

I push the button to let whoever into the corridor without asking who it is and when I open the door, Robert is walking towards me. “Dad? What are you doing here?” I ask in confusion. He’s never been to the apartment before.

“Hey, bud, your mom invited me. She didn’t tell you?” He seems to be in a chipper mood, dressed in work attire. I don’t invite him in for a few moments when he reaches me, out of suspicion.

“Why?” I ask, standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Connor, let your father in,” My mom says from the kitchen. I silently move and Robert walks in, immediately looking around the small space.

“I invited him for dinner,” she smiles at me as I walk around to the island and sit at a bar stool. Still skeptical, I open my mouth to question but she cuts me off with a call of, “Nate!”
My father makes himself at home, sitting in one of the chairs at the round dining table.

When Nate walks in, he looks taken aback for a moment when noticing my dad. I see his shoulders rise slightly, suddenly uncomfortable with his neck adornments. “Are you staying for dinner?” My mom asks him, walking around to the table and setting down a salad in the middle of the table.

“If you don’t mind- yeah. I mean if tonight’s nothing…special,” he says. “Hey, Mr. Taylor. How are you?” Nate puts on a smile despite his obvious confusion and offers his hand out for my dad to shake. My mom continues to put food on the table, “Oh, no, nothing special.” I catch her lie and I’m sure Nate does too. Something has to be up if she invites my dad over…and actually cooks for him too.

“Ah, Nate. I’m good, I’m good. How about you? Still keeping those grades up? I see you have a girlfriend now, eh?” My dad replies to Nate. He doesn’t seem fazed by the word girlfriend other than a slight flush, but still lies when he says yeah.

“Connor sit at the table, come on,” My mother says as I just look at the scene and how everything’s wrong with this picture. It looks like...like it did before my parents divorced. Excluding Evan, of course. I move to the table and listen in on Nate and Robert’s conversation.

“How about your dad?”

“He’s doing good, still working like crazy, but at least I know with that he won’t get lonely when I go away to college.”

Robert nods with a true look of concern on his face. “Well you still have to visit the old man. More than Connor visits me too, even though you’ll be further.”

I try not to roll my eyes. When my mom tells us to dig in it’s hard for me to stop thinking about just how not right this is. But Robert pulls me into conversation and my mother sends me glares whenever I give one word or snarky answers to his casual questions.

After a while, I forget about the oddness of the situation and actually start talking. I’d say it was totally pleasant, if only after dinner, that eerie feeling didn’t come back.

“This was so nice Nicole,” Robert says to my mother and I wonder if they talk more than I know. I didn’t even know they were on speaking-terms.

The intercom buzzes and Robert pays it no attention but I see a glint in mom’s eyes. I push the button and wait until there’s a knock on the door to open it.

I think the familiar blond locks cause shock before I can even look at his face. I freeze, for a while.

“Connor, who is it?” Mom says too sweetly and now I know what she’s been up to. I don’t reply to her- it’s too unbelievable.

He puts a hand on my shoulder and I kind of snap out of it. But moving down to his face only causes more of a nostalgic daze. All these flashbacks. It shouldn’t be this crazy to me though, I know. I’m acting like he’s been dead for years and now he’s come back.

“Hey,” he says with no real noticeable emotion.

“Hi,” I reply emptily, still examining every detail of his aged face. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, nods and walks around me into the apartment. I only notice the other person when he follows Evan in, greeting me with a ‘hi’. He stops when he’s in and introduces himself as Cole.

“Connor,” I just say.

“I know,” he replies with a smile but before he can go into that whole ‘I’ve heard a lot about you’ thing I was expecting, a “No.” is heard; Clear and stern, not even angry- just final. It’s Evan’s voice. I follow it into the dining room where all eyes are on him standing in the entryway.

When he turns, he can’t go though, because I’m standing there. He just looks at me with my eyes and guilt makes me shrink to the height I was compared to him after he got his growth spurt one summer and I had yet to.

“Evan, please,” My mother says and I hear a chair scraping against the floor.

Evan doesn’t continue. It’s like I’m some brick wall stopping him and even though I feel so small, I feel just as heavy.

“Nicole, what’s going on?” Robert says, in the same tone as Evan.

My mother rests a hand on Evan’s shoulder and he turns from me, to her.

“It’s been so long. I just want you two to talk, just this once. I understand if afterward you want to…forget each other again.”

“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten Robert; Of course not. It may have been a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday, mom.”

Mom looks at me and I know to move out the way. Everyone passes me out the dining room and goes into the living room; except Nate. He’s the last to leave the dining room and pauses at me. He just gives me a look like he doesn’t know what to say, so he won’t. He nods to that guy, Cole, and they walk down the hall to my room instead of where everyone else is. For a second I wonder why everyone knows something I don’t, but I can’t get too into it because my mom calls me.

When I walk into the dining room, I’m hit with hot tension and cold silence. No one’s saying anything but they’re all in the same room and looking at each other, so I suppose that’s a big start for them. My mom’s sitting on the end of the couch, closest to Evan, sitting in a chair; Robert is on the other end of the couch. She’s in the middle to act as a barrier, the self designated voice of reason. She doesn’t remember she’s not good at it.

I sit in the computer chair and wait for someone to break the silence. Mom does, of course, “I think that we just need to talk.” I think…this is dangerous.

“About what?” Robert asks.

“About the fact that you acknowledge only one of your sons, maybe,” Evan replies, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t acknowledge just one of my sons, Evan,” Robert replies, forcing his eyes to his eldest son. I imagine him thinking ‘I just only have one son’, but holding his tongue.
“Oh yeah? Then why-“ Evan’s voice gets a little louder but Robert cuts him off calmly.
“You left. I didn’t have any way to contact you-“

Evan cuts him off in return with, “Bullshit! You hated me, despised me. I was dead to you- that’s why you couldn’t contact me. I’m surprised you and mom are talking again.”

“We barely talk! We-“ That’s not the best thing to say.

“Of course, because you hate her too. She kept talking to me.”

Evan has my temper. Or I have his. I do the same things. Start an argument immediately; I only realize how immature it is when I see it in front of me. I act so much like him. I modeled my personality after his when I was younger; of course I’m going to turn out like him.

I just can’t handle this.

I don’t say anything as their voices escalate and they start rising out their seats. Everything is a blur of words and I don’t know who’s saying what anymore. Mom’s trying to hush them and it’s not working and I feel helpless. I feel like I did when I was fourteen, when the same thing happened.

Until right after my dad screams at Evan “You FAGGOT!” When Cole runs in so fast I barely comprehend what’s happened until my dad stumbles back with a string of curses. A line of blood trickles down his chin and my mouth drops. Cole looks more pained than he does as he hunches over, shaking out his hand. This didn’t happen three years ago. No one says anything for a while, out of shock and I look over to where the hallway ends and the living room begins, where Nate is standing, staring back at me with no recognizable expression.

“I might be gay.”

Everyone looks back to me slowly, still silent, but I just look back to Nate. This is when his mouth finally drops, he shakes his head, and puts his hand over his eyes.