Undeniably In Denial

A few weeks went by after Reese’s mom caught us making out and he hadn’t said anything to his dad yet about it. Reese said he wasn’t ever worried about his mom, but he was scared shitless to tell his dad. I guess he’s one of those real macho-types who act like they eat nails for breakfast, so I really don’t blame him for not wanting to tell him. He sounds like the kind of guy that would flip out if his son was gay. And I figured out that he was that kind of person, even though his son was only bisexual.

I got a call from Reese, but when I picked up the phone, all I heard was screaming voices. “I will not have a fucking faggot in my house!” a man yelled in the background.

“You won’t, because I’m leaving!” Reese screamed to who I guessed was his dad. I could hear the tears in his voice even when it was distorted by his yells.

“Reese, no!” his mom said. “Daniel! You can’t do this to your own son!”

“The hell I can’t!” he yelled, sounding like he was getting farther away.

“Camron?” Reese asked, sniffling a bit. “Are you still there?”

“Of course, hun. What’s going on over there?”

“My -”

“Stop defending that pussy, Jen! He’s a fucking disgrace! An abomination! I will not have him living in this house!”

“He’s not an abomination! He’s your son! Your only child!”

“No he’s not! Not anymore!”

If Reese was crying before, he was dying now. He kept trying to say something but he was crying too hard to form real words. I think the closest he came was, “Ah, ah, chuz toy, toyled ehm da, da ah wuhuz buh, beh!” which I think was supposed to be, “I just told him I was bi,” but it was hard to understand anything he said at all.

“Reese, shh, calm down, okay? Take deep breaths. Just breathe. You’re starting to hyperventilate and that’ll just make you cry even more,” I told him, trying to get him to calm down some more, not that he had calmed down very much in the first place. “Do you want me to come get you? You’re probably not in the greatest shape to drive right now.”

“Ye-yea. I thi-think that w-would be b-best. I just ne-need to leave. Pl-please hurry,”

“Jenifer! That boy is not my son anymore, so stop calling him that! Everyone always said we were lucky to have him! But that’s untrue! I wish he was never born!”

“Don’t say that! There is nothing wrong with him!”

“He’s gay! There’s something seriously wrong with him!”

“He’s bisexual. That’s completely different!”

“Different! Exactly! He’s not normal!”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing! You’ve never had an issue with his friend Jason before and he’s as gay as they come!”

“She’s right, you know,” Reese chuckling tearily. I was cringing from what his dad was saying, imagining someone saying those things about me. “About him being as gay as they come.” He started laughing at that, and even though nothing was all that funny, I was laughing with him soon enough. Our laughter blocked out most of the noise from the screaming, but we could still hear it in the background.

“Hey, Reese, just to let you know, I’m on my way. I should be there in a few minutes. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”

“No, it’s okay. I need to go get some things from my room and that means I have to go back through the war zone. It’ll be easier if I’m not on the phone,”

“Oh, okay. I’ll be right over, then,”

“Bye,”

“Bye,” I said, flipping my phone shut and throwing it on the passenger seat, focusing on the road in front of me. I hadn’t waited any time getting to my car and going, so I got to Reese’s within about ten minutes of talking to him. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw Reese sitting on the front porch, head in his hands, with a bag at his side. I got out of the car and walked up the steps of the porch to sit next to him and put my arms around him. I felt him jump underneath me a bit, so I whispered, “It’s okay. It’s just me. I’m here now. Come on, let’s go,” I said, rubbing his shoulder assuringly. I couldn’t hear any yelling from inside the house but his parents could have still been fighting. Just maybe not screaming.

Reese looked up at me through his tears and mumbled, “Thank you. So much,” before placing a small kiss on my head. “I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted.”

“Of course, hun. Uh, are your parents still fighting?”

“I don’t think so. My mom kind of just gave up on it and I haven’t heard anything since I got out here. So I think they stopped,” he explained, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “But my dad’s still furious. Someone probably would have gotten hurt if we all kept going. Most likely him, though, seeing as how I’ve been taking self defense classes since I was seven and he’s been getting fat and lazy since I was five.” I had to laugh at that, even though it wasn’t really a funny topic. “What?”

“Just the way you said that. It was pretty hilarious,”

“Oh, okay,” he chuckled.



I woke up before Reese the next morning and just decided to let him sleep since it was Saturday anyways. When I went downstairs, my mom was making breakfast for everybody and the scent of eggs, French toast, and bacon filled my nose. I took a seat at the island that separates the kitchen from the dining room, stretched out, and yawned. “Mm, smells good, Ma.”

“Thanks hun. How’s Reese doing?”

“He’s still sleeping actually, but he was doing a bit better before we went to bed,”

“Oh?” she asked, chuckling and raising her eyebrows suggestively when she turned towards me from the French toast she was cooking.

“Not because of anything like that, so get those thoughts out of your head woman,”

“Who said I was thinking anything like that?”

“Your eyes. I can read you, Kathy. Like I friggin book,”

“Alright, you caught me. But he is feeling better, right?”

“Yea, I’d say so,”

“I just can’t believe any parent would say those kinds of things about their children. I can understand not wanting your only son to be bi, but not the rest of that whole situation,”

“I know what you mean. But Reese was telling me that his dad is one of those big macho guys and had always been pushing him to join football or wrestling or something like that. But Reese has always been into the arts and singing and such. So that just kind of put the metaphorical frosting on the metaphorical cake,”

“That still doesn’t mean he’s right by saying those things,”

“I never said he was,”

“I know, I’m just venting I guess,” she sighed. “It’s just not right.”

“Yea, you’re exactly right. It’s not right at all, but it is what happened, so we’re just going to have to help him with it now,”

“So did his dad really kick him out?”

“Not in so many words,”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he said, ‘I will not have a fucking faggot in my house,’ so Reese said, ‘you won’t because I’m leaving,’ and then his mom said, ‘you can’t do this to your son,’ and he goes,’ the hell I can’t’ and then things faded into the background and Reese asked me if I was still on the line,”

“So you overheard the whole fight?”

“Most of it, yea,” I nodded, picking up a piece of bacon she just put in front of me. “He called me during the worst part of it, so that’s where I came into the picture.”

“Well, I’m glad he called you. It sounds like things could have turned ugly if he didn’t get out of there when he did,”

“It probably would have. And he was in no shape to drive at all,”

“Then it’s a good thing he’s got such a great boyfriend there to help him with these things,”

“As cliché and stupid as this sounds, he’s a pretty great boyfriend too,”

“It’s not stupid. It is kind of cliché, but not stupid. It was really sweet, actually,” Reese said, coming up behind me, scaring the shit out of me. He hugged me from behind and planted a kiss behind my ear. “And you’re mom’s right; I am lucky to have such a wonderful boyfriend.” My mom looked over at us as I could tell she was about to make a remark about how cute we were or something like that, so I threw the last half of the piece of bacon I had at her and told her to not even start that sentence. We all laughed as she picked the bacon out of her hair and Reese turned to kiss me properly. “Mm, bacon breath. Yum,” he chuckled.