Undeniably In Denial

Reese and his dad got into a mega-fight when we were at his aunt’s for Christmas, but it turned out that it was all for show. To make a long story short, his dad flipped out on him for something, they both sort of blew up in each other’s faces, Mr. Karman called Reese a ‘half-breed faggot’, Reese yelled ‘and proud of it’ then he stormed out into the driveway with me behind him, and just stopped dead in his tracks, staring straight ahead. The car that he said was for a graduation gift had a huge red cliché-Christmas bow of the roof. It was like he couldn’t move, he was so dumbfounded. I was too, but not as much as him, so when I heard the door open behind me, I turned around and saw Mr. and Mrs. Karman walking out towards us. When Reese finally realized them, he turned to face them.

He looked back at the car, pointed at it, and then turned back to his parents. “That. What? What is that?”

“I think you know what that is, Reese,” his mom said jokingly.

“Why’s there a bow on it?”

“It’s your Christmas present,”

“What happened to graduation?”

“Well that’s the thing,” his dad started, no longer seeming mad at all. A lot of other members of their family had gathered around the door or had joined them outside. “Your school called about a week and a half ago and the lady said that at the end of this semester, you would have enough credits to graduate early. Or, if you wanted to, you could stay for the rest of the year and accumulate extra credits so that you could actually go to the graduation ceremony. You’ve said before that you wouldn’t want to go to that anyways, so we figured we’d surprise you with this for Christmas. Just make it a double whammy.”

“You flipping out and kicking me out? What was all that?”

“Perfect timing, actually. It was all part of the plan,”

“You do realize that you just made me come out to the entire family, right?” he asked, getting over his astonishment and crossing his arms over his chest. He was looking at his dad angrily and expectantly.

“Actually, we told them all about it already. They’re all in on this,”

That must have made him even more mad because he kind of blew up again. His arms flew out in front of him for emphasis as he yelled, “I just came out to you! What made you think I was ready to come out to the whole family? Did you even think about that? And what about my feelings? I know it was all for show, but your words ate at me! I thought you hated me! Did you think about that? About how much I’d started to hate you? Because I seriously almost didn’t come today! I didn’t want to deal with you! But Camron’s mom told me I should still go! She’s the only real reason I came today!”

“Reese, I’m sorry. I guess we didn’t think about that,” his dad said, stepping forward towards us. Everyone else that was standing around seemed to understand everything Reese was saying, because a lot of them decided to go back inside the house instead of gawking at this whole thing.

“Yea, I guess you didn’t!”

“Reese, I don’t hate you. I love you with all my heart. Everything I said was fake, but I guess I just got carried away. You’re not a disgrace or an abomination or anything like that. You are different, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m sorry, son, I never meant for this to get so bad,”

“You said you wished I was never born,” Reese pointed out, kind of pouting now that his anger had subsided a bit.

“That’s not true either. We were lucky to have you, just as everyone always says. Reese, you’re the best thing that ever happened in my life. I didn’t think this would get so out of hand. I don’t want you to hate me. I wish I hadn’t said those things, any of them, but I did and they weren’t true, so don’t believe a word of any of it,” he said, reaching out to wrap his arms around his son in a hug. Reese shrugged him off at first, but when he went in for another hug, he complied, sighing and hugging his dad back. “I am so sorry I hurt you.”

“I suppose I forgive you,” he mumbled against the older man’s shoulder.

“Only suppose?”

“Alright, fine. I forgive you,” Reese chuckled, pulling away from his father and slapping him on the shoulder. “Next time you guys want to try something like this, don’t make it so fucking hurtful.”

“Watch your language, hun,” his mom scolded.

“I think I deserve a good fucking right now,” he said, not realizing just how funny that was. I tried to hold in my laughter, because I didn’t want to explain to his parents why that was so funny, so I excused myself to get something to drink. As soon as I got back in the house, I busted into laughter.



“So when are you going back home?” I asked Reese as we were lying on my bed the night after Christmas. I was leaning against the headboard with my legs spread out in front of me, and he was lying with his head off of the bed, hanging upside down.

“I don’t know…I'm still pissed at him though. I know I told him I forgave him, but it still makes me mad,”

“I don’t blame you. I’d be pissed if my parents pulled a stunt like that,”

“I'll probably go back a few days before break is over. And I've got to get some more clothes soon anyways, so at least they won’t think I'm completely abandoning them,”

“Well, before you go, I have something I want to show you,” I said, looking down at him.

“Is it a secret, or can I know where we’re going?”

“We’re not going anywhere,”

“But I've seen everywhere in this house, haven’t I?”

“Nope,”

“Okay, well, where is it?”

“My closet,” I smirked, getting up from my bed and looking him in his upside down eyes. “Come on, follow me.” When he got himself standing the right way, I walked over to my walk-in closet and cleared some clothes out of the way, revealing a door.

“Whoa, where’d that come from?”

“It’s always been there; I just keep it hidden,”

“Why?”

“I'm the only one that knows about it. Except you now,”

“Really?”

“Yes, one hundred percent. You will be the first person to see it besides me. It’s my own little sanctuary.” I opened the door in the back of the closet and turned on the light switch to the left of me, illuminating the stairs that led up to the attic in a dim yellow glow. I started up the creaky steps and heard Reese close behind me. When I got up to the top of the stairs, I turned on another light switch that made the lights along the wall flare to life. I smiled to myself as Reese and I both took in our surroundings. The steeply angled ceiling above us, the skylights pouring in calming moonlight, the navy blue comforter spilling over the mattress on the floor, my stereo system on my desk lightly emanating the steady beat of a song, and my aquarium, where my turtle Vernon lived. I looked over at Reese and saw that his eyes were huge and his jaw was literally dropped. “You like it?”

“This place is amazing, Camron. Absolutely amazing,”

“It took me a while to get it like this, though,”

“How come?”

“I had to get all of this up here without anybody noticing. My parents and my sister don’t know anything about the attic. Well, they know about it, but they still think the door won’t open. See, we found it when we moved in and asked the previous owner about it. She said that it led to the attic, but the door’s been stuck ever since she could remember and she just never cared enough to try and open it. Well, I was a very curious fourteen year old boy, so I attempted opening that thing every day for three months. Finally, I just took the door off its hinges and yanked at it until the whole thing came off. And that’s when the renovations began,”

“How did you get all this up here without anybody seeing it? Especially the mattress?”

“That was actually already up here; so was the desk. Fixing those two up was my first task, along with clearing out all the dust…and bats. Actually, I kept one of the bats for a while. But he was kind of a hassle, so I let him go,”

“You kept a bat?”

“Yea, his name was Percy,”

“Percy?”

“Perce for short,”

“You are so weird,” he laughed, walking around the room and stopping at my aquarium. “Now how’d you sneak a turtle and an aquarium past everyone?”

“The same way I got everything else up here; while they were working or gone. I’d pretend to be sick every once and a while so I could stay home from school and then I’d go shopping or I’d pick things up that I would stash at my friends’ houses. Painting was a bit difficult too, because of the fumes, but I eventually figured out that if I painted during the night while everyone else was asleep, it all worked out fine,”

“Wow, this is truly amazing. Especially since no one even knows about it,”

“You do now,” I said quietly, hooking my arms behind his neck, leaning my forehead on his. “That’s how much you mean to me. This is my escape. My refuge. My sanctuary. And I want you in on it.”

“Wow, again.” It was easy to tell that he didn’t really know what to say about all of this, and I was hoping that he didn’t see this as some huge scary sign of commitment or anything like that. So I just leaned my head down and kissed him square on the mouth until he reacted, which didn’t take nearly as long as I’d expected. Things got really hot, really fast, and we were soon enough lying down on the mattress, messing up the neatly made covers.

“You do things to me, Reese, that nobody has ever done to me before,” I whispered, my lips ghosting against his. “And I love it.”