Corrupt Me

“M-Mom?” I stuttered. Her eyes narrowed. There was total silence for all of about five seconds.
Then everything came crashing down around me. Everything I had ever feared about my family finding out about me and Angel became a nightmarish reality. Reality became a blur. A whirlwind.

My mom was screaming at me. My dad, who was behind her when she came into my room, was pleading with her to let me explain. My sisters came into the room confused and concerned.
Angel was facing me, looking guilty and upset. He had nothing to feel guilty about. This was my fault. I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have let us fall asleep. I ruined everything we had. I knew that my mom would never let us be together. She was angry, disgusted.

“What did I do that was so wrong that God would punish me by letting my son become a faggot?” she yelled, looking up at the ceiling as if the answer was written there. “Am I such a terrible mother?”

She turned her eyes back to me. “Why are you doing this to me, Micah? I fed you, I clothed you, I put a roof over your head and taught you the ways of the Lord, and this is how you repay me? By sending yourself to hell? By becoming an abomination? And you!” she shouted suddenly, finally turning and looking directly at Angel. He shrunk away from her gaze. “You did this! You defiled my son. You infected him with your… your disease. You made him like this. You ruined him. I want you out of my house immediately. You are never going to talk to my son again. Do you understand me? Get out. Now!”

Angel was torn; I could tell. For one thing, I knew that he wouldn’t want to leave me in this mess alone, to deal with the consequences. For another, his clothes were in a pile on my bedroom floor and him getting out of my bed naked would have added more fuel to the fire, if that was at all possible.

On the other hand, if he didn’t leave, my mother would become angrier and there would be no chance of this ever working out.

He glanced at me, silently asking what he should do. I couldn’t do anything but look back at him, pleading with him to forgive me for ruining everything.
“Micah?” he said my name quietly. He reached for me, cupping my chin in his hand.
“Don’t you touch him!” Mom shouted harshly. His hand retreated as if my skin had burned him. “Get out!”
“Do you want me to leave?” Angel asked me, ignoring her.
I didn’t want him to leave, but I knew him being around was making things worse. I nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay. I love you,” he said, looking me in the eye. I ducked my head, not able to return his gaze. I couldn’t say it back, despite how much I felt it. I couldn’t say it with my already disgusted mother in the room.

After a few seconds of Angel looking at me, he turned back to look at my family. I did the same. My father and sisters looked apologetic and upset. I can’t even begin to explain my mother’s expression. She looked at Angel as if he was the worst thing she had ever seen; like he was absolute scum.

I caught Dad’s eye, and then glanced down at the pile of Angel’s clothes on the floor before nodding towards Angel. Dad got the hint and pushed past my mother into my room, where he collected the clothes and brought them over to Angel.
“Thank you,” Angel said to my father quietly. Even quieter that I don’t think I was meant to hear, he said, “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”
Dad nodded as he stepped away, but I knew he couldn’t promise that. My mom always gets what she wants.

Once Angel had pulled his clothes on underneath my sheets, he slowly climbed out of my bed. Facing my family, but clearly only talking to my mother, he said, “I just want you to know that Micah is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love him, and that isn’t going to change just because you don’t like our relationship.”
“Your relationship is over. You are not going to see or talk to my son again. Now, get out,” my mother snarled.

And then, because I was so weak and couldn’t make myself say or do anything to make him stay, the person I loved walked out of my bedroom with only a glance in my direction to say goodbye. My father followed him out, I guess to close the front door behind him.

“Girls, please leave,” my mother said to my sisters. They left, shooting me small sad and apologetic smiles as they went.

I spent the next few hours being spoken to like I was a dirty, diseased and repulsive creature, and not my mother’s only son. I was told I was going to burn in hell. I was told that homosexuality was a sin and that God no longer loved me, that my own mother could not love me if God didn’t.

She said horrible things about Angel. She equated him to the serpent that corrupted Adam and Eve. She told me Angel never loved me and that he only wanted me for sex. She said that he would never have stayed with me if he didn’t get it. She told me harshly that nobody would ever want to be with me now that I’d been “sodomised” and defiled.

Once she seemed to have exhausted herself saying everything that was on her mind, my mother left me sobbing and broken with my phone in her hand. It had gone off with a text message from Angel while she was berating me and putting me down. I didn’t even get to read it.

---

The next few days were not any better. I stayed in my room and refused to talk to anyone. Dad and Georgia spent some time with me, telling me that things would get better and that Mom was just in shock and other stuff I just didn’t believe. I couldn’t believe that anything would be okay again. My mother had taken away the person I loved and treated me like I was less than dirt; like I wasn’t a person anymore because of who I loved. I cried myself to sleep every night.

---

Christmas Day was awful. My mother returned my presents on Christmas Eve as “punishment”. I had to sit in the family room and watch as my parents and sisters opened their gifts. I had to go to church with them, and listen as the pastor talked about how wonderful the day of Jesus’ birth is and then pretend that I wasn’t dying inside as I lied to other patrons of the church as they asked me about my morning. I had to sit with my family as they ate a large Christmas lunch that I couldn’t bring myself to consume. My dad weakly tried to get me to eat, but I refused and he left it. My mother barely looked at me the entire day, even though she was the one to force me into “celebrating” with them in the first place. It was the first Christmas of my entire life that I wanted to finish before it even started.

---

In the afternoon on Boxing Day, Elise came into my room. As I had been for the last few days (excluding Christmas Day), I was curled up on my bed and staring at the wall of my bedroom.
“Mics?”
I ignored her, hoping she would go away.
“Micah, there’s someone on the phone for you.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” I replied lifelessly.
“I think you’ll want to talk to him,” she said, placing her phone against my ear.
“Micah?” the person on the other end said. “Baby, are you there?”
“A-Angel?”
“Yeah, baby, it’s me. Are you okay?”
Elise left me alone. I was grateful for that.
“N-no. I’m not. She hates me, Angel. I hate me. I ruined everything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, tears leaking from my eyes.
“Hey, hey, hey, Mics, this isn’t your fault, okay? This is not your fault. Do you understand me? Don’t blame yourself. We’ll work this out, I promise.”
“I just m-miss you so much,” I sobbed.
“I miss you too, you have no idea. But we’ll get through this, we’ll…”
But I never got the chance to find out what else we would have done because my mother came into my room and saw me on the phone.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she shouted, marching over and snatching it out of my hand. She hung up the call. “You were talking to him weren’t you? Weren’t you?!”
I couldn’t do anything but nod miserably.
“That’s it! I thought that taking your phone and forbidding you to see that disgrace would cure you but with you going behind my back to talk to him anyway, I can see there’s only one thing I can do to fix this mess,” she said before turning on her heel and walking quickly from my room. I didn’t know where she was going or what she meant and at that point, I didn’t really care.

A few minutes later, I could hear the rise and fall of her voice but I couldn’t tell what she was saying. I guessed she was on the phone though because there weren’t any replies that I could hear. It was only when Georgia came rushing into my room with wide eyes, telling me I needed to get out there and stop her, did I find out what my mother’s plan was.

As I made my way to the kitchen, I saw Mom gripping the home phone tightly in her hand as she paced the floor. My dad was there, too, looking stressed.
“Davina, stop. Just think about this. Please. He’s your son,” he was saying weakly, to deaf ears.
“Yes, Tina, it’s the only way,” my mom was saying to the person on the other end. My aunt Tina, my mom’s twin sister, was just as religious and unreasonable as my mother. “He needs to be away from this place. He needs to be away from that boy.”

What? She was sending me away? I looked wildly at my father. He couldn’t let this happen, could he?
“Dad?” I said desperately. “Please stop her. I can’t leave him. I love him. Please Dad, please.”
He gave me a devastated look. “Micah, I’m so sorry. I’ve been trying to talk her out of it for the last few days. She won’t listen to me.”
“She can’t send me away. She can’t. I didn’t do anything wrong. Mom, please,” I pleaded, catching her attention.
“You need to leave here. You need to be away from here so you can go back to normal. He messed you up but you can be cured. I’m doing what’s best for you,” she said in what I assumed was meant to be a sweet voice.
“No!” I shouted, “No! You can’t make me go. I won’t go. I won’t leave. I love him. You can’t make me go!”

But she did.