Riding With Brighton(51)
Jay drops his phone then so both of his hands are free to run over his face. After a minute he pulls them away. He gives me a tight smile and grabs one of my hands that are still on his legs and then looks at my mom. “I know you just met me today, but is there any way I could spend the night here? I mean, you know, on the couch.”
She gives him a sad smile, then hops off the counter. She walks to us and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Of course you can. Stay as long as you need to.”
“Hopefully it’ll just be the night,” he tells her.
“They’ll come around, honey. They’re probably just a little stunned.”
“Actually, I think that went okay. My mom’s a total hysterical mess, but my dad seemed okay. And they didn’t kick me out or anything. My little brother’s just… not taking it well, and Dad wants to give him time to settle down.”
“I suppose that’s not easy—finding out your big brother isn’t who you thought he was. Or your son, for that matter. But you are his brother and their son, and eventually they’ll realize that’s all that matters—that you’re a family.”
He stutters a laugh. “God, if that were actually true this would be so much easier. No offense, I know that’s how you’d feel.”
She smiles at him and squeezes his shoulder. “You might not see it, but it’s true. They’re your parents, and you have no idea what that means, but trust me, they still love you. And eventually they’re going to see that this is part of you that they will learn to accept and love too.”
He nods at her, but you can totally tell his head’s somewhere else. He’s staring off into space when he says, “This is huge. I mean, my parents know. This is who I am. I’m gay. Kimberly and Thomas Hall’s son is gay. This is my life. I’m a gay man.”
I stare at him, along with my mom, and I’m not sure what to make of his statement.
And then he smiles.
“I’m gay.”
I let out the breath I was holding and sit back in my chair. “Holy shit.”
Jay shakes his head, his smile just growing bigger by the second, “Holy shhiit,” he practically cheers.
“Yay, Jay is gay! Let’s celebrate,” Mom says. I can see her in my peripheral vision as she twirls over to the wine cooler and pulls a bottle out.
“Yay, Jay is gay.” I laugh.
“That would make a good T-shirt, right?”
“Totally,” I agree.
“Seriously.” He shakes his head. “Do you get how surreal this is? I mean, God, it’s so crazy.”
“It’s pretty amazing.”
“In a matter of seconds, my entire life just changed. It feels weird… and good… and seriously, I feel like a different person. Like I just grew up all of the sudden.”
“You’re a man now, huh?”
He smiles. “Yeah. That’s what it feels like. I’m in charge of my own life. I get to decide how I’m gonna live my life. And there’s nothing in my way.”
“Well….”
“Yeah, I mean, there are still things in my way, but really, let’s put it into perspective….”
My mom walks over with three glasses of champagne and says, “I don’t support underage drinking but, you know, congratulations on being gay. Cheers.” We clink our glasses, and Jay snickers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt… go on.”
“I was just saying that I finally feel free, you know, in charge of my own life, and Brighton over here was trying to put a damper on it by reminding me that I’m not in the clear yet. But what am I really up against? Kids calling me names at school? My friends walking away from me? My teammates not respecting me? My parents not fully supporting me? My brother wanting to stab me in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping?”
“Um… yeah,” I say with a grunt of disbelief.
“That’s nothing, Brighton. There are things that your never-lived-a-day-in-the-closet life didn’t let you feel. Like how bad it sucks to have to keep even your private, internal thoughts in check because if you actually think them, it means you’re a pervert who’s facing a life of eternal damnation. Or how draining it is to feel like you’re constantly lying to everyone you love about absolutely everything because the secret you’re hiding is suddenly consuming your entire life, and it feels like everything about you is a lie.” He pauses, and as his eyes connect with mine the pain I see is heartbreaking.
“Jay—”
He shakes his head before continuing. “And knowing that nothing you do will ever make you happy even if it is making you happy because you can’t tell if you’re really enjoying it or if you’re just pretending to enjoy it because it’s something a straight kid would enjoy. And God, it’s so depressing to look around and see kids falling in love and holding hands and kissing, knowing that you’re never gonna have that. All you can do is wonder what you’re missing out on and who you could have fallen in love with and what love feels like or, for that matter, what holding hands or kissing is supposed to feel like. Because you’re eighteen and you don’t know.
“But most of all, it sucks to look in the mirror and realize you don’t even know the person staring back at you. That all the years you should have spent figuring out who you are were spent creating a person who’s not even real, and you hate the kid in the mirror, and you hate the kid inside of you too.”