January 12th 2015, Monday
"I am gay," I said with a shaky and rather quiet voice, because I somehow expected what was about to come for me. Sitting at the table in our dining room, the light bulb that should have been changed a long time ago was flickering, my parents didn't even look at me anymore. Their gazes were fixed on the wooden table in front of them. And that was probably the moment when reality hit them.
I wasn't trying to fool my parents. I was telling them the truth and not some bad joke, because none of that was a joke. Life was not a joke and it would never be. I told them something that had been tearing me apart from the inside ever since I first thought about it.
Their disbelief started to turn into anger, because there was no punchline like "Just kidding." coming from me. The dining room was filled with an uncomfortable and tensed up silence, where no one would say a single word for a while. We were in this room of the house where a normal family would haven eaten together every day, laughed and told each other good news. In our household that wasn't the case.
It felt like hours passing by and with every second the hate for that part of me would grow bigger and bigger.
My parents made me feel so bad about myself in that very moment, that I was the one that couldn't look at them anymore, when they seemed to be ready to talk.
"You've got to be kidding, right?" my father asked and his voice was full of surprise and anger. I started fidgeting with my fingers underneath the table and regretting telling them in the first place. I was wondering what the hell I did wrong to deserve something like this.
My mother tried to put her hand on his, but as soon as they touched, he shoved it away. He would start screaming and she knew that -- we all knew that. There was nothing we could do about his short temper but bear it, let him scream at us and manipulate us -- mostly me.
"It's okay, Jack." The few seconds between that sentence and the one that would follow were filled with hope. Sheer hope, that maybe my mother could accept me and love me the way I was, like she always did. I couldn't be more wrong. I hated to break her heart, but she was also breaking mine.
"We can let you be fixed."
Both, my father and I were looking at her in bewilderment. We knew that this was impossible.
"You're both kidding. Are you actually crazy?"
My parents clearly had different ways of reacting to something like that.
My mother,
she was a caring and loving person, so she wanted to help me, but didn't see the damage she was making. She was desperatly trying to get me to change, to let me be fixed.
My father,
he was being an asshole.
People say that opposites attract and maybe my parents compensate each other's personalities, but to me it seems unnatural. Nonetheless, they managed to stay together for over twenty years now.
I was waiting for the day my mother would have enough of my father and that was definitely the 12th January, the day the tables turned and everything would go down from there. The three words I said were not the only reason, but the trigger.
My parents started arguing - my mother was obsessed with the idea of sending me to a shrink and my father was telling her how stupid that was.
I just sat there helplessly, I didn't know what to do. There were thousands of words in my head that needed to be said, but I was unable to form sentences from them. I ended up listening to their fight as it got louder by the second.
"You can't just give up on your son. There are people that will help him."
"He is crazy and can't be healed!"
He hurt me. Every word he said hurt me. I never experienced something like that, I wasn't used to it.
I was good at hiding my sexuality, the only person that knew about it was myself. I once dated a girl to make it look like I'm straight, when I was dying inside. I felt guitly for her to put her through this, because it was just unfair, and promised myself to never do it again. Using someone just for the sake of hiding your sexuality is a cruel thing to do and I got to feel it.
I hurt myself with doing that, but then someone else, my own father, was hurting me and it was worse than anything else before.
"You can't just say that! He is your son. Why don't you want to help him?"
That was when he slammed his fists on the table with a loud noise that got me wincing and instantly the same quiet from before was back, but it was much more terrifying. I was staring at him with wide eyes and wanted to run - to run away from him.
The risk of my parents abandoning me was there anyways and I was scared, of course, that my mother wouldn't love me anymore.
That night everything went wrong. My parents screamed at each other worse than ever, until my mother stormed out of the house.
I thought she needed a break from the man she called her husband for a few hours, but that was not the case.
My mother didn't come back for a few days, said she was staying at her sister's apartment. When she did she packed her things and left again.
After a few weeks, on Valentine's Day, they finally divorced after a long journey to that point.
The last day I saw my mother was on the day before. She had that pitiful look in her eyes, because she knew she wouldn't receive custody.
My father owns the house and the lawyer thought it would be better for me to stay there instead of the apartment of my aunt. To be honest, if I had had the chance to choose, I would have chosen the house. It's a lot nearer to Mike's place and I would have had to go to another school.
The day of the divorce my father yanked me up from the sofa at the collar of my shirt after he came home.652Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZXcXG5Z6F
"Listen, faggot. If you ever bring home a guy I will literally kill him in front of you. In two years, when you're eighteen, you can do whatever the fuck you want, but I don't want to witness any of that disgusting lifestyle in my house."
"But what about Mike? Mike is my best friend."
"I don't give a fuck," He threw me back at the sofa and went upstairs, "No boys!"
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