“Jamie, if my
brother were older would you date him?” I stared ahead as we walked, a grin
starting to dance around on my face.
I looked down
at her and jokingly said, “Shay, you know I’m absolutely in love with your brother, but there’s just one tiny problem. It’s
him. He’s too short.” Shaylee gave me the exact reaction I expected her to give
me for that statement.
“I knew you
were gonna say he’s too short! Ya know, he’s got a great personality, and maybe
if you weren’t a giant, height wouldn’t be such an issue to you!”
It was
exceedingly easy for me to know how she’d react to things. We’d been best
friends for a little under three years, so nothing she did ever shocked me
anymore. I knew that if I whispered the words “lovers” or “passionate” to her,
she’d physically cringe, because she thought those words were repulsive. I knew
if I pointed my sharp, arrowhead-like tongue at her she would scrunch her face
up, so wrinkles formed around her eyes while she stepped backwards to get away
from my “weird tongue”, and I knew that if I yelled at her even the slightest
bit, she would stare at me in dismay for no more than three seconds before
proceeding to cry. I knew her. That’s
just how it was.
We continued
on. I was still smiling about her predictability, and she, for whatever reason,
was silent and staring straight ahead as if she were looking for something far
off in the distance. By then, I’d figured she was silent because she wanted to
tell me something. Before I could ask her what she was thinking about, she
stopped, turned to me in a very deliberate fashion with a grin on her face, and
asked, “Okay, so if you wouldn’t date my brother because he’s short, then you
definitely wouldn’t date me?”
Deciding I
should tease her a little bit, I replied, “Shaylee, you’re great. I mean you’re
not as amazing as your brother, but you’re still pretty fantastic. But…there’s
just one small problem. You, like your brother, are way too short for me.” I
couldn’t keep a straight face as I finished my sentence, because Shaylee’s
laughing eyes instantaneously turned into daggers that shot through me as soon
as I mentioned the word “short”. I began to laugh, and so did she.
As we continued
walking, Shaylee fell back into her state of silence. Suddenly, she stopped
walking as if she had come face to face with an invisible wall that prevented
her from moving forward. A serious expression covered her face.
“Jamie”, she
began, “I have to tell you something.”
I stopped
moving and looked at her. “Okay, go ahead.”
She closed her
eyes for a split second, breathed in a small breath, and exhaled through her
nose. “I’m…I’m gay.” My relaxed face unintentionally dropped into a grimacing,
disapproving expression. Shaylee, noticing the change in my countenance,
worriedly tried to continue her confession in a manner that would make me seem
less disapproving. She stumbled on her words, trying to justify herself. “Well,
I…I’m not 100% gay. I’m actually bi…bisexual.” I continued to stare at her with
disgust.
Then I spoke.
“How long have you lied to my face about this? I tell you everything, and
you’ve never felt like telling me you’re gay?”
Her eyes began
to tear up as she spoke. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I’ve wanted to for so
long, but I…I didn’t know how you’d react. I was afraid you wouldn’t like me or
want to hang out with me anymore.”
I took a deep
breath, and tried to calm myself down, analyzing the whole situation in my
head. I wanted so badly to be okay with this. She was my best friend after all,
but I didn’t see her as the same person anymore. She was a gay. She was an outcast, different.
Uncomfortable questions began to appear in my head like “breaking news” alerts
on television. What had went through her mind when she’d seen me naked in our
high school locker room? Did she ever try to flirt with me? Did she hang out
with me, because she was secretly in love with me? More “breaking news” alerts
appeared. What would happen if people discovered her secret? What would my
friends think of me? How could I live my life being friends with a gay? How
could she do this to me? A final question appeared.
Why couldn’t
she just be…normal?
I looked up
from the asphalt road, and turned to Shaylee, unable to meet her eyes. I dug
for words inside of my mind, searching for something, anything, to say. I
opened my mouth to speak, expecting to find nothing, but instead finding three
simple words, the only words I could muster. “I’m sorry, Shaylee.”
I walked away,
towards my Chevrolet Impala that I had parked at our high school before track
practice. Shaylee was left standing there in the street, tears visibly falling
from her large, blue eyes. Part of me wanted to console her. The other part of
me wanted to just jump into my Impala and drive away.
I didn’t
console her.
As I opened the
pearl-white, front door into my home, I heard the sound of my parents talking
about the “goddamned liberals” that were “ruining” our society. That happened
every time they watched FOX News. On the topic of liberals, my parents had also
mentioned how they were sick of seeing more and more “faggots” coming out to
the public. Listening to that rant wouldn’t have been something I could’ve bore
at the moment, so I started getting ready for bed.
While lying in
bed, I began thinking about the obscene comments my parents had made about
gays. To me, they weren’t uncommon comments to hear. Nearly my whole town was
conservative, and frankly, almost all of them were anti-gay. I recalled a time
at Shaylee’s house when her own parents were talking to Shaylee and I about how
they wished the gays at the national gay-pride parades would just be shot in
the streets. When I genuinely tried to remember and visualize what that
conversation was like, I realized Shaylee hadn’t been as talkative as I was on
that subject. In fact, when I truly thought about it, she said little to no
words at all.
I then thought
about everything that I, myself, had said about gays in front of Shaylee.
Countless times I had talked to her about how disgusting gays were for “fucking
their own gender”, and how we should just get rid of all of them, because
they’re weren’t “normal”. I had told her that all “closeted gays” should stay
in the closet, because they shouldn’t be accepted if they came out. I endlessly
used derogatory terms to describe gays in front of her; fruit, fag, faggot,
queer, fairy, homo, dyke, etc. I had shared every explicit comment about gays
with her with complete confidence, because I never imagined her to be anything
but straight.
Feelings of
embarrassment and shame rushed through my entire body like water down a raging
river. All those years I had been so offensive towards the idea of gays, and I
had never truly opened my eyes to that fact until Shaylee told me what she was.
It was likely that all of those distasteful statements I had made about gays in
front of her played an immense role in haunting her dreams, and scaring her
away from coming out. I was finally hit with the realization that Shaylee
probably had to work up an extreme amount of courage to tell me she was
bisexual, and that I reacted in the worst possible way. Maybe I should’ve been
more supportive. However, I didn’t know if I could genuinely be her friend
anymore. I’d be turning my back on my beliefs. What would my family say if they
knew? Would I be able to support or
handle it? I had to make a tough decision that night.
The next
morning at school, I shuffled into the Art Room, looking for Shaylee. It was
time to handle this.
There she was,
drawing in her notebook, pastel colors covering her dainty hands. She glanced
up at me, immediately looking away. I swallowed down my anxiety before sitting
down next to her. She somberly continued to draw as she waited for me to speak.
“Shaylee, I’m
so sorry about yesterday”, I began. “I acted like a total dick. I know how hard
that must’ve been for you to open up about, and I just wanted to let you know I
support you no matter what.” She looked up at me, showing a faint smile. I
continued. “I really mean it. You’re my best friend, and I don’t plan on
changing that.”
No comments:
Post a Comment