AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Caitlin goes on.“I know it was harder for you, and I know it was scarier for you. But it was still hard and scary for the rest of us.”
Ryan pulls back in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“We knew, Ryan. I’m telling you we knew a lot more than you thought we knew.”
—
Seventh grade. Heknew he was gay, but had no intention of telling his parents. Only his friends. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he got it in his head—from reality shows, from websites, from surreptitiously watched porn—what a gay body should look like. And he thought his thirteen-year-old body could become that, could withstand whatever needed to be done to it. He tried working out. Running in layers of clothing, so he’d sweat more. Eating protein shakes instead of food.
It didn’t make him a sex god. It made him sick and exhausted.
His parents didn’t notice. Or if they did notice, they chalked it up to “adolescence,” a too-easy excuse for all kinds of things. Talking back. Closing off. Eating very little at dinner as a way of being “difficult.”
One of his teachers noticed and sent him to the school nurse—Nurse Tiernan, the sweetest man to ever walk the earth. It took maybe five minutes for Nurse Tiernan to figure everything out. What Ryan was doing, and why.
“We come in all shapes and sizes,” Nurse Tiernan told Ryan.
Ryan wasn’t ready to accept thewe. Or even the premise. Because if Nurse Tiernan was doing such a great job being gay, why was he stuck as a nurse in a middle school and not living his best gay life in some big gay city?
He didn’t say this to Nurse Tiernan. But his resistance was still noted.
Nurse Tiernan brought in Ms. Simon, Ryan’s guidance counselor.
Ryan thought he had leverage, so he applied it; he told them he’d get help, and work to get better…as long as nobody else knew about it. Especially not his parents.
They agreed. Nurse Tiernan had a friend who was a therapist and was willing to make a “house call” at the school. So once a week for six weeks, Ryan missed gym in order to talk to Dr. Lindsay. Ryan realized he had been experimenting with what he perceived as self-improvement without really committing to it. Now, with the therapist’s help, he abandoned it completely. Dr. Lindsay helped him focus on the coming-out part (which he called “inviting in”). Eventually, Ryan was ready to invite Caitlin in. Then she helped him with his parents. They weren’t nearly as happy about the invitation.
—
“The school letthem know,” Caitlin tells him now. “They had to. But everyone agreed that if going through the school was working best for you, we’d go along with it.”
“So you’re telling me that when I first told you I was gay…you already knew?”
“Yes. We also knew that you’d been hurting yourself, with the disordered eating and exercise.Andwe knew you’d gotten better. I understood that it was more of a wobble than a fall. But your parents—they felt you’d gone down a bad path while they hadn’t been looking. And I think they’re still worried that you’re on that path, even though by now it’s clear you’re on a different path, the one you were meant to be on. Again, I’m not trying to make excuses for them. I’m just trying to explain to you why they might be scared. The unknown is always scary, and when your kid is involved, it’s exponentially scarier.”
More than anything, Ryan knows that Aunt Caitlin loves him. And it takes every ounce of this knowledge to keep him on the couch, to keep him from screaming, to keep him from sobbing. The story of his life for the past three years hasn’t been the true story. He hasn’t known the true story of his own life.
What he says next surprises even him.
“Why can’t I just live here?” he asks, the scream and the sob combining into a plea. “Why can’t I just live with you?”
Caitlin opens her arms for a hug, and he gives in to it.
“Your body is longer than this couch,” she murmurs to him. “And I don’t think you want to be the guy in high school who shares a bed with his old aunt.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he whispers, choked up.
“If it comes to that, then so be it,” she says, holding tight. “But it shouldn’t come to that.”
They stay there for a while. Finally, it’s Ryan who pulls back, who continues the conversation.
“I appreciate you telling me,” he says.
“I promise, there’s nothing else I’m hiding. No other big reveals.”
“So my parents really are my parents? Not you?”
Caitlin snort-laughs. “ ’Fraid so.”
