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This is our second Christmas without you. Time seems to be speeding up, taking me further and further away from you. I wish I could stop it. Slow it down. Every day that passes, means less and less of a chance of you being found alive.
There’s so much I regret. So much I would’ve done differently. So much I would’ve told you.
Now would be a good time for you to finally come home… give us a sign, something, anything.
I’m sorry. I never should’ve left you
I wish it was me
AGE 18, DECEMBER
It’s Christmas Eve when I finally come out to my parents.
We’re seated at the dining room table, just like every Christmas growing up, except it’s only the three of us, and there’s Chinese take-out scattered across the table, because the days of home-cooked meals—even for holidays—are long gone.
Well, with the exception of the occasional lasagna or pasta, the only things my dad really knows how to cook well.
But at least this year we’re making some attempt at normalcy. Last year, the first Christmas without Izzy, I didn’t even realize we nearly skipped over this holiday completely until Sherry and Phoebe showed up Christmas night with a stack of containers overstuffed with food.
Mason wasn’t with them. I honestly don’t know what he did that day, prior to stumbling into my bed later that night, smelling like beer and cigarettes.
And while it stings that he mostly avoids this house, unless he’s fucked up of course, I can’t really blame him.
Too many memories.
The fact that he still comes here at all…
Well, that’s grief for you, or whatever you want to call this. It’s unpredictable and nonlinear. One second the memories are just that—memories—and the next you’re rocking in a corner, praying to whoever might be listening for some kind of relief.
Or breaking your hand off some dumbass’s face…
And yet, we still continue to torture ourselves by revisiting them, rather than shoving them all away, and starting over.
It’s when Dad’s in the middle of slurping up pork lo mein from a fork, while Mom’s twirling hers in a bowl of chicken and rice she’s barely touched when I finally break the silence that seems to pervade this house like a living, greedy thing.
“I’m gay,” I say out loud for the sixth time in my life.
No warning.
No preamble.
No hitch or inflection in my voice.
It just is what it is. The sky is blue, and the grass is green, Izzy’s still missing, and I, Jeremy Montgomery, am gay.
It’s a long moment before one of them seems to notice that I’d even spoken.
I take a big bite of sesame chicken, chewing slowly, mechanically, wondering if there was even a point announcing something so trivial compared to everything else that’s been going on for the last year and a half.
Even if my parents didn’t know about me—because come on, who are we kidding here? My sexuality’s been a neon red sign hanging over my head since before I even knew what limp wrists and lisps meant—I can’t see how this in any way measures up to the gaping emptiness represented by the vacant chair across from me.
Dad’s the first to snap out of it. He lowers his fork, and brings his hand up to shove a noodle into his mouth that tried to escape. He swallows hard, and clears his throat with a little shake of his head. “Sorry, kid, what was that?” he says in a raspy voice.
I stifle a sigh.
I know he heard me.
I don’t know whether to be grateful or pissed off that he wants a re-do, but end up settling with a resigned sort of acceptance. This is just how it is now.
