Chapter Seventeen

I went home wearing my cherry red glasses with a slight spring in my step. It was funny how the prospect of carving my eye out could make me so optimistic about dreadfully unfashionable eye wear.

This time, I had a lens for the left eye as well, so it didn't have to work so hard to balance out my vision. It used to be seen as a lost cause since surgery was inevitable, but this arrangement eased the pulsing sensation.

All was well for now.

I changed into a red and black, buffalo check flannel and some black skinny jeans, then I took a nap since the school day wasn't over. Faith and Saylor were obviously unavailable, so I had nothing else to occupy my time.

I woke up to Drake complaining about getting too many compliments. Headlines was blaring over my cellphone speaker. It took a moment for me to realize whose custom ringtone it was. I hadn't heard it in years. I fell off my bed scrambling to grab my phone off the nightstand when I made the connection.

Jerri glowed brightly on the screen, begging me to answer the call. I thought about my promise to Faith and slid my phone underneath my bed. I heard it thump against the wall it was butted up against. It was going to be a pain in the ass whenever I decided to retrieve it.

Mom was downstairs and I knew what I had to do. I wasn't sure if it was worth it though. Jerome had called me, which had to mean something, but I doubted it meant what I wanted it to. I always imagined coming out to Mom when I had a boyfriend to bring home to her. It wouldn't have felt real otherwise.

I anticipated questions like 'how do you know this isn't a phase?' or 'who's to say you'll ever fall in love with a guy that likes you the same way?' Those questions always went with terrible advice like 'we all have to settle sometimes' or 'relationships don't have to be about sex, take your father and I for example, we stopped having sex years before anything went wrong'. I sincerely hoped she didn't actually believe the latter had nothing to do with their marriage failing.

I groaned heavily. I was so not ready for this. I walked death row to the bottom of the steps with a go-bag at the ready. Mom was on the couch laughing hysterically at some absolutely terrible Telenovela.

Those shows weren't usually the mood, but it was her day off and she'd been pretty open minded about cable's offerings lately. I hope that same open mindedness carried over to our impending discussion.

I sat down quietly on the other side of the couch. I didn't want to disturb her. I wasn't ready to speak yet. The couch reclined on both ends, but not in the middle, so while she watched the show I inched closer to her.

I hoped she'd realize something was off when I didn't use the recliner. I thought it was better that way. I told myself it'd be easier if she probed to figure out what was bothering me.

Two commercials later, Mom still hadn't said anything. Two more and I was right beside her. I didn't want to resort to sighing because that would've been too obvious. Instead, I laid down and rested my head on her lap. I hadn't done that in years, but I was a momma's boy through and through, so it didn't strike her as odd.

Mom tousled my hair a bit as her show rolled credits, then gently bounced her legs. That was my cue to get up. I did, but not before taking off my glasses. To escape, she'd have to suffer through the full strength of the son with the world's saddest eyes. I was quite adept at making them look glassy.

This time, I didn't have try very hard.

Mom sighed heavily. "I won't hear a word about Bobby. I'm a grown ass woman. I'm allowed to make whatever choice I want to make when I want to make it." I'm not sure what type of face I made, but I probably couldn't have done it again on command.

Apparently, it made her even more defensive. She shouted at me in Spanish for awhile before crossing back over to English. "...Another thing! Him being married, that's his problem. I don't have that obligation. I can do what I want!"

I don't know where she was going with this, but I wanted to die. At this point, coming out seemed like the only way to stop her from going into gory details about sexual conquests.

"Mom!" I shouted. I stood up. She stood up. I grabbed her arms at the bends and stared deeply into her eyes. "I think I might want to date a boy."

Mom stood speechless. Her face was a twitching mess. She was locked in defense mode, in desperate need of a reboot. She needed me to convince her not to date Bobby. She wasn't ready to throw daggers at what I wanted to do with my love life.

"Mom, I'm going to stay with Saylor tonight. Don't worry, he's not the boy."

I grabbed my go-bag and headed for the door. I took one look back as I stepped through it. Mom gave a three fingered wave resembling a clawing motion as the door closed behind me.

I drove my car over to Saylor's and parked in his driveway, so Faith would know not to come to my house. Even though she probably deserved it, I couldn't let her take the brunt of Mom's wrath whenever it came to pass. Since my phone was still under my bed, I couldn't give anyone a heads up or even return Jerome's call, no matter how badly I wanted to.

I sat out in my car for nearly an hour before I found the nerve to talk to Cynthia. I didn't know why I was worried. Saylor was out to his parents, so she would understand my situation. Perhaps, I didn't want to put her in the middle of Mom and me. They had a solid friendship, but having gay sons didn't seem like something they'd bond over. I went in through the garage door entrance without knocking, of course.

"Mom, I'm home!" I shouted from the doorway, in case I was interrupting something.

Saylor's house was essentially a carbon copy of mine, except way more cluttered. It wasn't a mess, but anyone could tell Cynthia liked her knickknacks. And the walls were so crowded with pictures that it looked more like a retro diner than a home.

They were a vacationing family and every inch of space was dedicated to displaying proof of past expeditions. It sort of went hand in hand with Saylor's passion for photography. The wall that spanned from the kitchen to the living room consisted of family photos from time spent at various national parks across the country. They had been to all sixty three of them, if you could believe it. Yellowstone did the heavy lifting, followed by the seven in Alaska that all looked the same to me.

My eyes fixed on one in particular with Saylor posing heroically in between Cynthia and his father, Waldorf. I wasn't as close to his dad, so I called him Waldo. Saylor's smile was the widest it'd ever been.

They were posing in front of the Shoshone river. It cut through terrain like a snake laid out before a tall mountain range. The Rockies, if I had to guess. Saylor would've hated the generalization. I could already hear him reminding me how the range included seventy-some peaks and a hundred-some summits.

He was a few years younger when that photo was taken, but he was still taller than both his parents. I was my father's parting gift to Mom after a decade-long hiatus of child rearing. I envied Saylor for having both of his. I wanted pictures like theirs, especially now, with nowhere to go.

Cynthia was nearly a head shorter than me, but she made up for it in width. She wasn't overweight, but she was a very sturdy woman. She had to be to get through multiple tours of those parks. Saylor got his brown hair and eyes from her, along with the rest of his looks, but mostly, his smile. That was a blessing.

Waldo had a really gummy one that made me suspicious of him at first. He also had bold, angled eyebrows and the type of large hooked nose that doomed actors to petty thief roles. He was a bit of an introvert, but much nicer than Hollywood had led me to believe. When will attractive guys be forced into lesser roles to stop perpetuating the stereotype?

I flinched as cold fingers massaged the back of my neck. Cynthia had snuck up on me. "Oh, the Snake River, right in front of the Tetons," she said quietly, "lovely, isn't it?" I had been wrong on both accounts, spot on with the description though. I guess I wasn't blind, at least not yet.

"Mom" —My lips quavered. My voice fell hoarse. The lump in my throat was a turnstile for each passing word— "I think I might want to date a boy."

I had barely finished speaking when I burst into tears. Mom had robbed me of the response I felt I'd deserved, so I sought one from her. I needed someone to tell me it was okay, even if it wasn't. Cynthia hugged me from the side and led me over to the couch to sit down.

It was a good thing. I could barely feel my legs underneath me. Theirs was a simple gray cloth three seater, but it had much more give than ours at home. I sunk into it. That day, its cushions welcomed me like nothing before it.

Cynthia held me in her embrace and shushed soothingly, letting me cry as much as and for however long I needed to. By the time I was all cried out, her sleeve was so wet that her arm looked in need of a tourniquet.

When I separated from her, I could tell from her expression, she was dying to ask questions. At the same time, she didn't want to overwhelm me. I preferred she did the talking. I needed guidance. I nodded to her with upturned palms.

"You need to understand, I been through all this before." Cynthia wore a sympathetic smile as she cupped her hands on my shoulders. "These things take time and we all react differently, at first." She sighed heavily. Her most pressing concern, she wanted out of the way first. "Theresa, she... she didn't say you had to leave, did she? You still have a home, yeah?" She held up a finger before I could speak. "Well, you'll always have a home, but there I mean."

I shook my head to clear things up, but she still looked on in confusion. I cleared my throat a couple times. "I left on my own. She was angry. She couldn't speak!" I settled. "Actually, she was angry before I ever told her." A nervous laugh slithered out of my throat, summoning a stampede. I fell out laughing.

Cynthia, not so much.

I couldn't help myself. Looking back on how I came out to Mom was hilarious. While she was coming out to me about future adultery, I was coming out to her about future sodomy. What a shit show of a family, right?

Cynthia and I, we talked.

I went up to Saylor's room to get some rest. It was a junkyard, by the way. He had a makeshift darkroom sectioned off by tarp that hardly left room for anything else. I had to weave through mounds of clothes, stacked up photo frames and reams of construction paper to get to his bed. He was addicted to scrap booking and not so much to cleaning up after himself.

I had to toss leather bound albums on the floor to make room. He literally slept with photos of landscapes. He had stacks of rubber-banded 4X6's of the same views taken at slightly different angles. Photography wasn't so much a passion as it was his obsession.

He had a problem and if he ever hoped to make a man happy, he'd need an intervention. We always stayed at my place, so I had no idea it had gotten so bad.

Since I was a bit light on sleeping options, that was a battle for another day. Besides, there were too many things to be sad about in my own life: coming out to Mom, possible eye surgery, what to do about Juice Williams, Faith's problems with Blake, her problem with Juice that bled over to me, telling the truth to Martha and possibly losing my job versus lying about her boyfriend and becoming a terrible person. My life was in shambles. It was a complete and utter mess. Saylor's disaster of a bedroom was spotless in comparison.

I wanted to cry myself to sleep, once I got comfortable. I was a side sleeper, but my bony knees couldn't be allowed to touch. Saylor didn't own more than one pillow, so I grabbed a ball of clothes from the floor and pressed them in between my thighs. Out like a light.