OPEN [boyxboy] ✓

six:: when you get shunned.

[Jade (ignore the older woman); Same Love by Macklemore]

SIX:: when you get shunned.

Contrary to popular belief, I hadn't talked to Paul not once in the two days since leaving his house and I found myself thinking more about him and his words. Paul was quite clearly the last thing I thought of going to sleep and also the first and only topic on my mind when I woke up. He invaded my thoughts from the time I'd gotten ready for school and all to the table in the mornings.

And despite the hatred in the air, I was happy- well as happy as I could be- that he thought about me before he slept.

That's what fueled my assumptions that he was in fact into me.

Aside from my delusions that Paul might've liked me a little more than normal, I'd picked up on the hostility at that table when my father hadn't. I'd sat and I'd ate, the opposite of my sister who'd sat there pushing her food around. My mother, since I'd entered had long since ceased conversation and simply stared anywhere but at me. The intensity of her gaze had lingered on the cross that sat on the wall behind me but her eyes never flickered downwards.

I heard a sigh as I tried not to let her bug me, "Pass me the orange juice?"

My mother still hadn't looked at me nor had she addressed me in a conversation since my coming out. What saddened me wasn't the fact that she was too far in religion to even think about the possibility that God loved homosexuals as well but the fact that she was forever shunning me. She was my mother and yes she didn't have to agree but she could at least accept that I liked guys.

It did not in any way determine who I was, gay is not my personality, it's my sexuality.

She spoke in a clipped tone which paused all actions as she continued on as if I wasn't even there. She hadn't brought up anything that had happened when I'd came out but she'd been spending more time in church than usual. Jade winced as she slid the orange juice from our side over to our mother, my father frozen mid-shove, his fork level with his dropped chin.

Sending me a sympathetic smile, my sister continued to stare at her food avoiding conversation. Since the whole sleeping with Callum scandal had leaked, my sister was a target of gossip and also a target of my anger. We had barely talked to each other which was mostly on my part as I had conflicted feelings.

I watched as she continued to stare down at her plate as if she wished she could disappear, hiding behind a veil of black and green and gulping harshly when she felt my mother's eyes scan across her. Pushing her eggs around instead of eating them.

And as my mother tapped a tune on the table, I could hear her humming her favorite Gospel song. It felt like she was glaring straight at me regardless of the fact that she wouldn't bother looking at me. Her manicured nails drummed on the glass table, the room eerily silent.

I shifted in my seat.

"Loraine." Dad called out sternly, his voice rough and his eyes casted on my mother. when caused her to look over at him, annoyed. She was raising her eyebrows and snootily looking at him, she dropped her fork indicating that below the surface she was seething, "can you please stop making our son uncomfortable at the table?"

She gave him an outraged look, her hostility quickly directed to me as she glared with as much hate as she could muster, "he's making me uncomfortable, Jason."

I wasn't prepare when Jade's hand came to rest on my arm in a somewhat comforting gesture, me jerking away quickly at the contact. Our parents hadn't noticed but Jade sure did as self-resentment made itself clear in her jaded eyes. Her emerald stare flagged me down out of my peripheral.