Fire and Rain [🗸]

28. houses and exhales

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

My mom asks this as I walk into the house. Her straight hair is packed back, not a single strand out of place. The perfection is stringent. 

The strap of my duffel bag burns into my shoulder as my dad closes the door behind me. I shift from foot to foot, let out a breath. "Hanging out with the Greenport Gang. We're just coming from Philly."

There's a coldness that crawls up my stomach as soon as I've entered the house. The chill grabs at my insides and tugs at every part of my stomach like some unfeeling insect. Discomfort. 

Usually, I brush this feeling away, but in this moment, it is only now dawning on me how unnatural it is— how stark a contrast it is between the warmth that filled me while I was in the Mystery Machine van with the Greenport Gang.

My mom's arms cross over her chest. She stares at me as though scoping a puzzle—not trying to understand it, but watching it in blank assessment. 

I glance around at the white walls and mahogany floors. Here, right now, the place feels like a house. It's a building with almost no sign of life save for the rosary near the front counter and the feel-good quotes hung around the house in frames.

This is a house. After all, home is Elliot's photography, Sadie's drawings, Josiah's schedule, Azul's puns, Zahra's everything. I know this. I knew this during our road trip, and it's vividly clear to me now.

"You didn't answer our calls," Dad says, pulling me out of my thoughts. His eyebrows are furrowed, but I can't see much anger behind them. At least, not yet. 

No one in this family, except for me maybe, holds all their emotions open in their face, so really, I don't know exactly what either of my parents are feeling. 

"That's the least you could do," Mom says. Normally, I would apologize. I would back down, come up with some sort of excuse. When I go to sleep, I would justify her logic to myself: well, they allowed me to go. They're obligated to some sort of response from me.

It would be: I'm making a big deal out of nothing. There's no excuse for this. I'm wrong. 

Mom looks at me as though she's expecting an answer. She stands there, arms still crossed, eyes sharp, mouth drawn into a line. Dad stands next to her, hands clasped.

My eyes close and then open. I breathe in, then out. Finally, I say, "I didn't reply because I felt anxious about responding to you."

Fuck. Already, I can feel my hands trembling. I drop my duffel bag to the floor and shove my hands into my pockets.

Dad's eyebrows furrow deeper. Mom's eyes attempt to find mine. She's looking at me as though I'm some sort of opaque wall. "Why would you say that?" she finally asks.

Because, all my life, they've made me feel like who I am doesn't exist. They made gay a taboo word before I even knew who I was. They saw me as more of a doll than a child. Hair has to be perfect, smile has to be perfect, boyfriend has to exist and of course, has to be perfect.