CHAPTER THREE: Welcome to True Directions Indiana. 1984
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THEY DIDN'T EVEN drop him off personally. They just waited for him to pack his bags, gave him a half-assed hug and then just waved while he had no chance but to enter Mike's car, driving off to god knows where. He felt cheated on, betrayed, but the worst of all was the fear. Steve never thought he'd end up in conversion therapy out of all places — how would he, being a straight man — but if the rumours were right this wasn't going to be a cakewalk.
His eyes fixed on every single house they passed as if just with his mind he could make the car stop or rewind time or something helpful, which, of course, didn't happen, because let's face it, it was Hawkins, Indiana, the most painfully average American small town known to man. Still, right now he wanted nothing more than stay right there, but house after house they passed and the car did not stop. It wouldn't.
Steve rubbed his temples, still desperately hoping for all of this to be a bad dream. He, gay? This was such bullshit. He never had been particularly close to his parents, but he never would've thought that they'd believe their only son to be gay because of, among other, equally ridiculous reasons, a Rob Lowe poster in his locker. Come on. You didn't have to be gay to recognise a goodlooking man, right?
„What are you thinking about?" Mike side-eyed Steve. They had been driving for what felt like an eternity, but Steve's watch said it had been no more than one and a half hours. He sighed.
„Rob Lowe," he shrugged his shoulders. What was the point in trying to prove how straight he was when no one would believe him, anyways? It was like screaming you're sane in an asylum: People would take it for just another delusion, so the best was to just play along.
Mike chuckled. „You know, I was like you once. A homosexual." He took a left turn, off the main road and onto a dirt path leading up to a sole candy-coloured victorian house in the middle of nowhere. „Don't worry. You're going to be fine. We can fix you."
A loud thump on the bonnet made both Steve and Mike flinch, and when the former opened his doe eyes again, he looked into a pair of deep brown, wide eyes, staring right back at him, a pale face framed by dark curls, an insane smile on chapped lips. Steve raised an eyebrow, looking over to Mike, unsure what to do when the boy on the bonnet started to wave at him. Slowly, he raised his hand to return the gesture. Was this conversion therapy? Or was this an asylum? Or was it all the same?
„Is that," the boy pushed a streak of his oily hair to the side before pointing a finger at Steve, „the fresh meat you've been talking about?"
Steve heard Mike taking a deep breath next to him before he got out of the car. „Eddie, for Christ's sake, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
EDDIE MUNSON replied with a loud laugh, throwing his head back a bit, his hair seemingly dancing. „Language!" he then exclaimed, a wide grin on his face, pointing at Mike before taking a step back.
