Disingenuous

2. The Goddess

2001

Jackson realized he was gay pretty early on which really sucked because God totally hates gays. He knew that for certain because that's what the church said and as far as he could tell, you always agreed with what the church said. His mom was adamant about that. It was a cemented belief.

But he couldn't help it.

He was 9 one of the first times he caught himself staring at a boy in his class. He had blonde hair and Jackson didn't know it yet but he definitely had a thing for blondes. Then he was 11 and it was a boy that sang in the youth group choir. The boy was like 15 and much too old for Jackson at the time, but that was the beauty of childhood crushes. They didn't have to make sense. It was a lot of boys after that. Friends. Enemies. People from afar. Jackson never told anybody about the crushes  anyways so he could admire whoever he pleased. He kept the crushes locked away inside like a secret, and he wrote them down in his little poem book that would eventually become a songbook and that was that. Jackson did that for years.

Jackson knew early on that being gay and also being his mothers son was just not going to work. He was always really conscious of that. He kept it to himself and carried on being the God fearing Christian she was trying to raise because that seemed like the right solution. They lived in small town Idaho, which was conservative Bush and Jesus lovin' central and Jackson didn't like his chances otherwise. He was good at pretending anyways. It just took keeping busy and keeping busy wasn't even hard.

He was great at school and he actually had a lot of friends. He was good at the church thing too, and super active in the youth group. Even though he was too young for the church choir boy, he was really confident be he still had enough bravery to talk to him, so church choir boy taught him how to read music and play piano. Jackson was great at playing piano. Then he learned guitar on his own and Jackson realized he was really good at the music thing in general. Incredibly good at it. He'd been writing love poems for as long as he could remember and he learned how to turn them into songs when he was just 14. Choir boy was graduating at that point, but he helped Jackson get into the youth choir to replace him.

As he got into high school his mother sometimes mentioned that he never talked about girls, so he made up a fake girlfriend for a few weeks every once in a while. She always went to a different church, and she almost always broke up with him for something that was her fault like wanting to focus on school, and mother was always proud. His dad complained he was too interested in the music things and that he needed to do something respectable like sports. Jackson tried soccer, but found himself vastly uncomfortable in the locker room situation. He started running in the mornings sometimes instead so his muscles would become more defined, and he kicked the ball around with his brother on wednesdays. Father was proud. Jackson could make things work

Jackson was good at being gay quietly and he was actually kind of okay with that. The world was scary otherwise. Idahos rolling hills were far away from places where it was okay to like boys, and he accepted that.

Then 2001 happened.

He was 15. It was September, but it was still hot like summer out. Jackson remembered feeling cold anyways when he saw the notebook on the table on their porch. He definitely hadn't left it there. He'd left it under his mattress which was maybe cliche, but that's what he'd done for years. It was always under his mattress and nobody else ever touched it.

One notebook. So many secrets.

And it was on the porch.

The fucking porch.

He thought about running in that moment. He thought about just disappearing completely and never coming home again. It seemed like a crazy thought at the time but eventually it wouldn't. Soon actually. He just didn't know that yet, so instead he looked at his moms car to confirm it was the only one there. Then he'd picked up his notebook off the table and he'd trudged inside.