Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Seven

Aydin finds me.

I shoo him away, but he doesn't heed it. He just closes the bathroom door and locks it behind him. He walks over to where I'm huddled on the ground. Slowly, he lowers himself down next to me, like he's sympathizing with me. I don't know if I want his sympathy.

"What was that?" he asks, not unrudely.

"I don't know," I tell him, my voice shakier than I would have preferred. "Everything just kinda... fell apart." I wrap my arms around my legs and pull them close to my chest.

"What did Blaine say to you?" Aydin demands. "Do you need me to beat him up?"

I chuckle. "We both know you can't do that," I say. "And I think he was trying to help." I sniffle. Once. That's all I allow for myself.

"Then why the huge blowup?" he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I've known you my entire life, Lee. I know when something's bothering you. Is it dad?"

I scoff. Dad. "Of course not," I say, not even thinking twice about it. ""I don't care about whatever dad does anymore. I don't need him in my life." I turn my eyes to the ceiling, counting the lines between the ceiling tiles and the lights, anything to avoid meeting Aydin's eyes. I don't want to know what I'll see there.

"But he kicked you out of the house, and now you're yelling at one of the nicest guys I've ever met. What's up with you?"

I sigh. "He told me he tried to tell Phillip that what he said yesterday was wrong."

"Okay," Aydin says. "What did he say?"

"Nothing," I say quickly. "It doesn't matter, it's over, it's gone, I don't want to think about it." But I do think about it, even when I don't want to. It'll be there, sitting in the back of my brain, for a long time. "It wasn't anything polite, I'll tell you that."

I release a breath, drop my gaze, and when I breathe in again, the air feels fresher. It tastes greener, livelier. I feel my spirits lift a little bit. No Phillip right now. No Blaine right now. Me and Aydin.

Aydin lays a hand on my shoulder. "Sometimes–" he says, very seriously. "–a little help can go a long way. The right help, of course." He laughs a little. "Trust Blaine," he says. "He just wants to help you, just like me, just like mom."

There's silence for a couple moments. I hate silence.

"Mr. Wellman told me I could live with him and his boyfriend," I say quickly.

Aydin turns quickly to me. "He did what?" he asked, humor in his voice. He laughs. "Well, that's quite the development." I'm silent. "Are you considering it?"

I think about it. A place to go? With people who can understand me? And love me for who I am, not who they think I am? "Yeah, I'm considering it," I say. "As soon as Killian gets back, I have nowhere to go. And he's supposed to be getting back in, like, a week, if not sooner. I need a place bad."

"What about back home?"

"Dude," I say. "Dad will stomp my real face instead of my picture if I go back." This time it's my turn to laugh, but at my bad luck at getting a homophobic parent. It's every gay kid's nightmare, but for me, it's a reality.

"I could talk to him," he says.

"Why, so he can kick you out, too?" I ask dryly. "Guilty by association." I finally look at him.

And I see concern and fear and love and pride.

All positive things. Kind of.

And Aydin's face, for some terrible reason, reminds me of dad. I see every freckle, every crease in the forehead of my dad's face when I look at Aydin's at that moment. It's the time dad found me crying after tryouts for ultimate last year. And now it's Aydin's face after the first practice of ultimate this year. They're one and the same. And I wonder if I have the same face when I wear all those emotions. Do I have the face of the father that evicted me from my home? Do I remind people of him when they look at me? Am I his spitting image?