Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Nine

"Look, Lyam, I swear I didn't know he was coming home so soon," Liza says, crossing her heart. We're standing on her porch, where she came running after Killian opened the door. I was still dumbfounded.

She grabs me by the shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry, but we don't have an extra mattress. You- you could sleep on the floor if you want. Or the couch" I can see the care in her eyes, but my mind is numb to it right about now. She's grasping at straws. Temporary solutions.

"It's– it's okay," I say shakily. "I have somewhere I can go." my duffel bag feels heavier on my shoulder. I feel lopsided, teetering, but maybe that's not my duffel bag.

"Where?" she asks, looking both worried and intrigued. Her hair is thrown up in her nighttime bun; messy but somehow organized. She's taken all her makeup off, and she has a couple zits on her face.

"With Mr. Wellman," I tell her.

"Like, Mr. Wellman the biology teacher?" she says, looking stupefied. Her eyebrows are doing their weird crooked confusion thing as she waits for my answer.

I nod. "He talked to me today. Said he had an extra room if I needed it, gave me his address." I can practically feel the paper in my pocket, no matter how small and lightweight it is. Just like my duffel bag, it feels heavier. It's worth to me has increased greatly. I require it to have a place to sleep tonight. By that I mean a bed instead of the alley behind Aspen's Diner. The one crawling with the rats and moths. I shiver.

"Um," Liza says. "Great. If it was really bad circumstances, we would have found some way, I just... I can't make my mom feed someone else. Not when Killian's back now. And it wouldn't be fair to you to put you on the couch or something. But this way, you get to have your own room, I guess." She pauses. "Really, Mr. Wellman?"

"He's gay," I tell her quickly. "He gets it. He understands."

"Oh," she says. "Just him?"

"Why are you asking me these questions?" I demand.

"I just want to make sure you've thought this through," she responds.

I take a deep breath. If it weren't for Killian coming back early because of his stupid lease retiring a week earlier than planned, I would be in the house, chilling with Liza, probably eating croissants and playing MarioKart, not worrying about my trip home or what dad said about me. I might be enjoying myself a little bit if that were the case.

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" I shoot back. "I can't stay at home because of my wildly homophobic father, and I can't stay here because of your college kid brother, I have no other options. I'm sorry, Liza, but I can't afford to think this through. I need a place to sleep, and I've only got one offer. I'm not exactly a popular person to have around, in case you haven't noticed."

"Is this about your dad, Killian, or frisbee?"

"All of the fucking above, Liza!" I yell, throwing my hands in the air. "It's all piling on, one on top of the other, and I don't think I can keep up." My voice lowers and I feel a tear threaten to fall. I refuse to let it fall. I raise my voice again to keep my anger up. "It has been two days, and I have been kicked out of two of the places I feel most welcome, I was insulted at school on various occasions, my dad refuses to acknowledge that I'm literally his grown-up sperm because I'm gay, I saw Quinn again, I fell for a straight boy, and became homeless. I'm not the kind of person to get a happily ever after, Liza."

Liza's gaze narrows. "None of this is my fault, or Killian's," she says. "You can't blame us. The only person you can blame here is your father, but you're too busy blaming yourself to realize it." She turns around. "Go to Mr. Wellman's. I don't really care anymore."