Bastiana has a loving family, two amazing best friends, and a secret.
Over summer vacation, Bastiana and her besties do their best to focus on their bucket list in order to distract them from all the secrets they're keeping from one another. When a...
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I lazily strum my guitar as I check the time again. School doesn't let out for another half hour and I'm growing more impatient by the second.
I got back earlier than I anticipated, so I've been home since noon. The drive was long and boring by myself, the roads mostly empty for the first few hours. I had hoped that the solitude of driving would provide ample time to relax and maybe work through some of the things going on inside my head, but all I could think about was how much I missed Tiana and Ry.
Being away from them for a week was more difficult than I had imagined. Even the excitement of meeting my nephew wasn't enough to dull the ache of missing my best friends.
I love my family, don't get me wrong, but the kid was only a week old. How much did it really matter if I met him now or during our annual holiday visits? It's not like he'll remember the first few years of his life, anyway, right? But the guilt of familial obligation and the need to not rock the boat with my parents outweighed my will to fight them on it. So, I spent a week in Twin Falls with my family.
It was harder spending time with them like that. Staying in a crowded house with my family didn't allow much time for me to sit alone and think, or play my music without someone listening in. It felt as though we were on top of each other the whole time. It was claustrophobic and overwhelming.
And being around them was harder now that I was out to Tiana and Ry. Family no longer feels like a safe haven for me, and I hate that. I feel like I can't be myself at home or around them. It always feels like I'm pretending, wearing a mask and hiding who I really am.
I wish I could tell my family, but I know it wouldn't end well. They're not bad people, but they're old-fashioned, small-town, God-fearing types. They wouldn't understand, and they certainly wouldn't allow it.
Anytime I imagine how they'd react to me coming out, it always ends with them throwing me out of the house and shunning me. I love my family and the thought of losing them makes my chest ache and tears well up in my eyes. I don't want to lose them.
Knowing that Tiana and Ry will always be there for me makes things easier, but it doesn't fix everything. Eventually, there will come a time when I can't hide who I am from my family anymore, and that thought terrifies me. There will come a day when I have to tell my family that I'm bisexual, and I know that on that day I'll lose them.
Maybe I'll tell them right before I leave for college. At least that way, when they inevitably throw me out, I'll be leaving for school anyway. I'll pick whatever school Tiana and/or Ry get into and I'll just leave. At least I'll be with them; my chosen family.
I'll also have to tell my parents that I don't want to enlist after graduation. Which will mean breaking a 7 generation tradition of Benet men going to war after high school. I'll also have to tell them that I want to go to college to study music.
