Abomination (Ryden)

Chapter 18

I don't even think my mother gives it ten minutes after Ryan leaves before she's practically pouncing on me, asking, "So, have you two had sex yet?" and yeah, apparently I was wrong when I thought she couldn't ask any worse questions than the ones at dinner.

"Mom! No!" I shriek, and I think I even stop breathing there for a second. Like, I'm sorry, but oh God, she did not just ask me if I've had sex with Ryan. Mothers should not be allowed to ask those types of things. It's just... wrong.

Uck.

"Oh, relax, Brendon. It's just a question," she says, shaking her head. Then, as if it wasn't embarrassing enough, she ruffles my hair and coos in my ear, "I just want my baby boy to be safe." And for once in my life, you don't know how glad I am that Ryan's not here to see this.

"Yes, Mom," I reply back sarcastically, face red, "because I'm sure the Pastor's son is just crawling with STI's."

"Well, you never know." She shrugs. "He's dating you."

Um, excuse me?

"Um, Excuse me?" I cry, mouth agape. I'm pretty sure I haven't been this insulted since Ethan got way too high that one time while watching Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and told me that I reminded him of the Oompa-Loompas (I mean, seriously, those things are short and fat and balding and orange, and just ew!) "Thanks mom, really. I appreciate it."

"Oh, you know I didn't mean it like that, Bear," she says. "I just mean that it's not like anyone expected him to be gay and dating a guy... you just never know." Then she pauses, and says, "And it is your first boyfriend, and I just don't want you to get hurt, sweetie."

That's when my face goes about ten shades more bright, just like it does whenever I'm reminded that, oh yeah, I've been lying to my parents for the past year (which also makes me wonder how they haven't caught on by now. I mean, really, how stupid can they be?). "Um, yeah, right." I cough.

She goes to open her big, fat mouth again, probably to ask even more humiliating questions (if that's even possible) or like, give me the sex talk or something. However, fortunately for me, the phone cuts her off. I don't waste a second before I'm jumping up and running out the room, as far away as possible, to answer it.

Unfortunately, it isn't Ryan.

No, it's seventy-five year old Mrs. Connors, who wants to know if the rumors about me and the pastor's boy are true.

I hang up.

- - -

Six hours, forty-two minutes and twenty-six seconds later, of crying sitting by the phone, there is still no call from Ryan. Which is really starting to freak the hell out of me because he promised he'd call me the second he could. Also, the fact that I tried to call him three hours, eleven minutes and two seconds earlier and there was no answer.

I'm really forcing myself not to breakdown and have a panic attack here, but there's really only so much more I can take. I mean, what if his dad took him to one of those places that attempts to make you straight by like, giving you electroshock therapy? Or more realistically, what if his dad just forbids us to see each other? Sure, I mean, Ryan promised me that even if he did, he'd do everything he could to see me. He'd lie, sneak out, whatever, but we all know that it's really not all the easy, especially when you have a father like his, and apparently we have all these gossiping, homophobic spies after us.

Fuck.

At one in the morning my mom comes into my room, dressed in her housecoat, her hair a mess and yawning. "Brendon," she squints against the light. I hope she's too tired to see my tears. "You should get some sleep. It's late."