12 a.m. short stories

Nightmares | 13

*This is kind of something I've experienced before and it scared the living shit out of me. Enjoy the read, and I'll tell more in the ending author's note.

By the way, this is an LGBT+ chapter, and it's kind of feely so trigger warning I guess

~*~

I stared at my phone screen. Gray bubbles with black text popped up seconds at a time, the group chat as busy as ever. We were currently talking about sexualities and how trivial they really are in everyday life.

"Who cares if you're gay?" one of my friends asks, "It's not like I'm still gonna let you steal my food."

One of my openly lesbian friends was joking around and trying to get us to give her our food during lunch, saying she's the more mythical creature and we should treat her as a princess.

"It's not stealing if you give it to me!" Leslee the Lesbian (her self-proclaimed nickname) states.

"Leslee, this conversation is literally all about how no one should be treated differently over their sexualities," I type in, a smile on my face. Send!

"Leslee, if you steal my food I will punch your right boob," Clara comments. She was as skinny as a stick and born that way, but touch that girls food and she will launch you into outer space.

I let out an audible laugh, before covering my mouth. My dad looks at me from his spot on his recliner. "What's so funny?" he asks, eyebrow raised.

"Oh, my just my friend Clara in the group chat. She's hilarious."

"What're you guys talking about?"

"Oh, just sexualites and stuff. How they shouldn't be treated as such a big deal and stuff." I regret saying that. I know my dad and I know he isn't for anything outside of heterosexuality, claiming it's either unnatural or it doesn't exist.

"Oh," he scoffs. "Like gay people and stuff? I don't understand that." He shakes his head and turns back to the television, watching the Volunteers play another team.

"What is there to understand or not understand? You aren't gay, who are you to judge?" I shift in my seat and turn to him, leaning my arm against the back of the couch.

"Nicki, I don't care, it's unnatural. It's. . . weird." His face scrunches up in disgust, and something inside me just hurts.

"How is it unnatural? Homosexuality is literally found in almost every species, homophobia is found in one. Ours," I tell him defensively.

He scoffs. "And how would you know? Have you done research?"

"I haven't looked into it myself-"

"Exactly. So you don't know," he interrupts, glaring at me.

"Why is it such a big deal? I don't understand why you're getting so. . . so. . . butthurt over something that has nothing to do with you!"

"Butthurt? What is that supposed to mean? Nicole, it's unnatural! Marriage and love is between two people - a man and woman! How is a man and a man or a woman and a woman supposed to have a child together?"

"Uh, have you heard of adoption? Sperm donation? Surrogates?" I shake my head and hold out my hand. "Where do you think all those babies from a broken home are going to? All those kids who were forced into the system because their parents couldn't support them and/or weren't allowed to abort them?"

"Oh, so now it's about abortion." He rolls his eyes and throws his hands in the air.

"No, dad, it's about letting people do what they do because they have no other choice. Being gay is not a choice!"