Rooftop

13.

 I call up my dad again the next morning, and leave another voicemail telling him to call me back. I've honestly become pretty used to him not answering back or picking up his phone, but I still call, just in case. And then I hear someone coming into my room. I assume that it's Brad, until I look up to see not him, but Ren, who looks like he had just been crying. Once he gets closer to me, I see tears in his eyes and red rings around them, and know for a fact that something is really wrong.

"Are you okay?" Stupid question. He's obviously not okay. I scoot over on my bed, and pat the small amount of room next to me, silently telling him to sit down. After he sits, I ask him another question.

"What happened?" He still hasn't answered me, and instead, stands up to look through my record collection. After around thirty seconds of silence he finally speaks, but his usually loud voice is really quiet.

"You have a terrible taste in music. I don't see any albums by the 1975 here. They're awesome. Here. I have all of their songs on my phone. I'll play one so that you'll know what I mean."

I decide not to question him again quite yet, and wait for him to calm down a little. I pay attention to the song, and recognize it from the radio, though I don't remember the name of it.

"It's called Chocolate. In my mind, it's one of their best songs."

"They're good. I'll try to find their album the next time I go out shopping for records."

"Yeah there's a really good store a couple of blocks away called Groovy Records. I've been in there with Brad a couple of times." Silence falls over us again, and then I decide to question him again, hoping that this time he'll answer me, because I'm getting really worried about what went wrong.

"What happened?" He look over at me and sighs.

"So you know how my aunt Marty and uncle Rocky are in town, visiting us, right?" I nod. "Well they're not the most open to being gay or lesbian or bisexual or anything to that general effect, but I still decided that it would be okay to come out to them, because after I came out to my dad a year ago, he was completely fine with it, so I thought that they would be too, you know? But they weren't very happy about it, and pretty much disowned me." By the end of his confession, his voice is a whisper, and he's tearing up again. Despite the fact that I usually hate physical contact, I lean over and hug him, right as he starts completely breaking down into sobs. We stay in that position for probably ten minutes until he stops crying and pulls away from me.

"Ren, I could lie to you, and tell you that I know that eventually they'll change their minds, and stop caring about who you love, but I don't want to make promises to you that I won't necessarily be able to keep. They might continue to be complete bigots for the rest of their lives, and never really accept you, but that doesn't matter. Because you don't need those types of people in your life. And maybe there will be more than just them who will never accept you, but that's their problem because you are probably the coolest person I have ever met in my life, and who you love really doesn't matter, because you're completely awesome no matter what. Okay?" He nods, wiping the tears away from his face. Then I realize that I'm doing the same thing. I stand up to look in the mirror and see mascara running down my face. I take a tissue, and wipe it away, before putting some more on, and slapping on some concealer to hide the red rings around my eyes.

"Can I use some of your makeup to cover up my red circles?" Ren asks me. I nod, and hand him the darkest color of concealer I have, even though I still think that it will be too light for his tanned skin. He covers them up, and then takes a deep breath before smiling.

"Let's go and get some ice cream for you. I'll pay," I tell him, while putting my bed-head hair into a bun at the top of my head, and slipping on a pair of sneakers. On the way out of my room, I grab my wallet, and we go downstairs to see my mom in her uniform, making some breakfast.