Maybe Life Isn't That Bad.

Chapter 1: Growing Pains

  I was thirteen when I came out gay. It was stupid to think my life would get any easier, it would've been better-.. easier to just keep quiet.

      The house I lived in was a lodging home for kids without parents. They took care of us till we're able to go out on our own, expecting us to make something of ourselves. Out of all the kids, I was close to the eldest. Being seven it was hard to be so alone because I was too shy to talk to any of the other children. I didn't make a friend till my third month there when a boy named Jean Kirschtein showed up.

       He entered the home shortly after I finally settled into living with other people rather than my Mom and Dad. It turned out he was a year younger than me, and our counselor, Zoë Hange, thought that it would do us both good if we roomed together. It was, till I finally admitted a truth that hurt me more than I thought it would.

      After coming out, Jean started to ignore me and hang out with a bully, Thomas Wagner, who made my days harder. Day after day of being tormented, either I got beat up, teased, or they started to throw things at me like rocks. Though Jean never took part, he only watched as they hurt me countless times. Those years were hell. Each attack sent me to the infirmary, be it small cuts or gashes as long as ring finger, where I made another friend. Christa Reiss was her name. She took care of me and started to make me feel welcome. I never wanted to leave that room, but of course I had to.

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        Today was my birthday, June 16th, and it was a refreshing sense of another year gone by, no matter how bad. I am officially sixteen. I started to run over everything about myself that I'd learned or known, it was just a thing I did on my birthday every year since coming here.

         My name is Marco Bodt, extra average teenager that is out of the closet. With boring freckles along my cheeks, and pretty much everywhere else. Black, and still quiet boring, hair with, equally boring brown eyes. 

      Nothing special.

      Crawling out of bed was a hard task after the past three years, but it was worth it today. My eyes ran over the poster coated walls and picture collages along every wall till I stopped at the mirror. Clothes thrown around on the floor from Jean's nightly stripping to crawl under his covers. 

        Jean. My eyes moved over to his bed, a smile formed on my lips at the sight of him tangled in his blankets. The only things showed that he was in there was his pale brown tuft of hair poking out from the mountain of covers. I didn't realize that my smile had grown at the sight till I look back at the mirror. The sight of my freckled face was like a slap to the face because I was me, the freak of the house, the gay cooties will contaminate everyone if they touch me.

       I sighed before forcing myself up and off the bed to walk over to the drawers in the corner of my side of the room. Digging till I found my favorite shirt and pair of jeans. Both were slightly faded from wear. I tugged off my sleep attire and pulled on the pale blue jeans, then yanked on my grey shirt with a cartoon colossal titan on the front from my favorite anime.

       Moving back to my bed I pulled my worn out vans, pale green with black laces, and shoved my feet into them. My attention moved as a voice spoke.

        " 'ey, Marco."

      I looked up at the boy with the deep voice, still wrapped in his blanket. It was a voice and boy that I loved but still found myself hating everyday.

       "Yes, Jean?"

       His head titled to the side when I answered. I barely spoke to him, much less answered when he called to get my attention, to that's probably why he looked so confused.

      " 'appy birthday." he smiled sleepily at me.

       "Are you feeling okay?" I asked, skeptical of him.

       "Mmhm."

      I blinked. I shouldn't believe him but still, I thanked him anyway.