You Had Me At Hello

VII

((wait to start song. The Answer by Blue October))

I slammed my hand against my alarm clock hard enough to knock it off the nightstand and send it spiraling to it's death because I just really didn't want to get up today. The crash of the small plastic clock shattering on the floor inevitably woke me up, though.

I groaned getting up out of bed cause now I had to get a new alarm clock and I was awake earlier than I wanted to be. I rubbed tiredly at my eyes and thought to myself I should probably stop staying up all night writing to Josh at our windows because the bags under my eyes are more prominent than usual.

Eh. I don't sleep anyway might as well be productive.

I was getting my clothes ready before taking a shower when I heard my mother call upstairs.

"Tyler! What was that?!" she yelled to me.

"My alarm clock!" I called back to her. "I accidentally knocked it off and broke it!"

There was silence for a while before she spoke again and I was heading towards my bathroom.

"Can you come down here for a minute?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah.. I guess I was about to take a shower." I said sighing as I tossed the clothes on the pile of covers, that I have yet to put away since movie night last week, on the couch and headed downstairs.

I walked into the kitchen to be greeted by the unhappy faces of my parents.

"What..?" I asked slowly looking between the two.

"Tyler, honey.. Your dad and I have been talking and.." she stopped to look at my dad before back to me. "We think you need to start growing up."

"Grow up." I raised a brow towards them. "And by that you mean what? I'm 17 years old."

"Yes exactly. You're 17 years old and still don't have a job. You spend all your time with that punk next door and you don't have your priorities straight. You think now that you're going to public school you can do whatever you want and that's not how it works." My father stated sternly.

I deadpanned at the both of them. "Seriously? This is about Josh isn't it? Dad you just have a problem with the fact I'm gay and Josh likes me. Otherwise you wouldn't of had a problem with what was happening right now.. I don't have a job because I'm still trying to settle in and learning how to handle public school, ya know there's a lot less time and a lot more homework than when you're homeschooled. Because everything is homework. So yes I had time for a job then. I'm just focusing on school right now, what's wrong with that? You guys don't know because you don't care to ask, but moving hasn't exactly been easy on me or Zach. Going from homeschooled your whole life to a public school was really overwhelming for both of us."

My dad scoffed. "There you go blaming it on stupid mental illness shit again. Tyler, there's nothing overwhelming about public school. You don't have anxiety and you don't have depression. Those are things you use as excuses to get out of what you don't want to do."

Now it was my turn to scoff.

I rolled my eyes at the comment and looked away from the both of them. Yes, the scars on my stomach are definitely an excuse.

"As for Josh, he's a bad influence. You shouldn't be around him, you should be back on a basketball team with the other jocks. Kids that don't have colored hair and holes in their ears looking like hoodlums." My father continued.

"Josh isn't a bad influence!" I said my head snapping back towards my father. "Get over it dad! I'm gay! I am about as straight as Josh's hair and if you haven't noticed IT'S NOT STRAIGHT!" I heaved out. "Ever since I came out to you, you've treated me like crap and it's not fair! I've done everything you've ever wanted from me my whole life and the one time I ask you to be supportive of who I am and what I want to do, you can't do that! Because it's not what you want. Well, what about what I want?"