Road Trip Across the U.S. of Gay (gxg)

Chapter 1: Near State College, Pennsylvania

"Life is like underwear,

change is good."

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"Saylor?...Saylor...Saylor!"

"What?"I shout in a daze, looking at the phone screen in front of me.

"The school year is almost over, how are your grades looking?" My mom asks from the kitchen as I lounge on the couch. The little window in the wall between the two lets me know that she can see me, but I don't look over. I'm tired of this conversation already.

"They're fine, Mom. They haven't changed in the last two days."

"Are you ahead at all? You're usually ahead, and I want to make sure that you don't get behind."

I hold in my sigh and close my eyes, resting my head on the back of the couch. People say that cyber school is supposed to be for stupid people, but man is it still stressful. The fact that getting a ninety on a quiz brings my grade down a whole percent certainly doesn't help.

"All I have left to do is turn in my paper, all of my other finals are done," I reply, trying not to sound annoyed. It would be nice if I could go more than a day without getting into a conversation like this.

"Okay, good. Do you have any ideas for what you are going to do for your gold award for scouts? I think that your sister had a few ideas, you can ask her when she gets back from work."

"Sounds good, um, I think I'm going to go take a shower."

"Okay, sweetie. I'll get started on dinner."

Getting up from the couch, I go down the hall and enter my small room, sitting on the bed. I feel bad, I really do. My parents are sweet and funny, they give me everything that I could ever ask for. They just don't understand. I have no want to do all of these things. My sister, my darling sister, has already finished her first year of college, received her gold award without an issue, and graduated high school with honors. She loves to volunteer, likes kids, and even works two jobs. So of course they expect me to do that and even more. It's just...I love them, but I need to stop. I don't want a job, I don't want to go to college, I don't want to...be here.

I think I'm depressed. I do. But then, when I mention it to my mom, she gets mad at me. Tells me that I have no reason to be. Tells me that it isn't her fault.

I never say that it is.

And then there is my dad. My dad, my best friend, who I have so many inside jokes with.

That's all that our relationship is though, a joke. I can't tell him how I feel, he'll just push it off. Call me a millennial. Tell me to talk to my mom.

Shaking my head, I stand up and look in the mirror. I don't understand how everything went to shit like this. Just a few years ago, I was the one that my parents could count on. I had friends, while not a lot, a good amount. I went to actual school. I had activities that I actually enjoyed.

Now here I am, fatter, friendless, and just wanting to crawl into a fucking hole.

I take my badly colored hair out of its braid, cringing at the frizziness of it. I liked my hair at one point, always admiring its natural straightness and blonde color. When my rut first began, though, I died it- multiple times- to try and get out of it. See if it was the change that I needed.

It certainly was not.

I roll my eyes at myself and start to undress so I can shower. Quickly darting to the bathroom, lucky since it is only across the hall, I close the door. I shiver as my feet are now on the tile, take my towel off the hook and put it on the toilet seat, and go into the shower quickly- not before putting on music though.

I wash my hair, condition it, wash my body, use my acne scrub on my back, shave, and yet feel no better. Sighing, I sit on the bottom of the tub, the shower head spraying water around me.

I just want...something. I don't even know what, but I need to do something. And not something that is required. Something...that is my own.

I need a change. An actual one, that makes me actually willing to live.

Not something with my looks, not something like redoing my room. No, I've done that already. 

No. This needs to be different.

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