After a year of celibacy, twenty-eight-year-old Los Angeles native Elijah Abrams decides he's ready to try being in a relationship again. In the span of a week, he meets three interesting---albeit universally different---men that he considers potent...
It was another beautiful weekend and although I was trying my best not to think about Zade's situation the previous weekend, I couldn't help but worry about him. I hadn't spoken to him since before he was put in a seventy-two-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. As much as I wanted to visit him, I knew it was best if I gave him some space so that he could receive the therapy he needed. A part of me believed him when he told me that he'd accidentally overdosed on Percocet. However, there was a part of me that believed he'd intentionally done it because of what happened with his parents. The thought of it being a suicide attempt broke my heart and made me worry so much about him that I could barely focus on anything other than him throughout that week.
While waiting on Kwame to come to pick me up, I looked at Zade's Instagram page for the first time in days. His most recent selfie was taken in his bedroom and had a long caption explaining his absence and how much better he was feeling now that he was home. I thought about texting him but decided against it because I didn't want to interfere with his recovery. Likewise, he hadn't tried to communicate with me since the last time we saw each other at the hospital.
"I'm sure somebody is gonna know I'm gay," I said to Bakari over the phone as I paced back and forth in my living room. "I get hit on by women all the time but that doesn't mean I can pass for straight everywhere."
"Boo-boo, calm down," Bakari said on the other end. "Are you forgetting my man is from the same hood as Kwame? Ain't nobody gonna mess with you. You are not that special."
"Wow."
"I'm just saying, it's not that deep. Are people in the hood homophobic as fuck at times? Yes, of course. But are they walking around just waiting to start shit with somebody who isn't from their hood? No. Compton ain't all bad, E. I bet you're gonna have a lot of fun with Kwame's peoples."
To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was downright afraid of meeting Kwame's family members and friends. I didn't want to stereotype people from Compton but I wasn't going to be naïve about them either. I absolutely hated acting straight and only did it a handful of times to get things I needed at those times. Like once, I pretended to be straight when I was a model so that I could participate in a sexy calendar photoshoot for women. Outside of those types of instances; however, I never pretended to be straight because I saw it as being ashamed and I'd never been ashamed of being gay. Nonetheless, I recreated the look from my license photo because it looked somewhat straight-ish to me.
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"I'm not just nervous because I might not pass," I explained to Bakari, "I'm also nervous because Kwame is putting his trust in me. He's taking me around his family for an important event. I don't want them to pick up on me being gay and then start treating him a certain way because of it."
He sucked his teeth and said, "And that's why you shouldn't fuck around with DL dudes."
