Figuring You Out

Chapter Eight

"Hey," Emily says quietly as I enter the house, she has a rather worried look as her fingers wrap quietly around the door and open it as little as possible to let me in.

"Hey," I whisper, mocking her light heartedly.

"Dad's in the living room," she says, seriously, and I feel my stomach drop, "he's pissed,"

"Ok," I nod, kicking off my shoes and entering the living room, I see him sitting cracking his knuckles, half bent over the sofa, "Hey, Dad,"

Then, it all happens in a moment, he flips the coffee table like a possessed ape and his huge fists grapple with my shirt and hold me against the wall, as Emily screams and I stumble back from the force of my father. He's never been like this, always the gentle giant of the family, he's a writer for gods sake, the quietest, friendliest, conserved people in the world. He isn't even saying anything only a sneer of a growl as his daughter is screaming at him to let go of me.

"What are you doing?" I shout, growing agitated under his suffocating grip, my own hands trying to pry him off of me.

"Do you know how embarrassing that was for me? To be sat in a room and mocked by some educated knob heads who think they know it all,"

"That's what your angry about? Are you serious?" I say, adrenaline pumping through me, raising my own hands onto his, trying to rip him off of me again.

"Dad, stop, let go off him, please," Emily pleads, fat tears of mascara running down her cheeks, as she too grasps at his shirt.

"You know you have damaged my fifteen year reputation because of your foolishness. I have worked damn hard to get where I am today and you have utterly destroyed it in one sitting," he practically growls, I swallow a lump of nerves down as his green muddy eyes meet mine. My father's eyes that once held so much love and used to show me how to play football are now on the brink of tearing me apart and in fairness, I had a much stronger build than my father but his grip was undeniable on my shirt.

"Dad, please, come on," Emily cries yet again, and he very calmly lets go off me and picks his coat from the arm of the sofa and leave the house. Me and my sister stand frozen and only when I hear the front door click close and see the tipped coffee table, smashed gin glass and the vase still rolling to the other side of the room that the emotions kicked in. Emily, didn't say anything and she didn't have to just stepped forwards and I fell into her arms sobbing out months of secrecy into her sweater.

"Its's too much, Em. I'm gay. And it's all too much," I tumble out, I feel her grip tighten on me and I choke out the words I had been holding in for so long. The pure mental exhaustion of subconsciously hiding myself from my family, my friends, everyone. To protect not only myself from hurt but also my dad, to protect his career he had worked so long and so hard for, I couldn't live with myself if it came crashing down for me. I can sense Emily struggling with my weight so push myself off her and sit down on the sofa. I keep my head down and eyes closed, when I hear Emily lift the ornate coffee and then it thumps back down on the floor. I raise my head and let out a shaky laugh before getting up and lifting it with her at one end and me at another.

"To me," she teases, quietly.

"To you then," I smile, shuffling her way a little before, placing it down on the indent marks on the carpet. She sits down on the coffee table and takes my hands in hers.

"How long how you known?" she asks, I turn my head at the question.

"I didn't know for sure until few months ago, a year or so, maybe,"

"A year?" she asks, her voice breaking at the revelation.

"Mum and Dad, they don't know," I say, looking up at her, she nods silently and then takes one of her hands from under mine and runs her hands through my hair in a scarily similar way to Mum.

"What about Liam? The rugby team?" I shake my head violently, she lets out a small sigh and runs her thumb over the back of my hands.

"Dad won't think any less of you," she says gently, I scoff.

"You did witness what just happened, right?"

"That's not about you being gay," she says, a little too bluntly.

"It's not very reassuring, he blows his top because I'm not the genius you are,"

"I think he's just worried for your future, he doesn't want you to be me," she replies gently, that ends the conversation really, "I love you and I'm so proud of you,"

"We better clean this up," I comment, coughing, I stand and she grabs my arm firmly.

"You have to know that I love you," she says with mock seriousness.

"I love you too," I reply earnestly and share a hug with my sister, her brunette hair tickling my growing stubble and hands running smoothly over my shirt.

"Why don't you go and get changed, clean yourself up and I'll deal with this?" she suggests. I smile and nod, my heart still thumping in my chest as I climb the stairs and steal a glance towards my sister who's running a hand through her own hair and beginning to clean the gin glass that had smashed on the floor. That was it, I had told someone and it has, no doubt, started a snowball.