Original Short Stories

Breaking the Norms

Ruby took a deep breath and walked into her living room. Her house was big; it was an open floor plan with a white, nude, and beige color scheme. Pictures of her and her parents hung on the wall. Ruby glanced at a school picture from kindergarten, a smiley, innocent, and outgoing young girl with long brown hair in pigtails. Now, in 2003, at nineteen, she had shoulder-length hair, thin body, normally would wear mascara and dark lipstick, and a nose ring on the right nostril, still outgoing, however. Ruby looked at her parents; she was shaking.

"Mom, Dad, I'm a lesbian." Her parents looked at her with a blank stare. "I like girls," she continues. Her parents were silent for a few moments.

"Get out," her father spoke soft and stern.

"What? Dad, I..."

"I said get out! I don't care where you go or what you do. I can't stand to look at you!" His voice rose. Tears rolled down Ruby's eyes. She looked at her mother in hopes she would take her side, however, her mother would not make eye contact with her. Ruby huffed in disbelief and walked out to the living room.

"You're a disgrace to this family," her mother mumbled. Ruby grew up in an almost perfect family. Her parents were both very successful and hard-working. They lived in a big house in Oklahoma. However, she wasn't the 'perfect' daughter for her parents. She struggled with hiding her sexuality for years. She had boyfriends, hoping it would change her orientation, but it didn't work. Her family stopped paying for her education and kicked her out of the house after that. So, Ruby picked up everything she owned, including art supplies and a couple of hundred dollars from her savings, and moved to Massachusetts, the only state at the time where same-sex marriage was legal. Ruby got an apartment in Provincetown, MA, and searched for jobs until landing one as a waitress at a diner called 'Chit Chat.' After a week at the diner, Ruby was working her first overnight shift. She clocked in at 11 pm:
"Only seven more hours to go," Ruby muttered to herself. The diner had a retro look to it. The main colors were black and white, normally in a checkered pattern. The diner did not have much of a distinct smell to it. The night was very slow. Ruby served a few customers in the diner. Most of them were people coming to or from a party or bar for a quick bite. In the meantime, she got to know the cook, Jordan, well, and they sparked up a conversation to pass the time.

"So tell me about yourself. Where are you from?" Jordan asked. He could not take his eyes off Ruby. He thought her brown locks and bright green eyes were stunning.

"I came from a stereotypical town in Oklahoma. We never had to worry about money. My parents were always encouraging me and making sure I was smiling. We had a big house. It was the basic nuclear family ... It was nice."

"Define stereotypical town?" Jordan asked.

"It was a nice friendly community. We had big properties, big houses. People there were really kind and caring. Kids graduated and went to college. No drugs, no partying. Ya know, the kinda shit you see in the movies."

"What made you decide to move to Massachusetts then?"

"I couldn't be who I am there. I didn't want to end up like everyone else in that town... liking the same things as everyone else, being average" Ruby looked down at her feet. "I just needed to get out of there."

"What do you mean? Who do you want to be?" Someone interrupted their conversation by ringing the bell. Ruby left to serve the customer. The rest of the shift, Ruby tried to avoid Jordan's question. The answer was something she was not ready to tell him. Six a.m. finally came around, and Ruby and Jordan were free to leave. Ruby walked over to the bus stop to wait.

"Hey, do you want a ride?" Jordan asked pulling up in a Honda Accord Coupe. Ruby nodded, hopped in the passenger side, and told him her address.

"Do you want to at least come in for coffee? It's like least I can do." She asked when they arrived at her apartment. Jordan took up her offer. Ruby's apartment was dull, it was carpeted with multiple mysterious stains. The beige paint on the walls was chipping and she tried to cover it with some of her own artwork. Ruby liked to paint; it was a lot of abstract work. Each painting stayed in the same color family, some consistent only of purples. Others were made from only shades of blue or red and so on. One thing that stood out, was there was not a single picture of her family.