Chapter 1
I'm just a normal, 16-year-old teenager. Some people might not think so, but I have normal, 16-year-old teenager problems. I have issues with drama, with friends, with grades, with parents, just like every other kid my age. I'm quiet and don't share much about myself, so not very many people know the true me, but go find me a teenager that isn't sullen and cut off from the rest of the world. The only one that really knows the true me is a friend of mine since the 2nd grade, Anne. But, she didn't find out for 2 years. In the 4th grade she caught me looking at Collin Morris, and at the time, he was the cutest boy I have ever seen. Now that I think about it, he wasn't all that hot, but I was a boy-crazy little kid at the time. Anyways, she looked over at me while I was staring and said "Pretty cute, huh?"
Normaly I would have had an answer to continue keeping myself hidden, but instead, I let out a sigh and smile, letting my ruse slip for the first time since I was 4. She giggled when she saw my little paniced face and said "I knew it." I just kept thinking she can't tell. If she tells, everyone will know. I will be in trouble, everyone will laugh!
I think she stared to understand why I looked so upset, because she stopped giggleing and started to look a little more serious. "I'm not going to tell anyone, I swear." She said, and ever since then we have been best friends.
The very first time I ever told anyone was when I was 4. There was a little boy next door, Jesse, that I always playing with. I told my mom all about him and how I "loved" him, or at least the 4-year-old equivilance of love, and she thought it was so cute until she found out I was talking about Jesse, and not a Jessie (girl's spelling of the name). She got a look on her face, a look that seemed like she was horrified and didn't know what to say, and told me to go to go to my room. After a few minutes of me sitting on my bed wondering why she looked at me like that, my Mom came in to talk to me.
"I'm sorry I reacted like that," She said. "You just took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting the person you like to be a boy." She sighed, and it seemed like she was having troubles finding the right words to say. "It's just.... It's not right! Boys are supposed to like girls, it's the way God created us. It's not right for a boy to be with another boy. And you are too young to start feeling this way, anyways. I don't want to hear about you thinking about another boy like that again, do you understand me, Justin?"
I just nodded, but wasn't really listening. Even when I was 4 I knew I wouldn't change. For as long as I could remember, I have been like this. She thinks it was just a fase and that I have troubles getting girlfriends, and as long as I supply her with the occational girl story, she stays fooled. And if all else fails, Annie has agreed to be my fake girlfriend for as long as I need her to be.
I don't know how my Dad would have handled it, he died when I was 3, before even I knew how I was. Him and my Mom fell in love when she was 16, he was 20. Then I came in when she was 17, in her senior year of high school. When my grandparents found out she was 3 months pregnant with a 21-year-old's baby they kicked her out and got my Dad arested and made him register as a sex offender, they even sent him to jail. My Mom told me his biggest concern was being good so he could get out in time to be there with her when I came, she told me he just wanted to hold his new baby boy in his arms. He always knew I was going to be a boy. Luckily, I didn't come out until he had been released. My Mom told me that he was never happier than that day.
Mom says I look almost exctly like my father, but I've seen pictures, and I don't think so. I have his thick dark brown hair, with waves that make it impossible to mess up or do anything else with, and big smile that seems to make other people smile. But everything else I see my Mom. I have her gray eyes with the long pretty eyelashes, which I love! I have her nose, which is kinda big in my opinion. I'd say I'm kinda cute, but nothing to get excited over. Which, for me, is kind of strange and sad, because both of my parents are beautiful.
I don't remember much about my dad. The only things I really have to remind me of him is a picture of him and me when I was about 2. He was playing with me on the couch, so Mom came up and took a picture with her big fancy camera that I broke about a month later, because I mistook it for a bath toy. He was looking down at me and ruffling my hair, and I was looking up at him from his arms, cracking up laughing as I went to try to pull the beard he had at the time, which was about as thick as his hair. He had to shave it because pulling on it was my favorite past-time activity. It used to be above my Mom's bed, but one night she brought a "friend" home when I was about 7, for the first time, and told me I had to hang on to it for the night. It has been in my room for 9 years now, and she has brought home many different "friends." Now whenever I look at it, I remember those big brown eyes, and the warmest smile I have ever seen.
