Falling

06

Carson Hughes

Sundays at my house used to be the one day a week my family got to spend together. Dad used to run to the bakery downtown to get muffins and bagels before Mom and I woke up.

It was the only day I really got to see my dad. He was always working, or so I thought. He was actually spending any time he wasn't at work with the secretary at his office. But when I was twelve, I didn't know that. After Mom kicked him out, when she found out he had been having an affair for over a year, he hadn't been back since.

My dad was never an affectionate father. He was always bitter that I had never taken a liking to the numerous sports he tried forcing on me. I was miserable playing soccer at five years old, I couldn't even hit the ball when it was on a tee in t-ball, and football was out of the question because I was always getting hurt when I was younger.

He resented me for it, I knew he did. Like any father, he wanted a son he could live vicariously through when I became a big sports star. And it never happened. I rejected every sport I was signed up for.

That was probably part of the reason why it was so easy for him to leave and never look back when Mom kicked him out. We had nothing in common, no connection, and he only loved me out of obligation.

That feeling of being unloved by my own father was something I carried with me from a very young age. And as I sat alone in my house on Sunday morning while Mom had a shift at the hospital, the feeling plagued me.

I couldn't help but wonder what my father would think if he saw me now. If he knew his only son, the one who wasn't good at sports or any other boyish thing, was gay. Surely, he wouldn't be happy about it.

There were two instances I remembered clearly about my father's distaste toward gay people.

One was the subtle grimace when we saw two men holding hands out in public when I was eight. He had tried to shield me from seeing them, but I still saw, and couldn't understand why he didn't want me looking.

The other was less subtle. We were at my cousin's wedding when I was eleven and her two gay friends were sitting a few rows in front of us. They shared a brief kiss and Dad pouted about it through the whole ceremony until he could complain about it to Mom on the way to the reception.

"I don't care if they're gay, but they shouldn't be showing it off for everyone to see!" he had said. "We're at a wedding for Christ's sake. Have a little respect!"

I remembered Mom just nodding along, not wanting to argue with him over it.

I would probably never know if his thoughts had changed on the matter, though I was quite certain they hadn't. Or even if they had, he still wouldn't want a gay son.

That fear was instilled in my mind as I thought about coming out to my friends and Mom. What if they were okay with gay people, but weren't okay with me being gay?

It sounded stupid, even in my own head, but I couldn't pull the fear out of my brain.

I wasn't used to being alone, always hiding away at Logan's when my mother worked, but I couldn't find it in me to go there. So I sat alone in my bed with my thoughts all day, only bothering to leave my room for the bathroom or to get a snack.

Eventually, I became too bored sitting in my room and ventured downstairs.

The house was never overly messy, but it was hard to keep it tidy with Mom working so many hours and me being gone all summer. Anytime Mom wasn't working, she was sleeping, exhausted from her long days at the hospital.