I'll Always Remember (Percy Jackson)

Chapter Six

Charles Beckendorf

I didn't expect him at camp until like, at least Friday after practice.

It was Wednesday, during what I think might be church time.

I'm not sure what time it ends, but he showed up here shortly before dinner, upset and with a bag. Both things made me nervous and worrysome of my boyfriend.

"Hey, what—" I said, being cut off by a hug from him, which was really unexpected. "Oh, hey, what's wrong?"

"They found out," he told me as I rubbed his back. "Which, I mean, you know, but like..."

He paused taking a breath.

"They want to send me to conversion therapy and like, some boarding school super far away second semester and next year. Go to a different like anti lgbt camp next summer instead of being here and..."

Please tell me this isn't a break up, I thought to myself. Because of his parents. We just got our head out of our ass.

"So... I mean they can't just..."

"They can," Percy insisted. "But I uh, I'll be here so they can't until I go home."

"How long are you going to be here?" I asked, not wanting to go home like, ever at this point in time.

My boyfriend shrugged as we pulled apart from the hug.

"Maybe when I'm 18 and they legally can't do that sort of stuff," he told me, which was a relief.

"What about church? I know you're not as invested as your mom, but would you still... I feel like your... Pastor might worry."

"Bishop?" Percy corrected, because I really don't know the difference. "I talked to his wife today, she's also a demigod and our families are close and apparently she's bi so like, my bishop isn't homophobic. But I told her what's been happening and my plan to be at camp and she supported it. There's a later service that my parents don't go to that I'll go to on Sundays. I'll wait on Wednesdays for a while. For mission stuff it'll change, the wedding, I'm not sure how. But we'll find out and I can finish school here."

He dropped his stuff off at his cabin and we went to dinner, meeting some of the others there. Who were rightfully surprised by Percy's appearance.

"Percy, hey!" Grover said, giving him a bro hug before sitting down. "what are you doing here? It's... What? Wednesday? Not Friday or the weekend, or a break."

"Well," Percy explained as Nico, Apollo, Luke, Lee, and Silena joined us. Most others have left to go home or just elsewhere. There's just a handful of us. "You see, Paul just really... My parents kind of want me to go to conversion therapy and an anti gay camp next summer and a really strict either religious school or military school next semester and for senior year and so I left. I'm gonna be here until further notice."

"Wh... I don't remember your parents being..." Nico remarked.

"Yeah, they didn't come off as homophobic to me," Apollo agreed, and Percy sighed.

"They're really good at hosting and pretending to be super nice to everyone," my boyfriend told them. "because if it isn't me or like, won't effect me, they don't care. But if I start hanging out with somebody's that like, gay or trans or Muslim it's bad. Mom isn't as bad because of camp, Paul's bad."

"Is he... How... What?" Silena questioned.

"I mean at the core he's just very prejudice," Percy clarified. "but he likes to use the excuse that it's a religion thing as if I'm that stupid."