hate is a strong word (bxb)

36

After school, Benjamin comes straight home. Since he has no homework or anything else to do and his father is nowhere to be seen, he decides that he's simply going to spend the night watching some TV on the couch. It felt nice; for an hour, he was able to just put his feet up on the couch and watch some shitty sitcom. After all of the stress that had fallen on him throughout the week, including the uncomfortable conversation he had that morning, he really needed a relaxing night to just reset himself.

Unfortunately for Benjamin Adams, things were never that simple nor stress-free. Wherever he went, it seemed that drama always had to follow, and tonight was absolutely no exception to that.

Sometime around 5 pm, he hears the door slam open. His father was always brash in his movements, but usually, he wasn't that obvious nor loud about it. As the door hit the wall, it made a booming noise that caught Ben's attention. Another loud noise follows that one—though this one doesn't come as a result of an inanimate object, rather, it comes from his own father in the form of a shout, "Benjamin, get your ass over here now."

His voice had shaken with anger that Ben couldn't have possibly suspected. There were times that his father had gotten mad at him—like the time that Ben had gotten caught with pot, or the several times that Ben had broken curfew. With times like those, Ben always knew what he had done wrong. This time, Ben couldn't think of anything that he had done.

Ben rushes to his feet and approaches his father who's standing near the front door, "Yeah? What's going on?" he questions. He can't help but feel his body shake; he wasn't cut out for being yelled at like that. However, he doesn't dare let any of his anxious feelings show at that moment.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," His father threatens, and though Ben knows that the threat isn't real in the sense that his father would actually murder him, the anger surfacing on his face was enough to scare the hell out of him as his father shoves him against the wall, "You want to know where I just was?"

Ben's almost positive that he doesn't want to know where his father was, nor does he want to engage any further into this interaction, but as his father glares at him, he's sure that he doesn't have any other choice but to answer, "Where?"

"I was across the street mowing Ms. Wilson's lawn since she's too old to do anything herself," he explains, "and we're talking a little bit, right? She asks me how's your son doing? So, I answer, I tell her that you're doing good, and you wanna know what she says to me?"

Ben's eyes widen a little bit, "What did she say?"

"She tells me 'you need to keep an eye on that one.' Well, while she's saying that I'm thinking that she's probably going to say something about my son being a little fucking druggy, right? But I ask her anyway, and I ask her what she means by that. And do you want to know what this woman tells me?" Rather than giving a verbal response, Ben silently nods his head, "She tells me that my son is a faggot."

Ben's eyes widen. Out of all of the things that his father could have said, that wasn't the thing that he was expecting. After all, he didn't think that there was any way that Ms. Wilson of all people would know that Ben was gay. So, he does the only thing that he can think to do; he denies it, "I'm not a... I'm not gay."

His father looks at him with some emotion in his eyes that he can barely even identify, but Ben can almost swear that it's hatred. It's the look of pure, undeniable hatred. "Then tell me why Ms. Wilson is telling me that my son is out kissing other queers in the street, huh?"

"Ms. Wilson is old; she's probably gone delirious," Ben lies.

At that moment, Ben doesn't even have time to scold himself for being so reckless. There had been a few times where he had kissed Braxton in front of his house, and perhaps if he had been more careful, none of this would have been happening right now. Though, he doesn't have time to think about this. All he can do is try to get out of this situation in the best way that he can.