krii7y has taken over my life

Come Along📚

"And do you, Jaren Smith, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in wellness and in sickness, in wealth and in poverty? " As soon as the words were said all eyes were on me, and suddenly my heart stopped. Why did I do this? What made me do this? Oh right, my parents made me. They forced me to ask this poor girl out and then they forced me to propose to her. It's not like I don't like her, she's sweet and cute, but she's just not my type. Like at all. Let's just say my type is less feminine and more, how do I put this, not a woman.

Yeah, getting married to someone of the gender that you don't feel any form of attraction to shouldn't sound ideal to anyone, but my parents just don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that I'm gayer than a rainbow plastered across a guy who claims he just hasn't found the right girl's face. They have always been accepting of the community, just as long as I or my brother weren't apart of it. You know, classic hidden homophobe style.

So that was how I got here, at the altar with someone who I don't even love. And everyone was waiting on me to say those two words which would bind us together until I gave in and got a divorce. I'm not sure how we managed to go this long without more than kissing, maybe it's that I told her that I was waiting until marriage.

I can't do this.

"No," I whisper out quietly, I'm pretty sure only the officiator and the woman across from me heard. She gasped. "I'm really sorry, but I can't do this, it's not you, I'm just gay." her eyes go wide at that, she must not have been expecting her groom to come out on her wedding day. I turn to the crowd of people and start to walk down the steps of the venue, heading toward the doors to leave, people starting to whisper and gasp, I get about five steps off of the stairs when a hand is placed on my shoulder and pulls me back.

"Where do you think you're going?" My father's voice says, hissing out the question through clenched teeth.

"Away from here," I say, not turning to face him as I try to shrug off the hand on my shoulder, but his grip is firm and he pulls me to turn and walk back to the altar.

"Why? You're marrying the woman you love-" I flinch at the word woman- "what could possibly make you want to leave?"

"I'm gay, Dad!" I rip my arm from his grasp and shout it to him, maybe the raised voice will show that I'm serious, "And I'm way too young to be getting married to anyone! You know that I like guys and you still forced me into a relationship with someone who you know I could never love!"

"This is preposterous, Jaren, you are in love with her, you've told her yourself!" He was starting to raise his voice, getting more and more annoyed with me, and I with him.

"Yeah? Well, people lie, I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that though," I know that I'm speaking without thinking, but what else am I supposed to do when he won't listen and hasn't listened for years upon years of me trying to tell him.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jaren, now get back up there and get married to that nice girl, you're breaking her heart." His hand is back on my arm and is squeezing even tighter than before, it hurts a bit.

"NO! Let go of me!" I struggle to break away from his grasp. When I finally do, I turn to make a break for the front door of the venue. I can hear my dad shouting at me and my mom calling my name but that doesn't stop me as I run out the door and into the empty streets, racing to the park that was near where we were. I kept running, even as I made it to the park, I wanted to be as far from them as I could get, even if that meant going off the path in the woods to hide better.

The trees were getting taller and taller as I moved further and further into the forest, not looking back and not slowing down until my lungs ached for air and my legs felt like they were made of jello. I leaned against a nearby tree, my breathing had increased tenfold and my heart was beating faster than ever, mostly because of the exercise but also partially due to the adrenalin running through my veins.