.•°¤* ꜱᴛᴏᴘ ᴀᴄᴛɪɴɢ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ *¤°•.

~15~

// tw // homophobia + mild aggression/violence

Christmas wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be so far this year. My parents decided to stay home for the holiday instead of traveling to our family to spend a few days with them like usual. It was pleasant being home with them and Bella, staying up late baking and watching movies and having snowball fights outside during the day. Winter break proved to be better than it had been for the last couple of years but I couldn’t get my mind off of what my old friend said to me. 

A week ago he had stopped me when walking home and gave me shit for telling the story about when we first kissed at my friend’s birthday party. I didn’t even give out his name, but he still hurt me and called me a faggot. I kinda let it go, it wasn’t all that important and he was probably just confused. It still scared me just thinking about what he was capable of doing. He had gotten pretty popular since the last time we legitimately talked and I remained mostly a loner apart from a few select friends. But I knew he had somewhat of a heart not to get petty revenge for something that didn’t matter. 

My parents were beginning to be a little more openly homohphobic which didn’t really help my situation but I learned to tune them out. They’d speed through commercials on the TV that had gay couples or treatment about HIV, they’d playfully gag whenever two men or two women kissed on the shows they watched and they always had something to say about the news. They were becoming my grandparents, but I guessed it was because they were getting old anyway. That must just be what happens when people get old. Good thing I’m only 16.

I thought being stuck with my parents at home would be agonizing, but they apparently didn’t mind me being in my room most of the day playing games or reading my books. I only went out to get food or walk Bella down to the park or do my regular chores. They didn’t seem to mind and I hoped I wasn’t throwing them off on anything by almost never leaving my room. The last thing I wanted from winter break was for my parents to sit me down at the couch and ask if everything was alright and if I needed to talk to anyone. I would definitely say I was far from depressed, more of just relishing in the fact that I finally had the option to stay in my bed and do nothing all day. 

But since it was Christmas day finally, I decided to get out and stay out of my room for the whole day. I owed it to my parents, they put up all the decorations this year and my dad didn’t even ask for my help with hanging the Christmas lights on the roof. Plus Mum had been preparing a full meal for a nice dinner at the end of the day and Dad had brought a box full of cookies from his work when he came home this evening. I was pretty excited to open presents by the time he came home because they had been taunting me all day by sitting under the tree. Usually people opened them first thing in the morning, but since Dad left for work early in the morning and came back sometime after 3 no matter the day, we had to wait. 

I walked into the living room where Mum was flipping through some mail and Dad was putting a movie into the DvD player with a plate of cookies in my hand. I set it on the coffee table and went over to the tree to get ready to open some gifts. Bella trotted over to me and greeted me with an enthusiastic lick to my face. Giggling, I pat her on the head as she plopped down next to me. Mum finally looked up from the pile of mail with her eyebrows furrowed as she brought up a certain letter to her face. It looked like it didn’t have a mailing address or something, just sloppy words written in pen in the middle of the envelope. 

“David, did your brother ever say he’d be sending in a Christmas card to us?” She asked and let her glasses slip down her nose to read the print better. My uncle did have bad handwriting, but it was certainly odd that he forgot to put anything on the envelope other than the names of the people it was for. Dad muttered a “no” as he was busy messing with the remote’s batteries. We switched them yesterday but if I said anything he’d probably tell me off, so I didn’t bother.