Need • Zarry

20. For the rest of my life

Harry's coming out went almost exactly as he thought it would.

It took every ounce of courage in his body to muster up the ability to make that phone call, but he eventually did it and invited his parents over his house for dinner one night during the following week after his visit with Zayn; and on second thought, he also asked James and Julia to attend the dinner with the hope that they would take the news better than his parents would, so at least someone might not make him feel terrible.

But Harry had been so incredibly nervous, more nervous than ever before in his entire life and Zayn had been giving him encouraging pep talks all week long leading up to the event. But there was this gnawing, droning sense of inevitable calamity that still ate away at Harry through every course of their meal that night, lying dormant amongst the mundane small talk and at one point he almost considered not telling them at all.

But he knew he had to.

An hour and a half had passed already and he could sense his father was getting antsy to go home to the football game and a case of beer, so with the loud clearing of his throat in the middle of their cherry pie dessert, Harry had put his utensils down.

This was the moment. He took a deep breath, silent and still, fiddling with his fingers anxiously in his lap under the table; sweating, nauseous, his skin turning clammy. And he also noticed that James was looking over at him awkwardly while his mother remained blissfully unaware, although not surprisingly.

Harry took another deep breath and then finally spoke up, his voice shaking slightly.

"I...I've got something to tell everyone," he announced, watching as the four of them stopped their idle chatter and then - all eyes were on Harry.

His heart was beating so loud he swore everyone could have heard it.

"Okay. What is it?" his mother asked brightly, simply folding her hands under her chin rather casually and leaning on them, as if she wasn't expecting it to be anything she wouldn't want to hear.

Say it. Just say it, Harry.

"I, um. I'm...I'm gay."

Crickets.

Nobody around the table said anything for a long awhile but instead there was this long, eery, silence that filled Harry's dining room, uncomfortable, painful. His mother just quietly looked down at her half eaten pie, pressing her lips together in a tight line while Julia and James just exchanged these uneasy, uncertain glances.

And then there was his father, a quiet and stoic man by nature, who had grumbled something Harry couldn't make out and had thrown his napkin onto the table before abruptly getting up from the table, aggressively pushing in his chair and completely leaving the room with these heavy, angry heavy steps. And Harry just sat in his seat feeling this weighted, suffocating energy just ripping away at him thread by thread.

"Why would you do this to me and your father?" Harry's mother finally spoke out, bringing her saddened eyes up from her plate as she looked over at Harry with this look of complete and utter disappointment.

"I...this is not...this is not about you and dad," Harry stammered.

"It's not natural, Harry. You were raised better than this."

"It is natural for me."

"It's not! It's a sin and you know it!"

"It's not a sin, you don't understand mom just listen - "

"No you listen to me. Do you know how embarrassing this is for our family? To have to explain to them that our only remaining child who's still alive is now a...a...a homosexual?"