I waved hello to Melanie and she returned the gesture. It made her smile harder, and I noticed she had a difficult time resuming the conversation with her friend because she kept looking at me in flirtation.
Mom sighed like she was giving me tax advice. “Stop it. Geez, lots of women experiment. That doesn’t mean you are gay.”
“Well, I must be bisexual, then, because I like girls a lot. I mean, really like girls, Mom,” I said, still smiling. I was not paying attention to the words that slipped from my mouth into my mother’s ears. It all just flowed so easily. “What if I am gay?” I asked as I turned from the hallway to enter the dimly lit dayroom. There was no need for lights as I plopped myself on the couch.
“Stop saying that,” she demanded. “You’re not gay. You are having fun experimenting, but you better knock it off because it’s a lustful thing. Don’t worry about it. It’s just something yer goin’ through,” she added.
I laughed at her and rolled my eyes like most defiant children do. “Mom, it’s not a phase; I keep telling you that. It hasn’t gone away since eighth grade!” I shrieked like I did after hearing a good dirty joke. “But okay, Mom…” I rolled my eyes again.
After my laughing subdued, she didn’t know what to say, so for a moment she gave pause, then came up with some hard-hitting gospel. “You better start reading your Bible.”
This additional last-ditch effort to terminate the conversation and move on only made me throw my head back against the couch in minor frustration. “I know, Sodom and Gomorrah, I know.”
Her reaction to my reference was to educate me on the biblical truth. “Yes! God banished the homosexuals into two cities of sinners. One for the men and one for the women—”
I didn’t let her finish; I simply cut her off. “Oh my God, Mom, I know!” Then we both fell quiet because we were finished talking about this unholy subject. Mom ended the conversation with the childhood nickname mothers make up out of love; the name that doesn’t make any sense and makes their kid’s skin crawl when spoken. Only mine wasn’t made from love; it was made from some kind of inside joke that I will never be privy to. “Well, Fungus, I love you, but I’m going to go.”
“I love you too, Mom, but stop calling me Fungus.” And we pleasantly hung up the phone as if a typical conversation had just taken place. I walked back to my room and mumbled to myself, Fungus. What the fuck does that mean anyway?
Days later, when I felt the time was right, I talked to Melanie about dating me. I assured her no one would know. This was a bold move, yet, I was comfortable asking face to face. She actually surprised me in saying that she liked both Rick and me, but felt something serious was developing between the two of them. She apologized while touching my hair and told me how pretty I was at the same time.
For some reason, I didn’t take this as rejection. I was sincerely not wanted as much as someone else and it was okay with me. Internally, I knew that I couldn’t win them all, and really, the act of asking a girl to date me was accomplishing something far more than getting the wanted answer. It did, however, take awhile for me to stop thinking she would change her mind. It hurts when you are not the chosen one.
The first girl to express anger from my rejection came from my straight man-loving friend, Lynn. I had no clue she was even interested in me until the night she had a little too much to drink and asked me to talk to her in the bathroom. She was upset because she had been trying to show interest in me and just wanted to know if I found her attractive. When I gently explained that I only saw her as my friend, she became wild with anger. After calming down, she suddenly grabbed my head and pressed her face to mine as I tried to pull away. I tightened my lips, squeezed my eyes, and attempted to take a step back, which sent me flying into the wall behind the bathroom door. She called me a bitch and continued screaming obscenities at me as she jerked open the door to leave. As if the door nearly hitting my face wasn’t enough, her final dig was calling me a “fucking dyke,” as she took off her shoes and threw them down the hall toward her room. Her feet slowly slapped the tiles as she stumbled and sobbed. It hurt her not to be the chosen one.
I ran back to tell Annica about rejecting Lynn, and, in true Annie style, she tsked me while she smoked her cigarette.
Rejection from the same sex wasn’t the only kind I experienced in the early days of sexual discovery. It was apparent that Franklin and I didn’t really like each other outside of our little pokey-poke sessions. Matter of fact, he explicitly told me once that he was with me because he was waiting on “The One,” and, once she came along, I was going to be tossed aside like an old hat. Tired of being his cum rag, I made it seem like a tragic love tale as I told him to go fuck himself with pleasant, lovely words, of course. No more playing cards with Franklin’s small deck. Realistically, we didn’t respect each other enough to watch a movie in the dayroom, let alone share quality time on a date, so I lost no sleep over that rejection. In fact, I slept very well that night and even took a nap the next afternoon. I don’t know how long I was out before the phone rang and shot me out of bed so fast I became dizzy. I answered hello in that deep-just-woke-up-clearing-your-vocal-cords kind of way. The man on the other end said my name with question.
My head cocked to the side inquisitively as I rubbed the corner of my eye with my finger. It sounded so familiar, yet, I wasn’t fully awake so nothing triggered the identity of the man on the other end. For a split second I thought I knew who it was, but it couldn’t be.
“This is Robert.” As soon as he said it, the internal voice in my head screamed, holy fuck, you were right. Robert waited to speak again because he certainly knew his call would turn my life upside down. To this day there is just no other way to explain how I nearly shit a brick. Like physically managed to formulate a hard, heavy square concrete object in my colon and let it rip through my asshole before it dropped to the ground with a thud. Luckily, my butt hole puckered and I can only say I nearly shit a brick when my first love called me.
He finally broke the silence but spoke without proper sentence breaks to prevent me from interjecting. “I’m not with my daughter’s mother anymore, and I know this is totally out of the blue. Um, your mom gave me your number. I hope it’s okay. Anyway, I never stopped loving you. I still love you, and I just thought we could talk.”
I’ll admit I was very glad he called, despite everything. We caught up on the past two years and ended the call on a positive note. I actually had plans to return to my hometown for a wedding. “Do you remember Sunny from junior high? She’s getting married and I already bought the tickets so I could attend her wedding. If you want Robert, I would like to see you,” I said.
He answered back, “I’d like that.”
After my arrival in Ohio the summer of 1997, I became swept up in the circle of innocence surrounding my first love all over again. All the things I loved about him as a teenager were still the same with additional maturity and the drive to be a better man. He was working insane hours, taking care of his daughter during his visitation, and building a house on his own time. Yet he managed to squeeze me into his busy schedule and attend the wedding with me. I was convinced he was the man I could spend the rest of my life with and was willing to take on the role as a loving stepmother to his child.
I didn’t worry about Steven or our plans to be married so we could protect our lives as gay soldiers. I was in love with my high school sweetheart. I felt like the feeling had never left me and never would. Therefore, it was only right to begin our engagement on the week I was home. The plan was for him to move to Arizona with me and be married in December. Our only major concern was the decision he had to make about gaining full-time custody of his daughter or to give it up for our new life together.