I don't even think my mother gives it ten minutes after Ryan leaves before she's practically pouncing on me, asking, "So, have you two had sex yet?" and yeah, apparently I was wrong when I thought she couldn't ask any worse questions than the ones at dinner.

"Mom! No!" I shriek, and I think I even stop breathing there for a second. Like, I'm sorry, but oh God, she did not just ask me if I've had sex with Ryan. Mothers should not be allowed to ask those types of things. It's just... wrong.

Uck.

"Oh, relax, Brendon. It's just a question," she says, shaking her head. Then, as if it wasn't embarrassing enough, she ruffles my hair and coos in my ear, "I just want my baby boy to be safe." And for once in my life, you don't know how glad I am that Ryan's not here to see this.

"Yes, Mom," I reply back sarcastically, face red, "because I'm sure the Pastor's son is just crawling with STI's."

"Well, you never know." She shrugs. "He's dating you."

Um, excuse me?

"Um, Excuse me?" I cry, mouth agape. I'm pretty sure I haven't been this insulted since Ethan got way too high that one time while watching Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and told me that I reminded him of the Oompa-Loompas (I mean, seriously, those things are short and fat and balding and orange, and just ew!) "Thanks mom, really. I appreciate it."

"Oh, you know I didn't mean it like that, Bear," she says. "I just mean that it's not like anyone expected him to be gay and dating a guy... you just never know." Then she pauses, and says, "And it is your first boyfriend, and I just don't want you to get hurt, sweetie."

That's when my face goes about ten shades more bright, just like it does whenever I'm reminded that, oh yeah, I've been lying to my parents for the past year (which also makes me wonder how they haven't caught on by now. I mean, really, how stupid can they be?). "Um, yeah, right." I cough.

She goes to open her big, fat mouth again, probably to ask even more humiliating questions (if that's even possible) or like, give me the sex talk or something. However, fortunately for me, the phone cuts her off. I don't waste a second before I'm jumping up and running out the room, as far away as possible, to answer it.

Unfortunately, it isn't Ryan.

No, it's seventy-five year old Mrs. Connors, who wants to know if the rumors about me and the pastor's boy are true.

I hang up.

- - -

Six hours, forty-two minutes and twenty-six seconds later, of crying sitting by the phone, there is still no call from Ryan. Which is really starting to freak the hell out of me because he promised he'd call me the second he could. Also, the fact that I tried to call him three hours, eleven minutes and two seconds earlier and there was no answer.

I'm really forcing myself not to breakdown and have a panic attack here, but there's really only so much more I can take. I mean, what if his dad took him to one of those places that attempts to make you straight by like, giving you electroshock therapy? Or more realistically, what if his dad just forbids us to see each other? Sure, I mean, Ryan promised me that even if he did, he'd do everything he could to see me. He'd lie, sneak out, whatever, but we all know that it's really not all the easy, especially when you have a father like his, and apparently we have all these gossiping, homophobic spies after us.

Fuck.

At one in the morning my mom comes into my room, dressed in her housecoat, her hair a mess and yawning. "Brendon," she squints against the light. I hope she's too tired to see my tears. "You should get some sleep. It's late."

"Mom, its one."

"Yeah, but still," she says. "You've had a long day. You'll talk to Ryan tomorrow."

I clutch the phone tighter to my chest. "Just give me a few more minutes," I plead. "He'll call."

She looks me over, unsure, but then finally sighs and nods because I know she's too tired to argue, and she also knows she'll never win. Smart choice, mom, smart choice. "Fine, but only for a little longer."

"Yeah, mom. Night."

"I love you, Brendon," she says, and before she shuts the door behind her she adds, "It'll be okay."

A few minutes pass, still no call.

By two, still nothing.

By two thirty, I'm asleep.

- - -

I wake up to my pillow vibrating, and the Super Mario Brother's theme song playing loudly in my ear.

I squint at my alarm clock. It's 3:47. I don't have to look to know it's Ryan.

"Ryan!" I cry, wide awake. "What happened? Are you okay? Please tell me your okay."

"Yeah, Bren, I'm fine," he says quietly, and I can tell by his voice he's not. "Sorry it's so late, my dad just went to bed about an hour ago. He spent the whole night in front of the TV, drinking. I wanted to make sure he was asleep before I called."

"What happened?"

He lets out a long, deep sigh that I swear carries out for minutes. I bite my lip, and squeeze the cover in my fist as he continues, "I don't even know where to start, Bren."

"How about the beginning?" I suggest.

He sighs, again, pauses for another long, couple of seconds, and I swear to God, the suspense is about to kill me. I mean really, like I haven't been waiting long enough already (twelve hours, fourteen minutes, and sixty-three seconds to be exact)... however, I keep my mouth shut because I'm pretty damn sure he's been through enough for the night, and for like, the rest of his life.

"I don't know..." he starts, then pauses again. "In the beginning, he didn't really say much. And it was like, killing me, you know? 'Cause I knew he was thinking about it, he's not just going to forget something like that. So, anyways, I just finally just caved in and asked him if we were going to talk about it. And, he was pretending he had no idea what I was talking about, that it totally just slipped his mind. So, finally he just tells me that he doesn't approve of my 'choices' and he said that I let Satan brainwash me. He told me he thought I was stronger than that." He stops, and I hear a few muffled sniffles.

"Ry, are you okay?" I ask, which I feel so stupid for after, because like, of course he's not fucking okay. Who in their right mind would be after their own father said those kind of things to them?

"Yeah, I'm okay," he murmurs, then sniffs once more. "H-he also told me that he doesn't want it happening anymore, and he certainly doesn't want to see it or hear about it in his house ever again, or anywhere. That if I continue to live 'my choice of lifestyle' he'll kick me out because he can't stand to live with someone like me. Who goes against God."

"Ry..."

A few more muffled choking sounds come through the line.

"Ry... please don't cry," I plead, which I know is no use, but even hearing him cry makes me want to cry... then go and beat up his dad for making him cry in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out, voice wavering. "I just can't- help it. My dad's never been this disappointed in me before and I've- I've never went behind his back -"

"Please don't say what I think you're going to say."

"No, no," he says, quickly. "No, I'm not going to... I'm still going to be with you, no matter what my dad says. I can't... I can't not be. That's why- that's why it's so hard. I just..."

"I know..."

"It's just... why do I have to be like this, Brendon? Why do I have these feelings?" he cries, voice quiet, and he's really sobbing now. "Why would God do this to me and then turn around and say its wrong? All my life, ever since I was little, I believed, I followed him. I was the perfect son to my dad. Sure, I wasn't a perfect Christian or anything, I mean, no one is... but, I thought I was pretty good. I knew God wasn't disappointed in me, he loved me, but now... now, I'm not so sure, Brendon. And, I hate it. I hate it so much."

Tears are filling my eyes, and I'm thinking, Oh great, now I'm going to start fucking bawling too. "Ry... God -"

"No, Bren, please don't say that God still loves me. Because how do you know that? What if he doesn't? What if I'm just some big letdown, because I can't change who I am? Because I don't want to change who I am? I mean, fuck, I was just starting to accept who I am... how you feel, and I believed that God still loved me, and I still was going to heaven. Now after all that my dad said, I just... I don't know, Brendon..."

My heads spinning, and tears are falling down my cheeks, and I don't know what to say. I want to make it all go away, but even with a thousand things going through my head, nothing seems good enough. Because I know there's nothing I can say to make him feel better, I have already said everything I could.

And I'm so upset, and I'm so angry at the same time because I just don't understand why it has to be like this. Why can't everyone just accept people for who they are? If they like boys, girls, neither. Whether they're white, black, orange, blue. Whether they believe in God or they don't. And I just don't understand how if there is a God, why he would do something like this to someone like Ryan. Like he said, all he's ever done is follow Him, then God turns around and says who he is is wrong?

I open my mouth to speak, to just start saying everything that is going through my mind but before I can even get a word out, Ryan's cut me off, "Shit," he whispers, panicked. "I gotta go."

"Wait, Ry - "

"I'm sorry, I'll talk to you as soon as I can," he says, and just before he hangs up and the dial tone cuts in, he adds, "I love you."

I stare at the phone, clutched in my hands, tears welling in my eyes. "I love you too," I murmur back, to myself, through the giant lump in my throat.

I don't fall asleep until I hear my dad pad down the hallway just outside of my door. My alarm clock flashes 7:12 beside me.