Chapter 24 

He smells like strawberries 

and bourbon mixed with a dash of hope

(Unedited) 

The piece of the puzzle didn’t fit. No. Let me rephrase that. Every love plotline of Philkas had been a lie. That was the piece of the puzzle that hadn’t fit. The kiss in public hadn’t been at all like their kiss, as they kissed in public with fake identities in the back of an alley outside a gay club. I had imagined our kiss in public to be like that. 

When reality kicked in, I was sure other students had seen it and would most possibly post it on social media. Imagine the cliché moment when I found the kiss straying away on the internet for everyone to see. My anxiety kicked in as I had silently prayed that my parents wouldn’t see it, and wash my gay sin away. What speech would I have ready then? Would I even defend myself?

 If I had an hourglass, I would know very shortly that the sand would run out, and hell hath fury. I wasn’t prepared for what was about to endure as I held my phone in my hand, watching the replay of the kiss. Our kiss. 

Shutting off my phone, as I had gotten so used to, I flip open my Physics book to the velocity measured by the free ball section as I write down notes. Then like the reading of Leviticus, the notion of what could happen; happened. 

***

“Is this some ploy to dismantle our name?” my father asks. Not bothering to give me a heads up that he was at my door or even anywhere near my room before entering. His facial expression shows he’s more worried about what I would say instead of trying to defend myself. Mental reminders that this was the same way that he had reacted after seeing the boy wearing makeup while on a family vacation. 

“No. It’s not like that,” I tell him, leaving nothing else to say. Not until I was sure that my mother would soon be joining this unwanted conversation. Why did they feel the traits of judgment and stereotypical relationships to tell me who I can and can’t date? Is this what Selena had written about in her song about Justin? 

“Then why did my mother and I get told that you were kissing a boy?” my father shoots back. Now my mother must have joined the conversation beside him in the doorway. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise. My constant overthinking and anxiety told me that I had ruined their illusion of being the perfect heterosexual son who would meet a cute sorority girl in Massachusetts and live in their footsteps.  

In their eyes I was now a sinner and had no righteous pathway to a normal life, unless they handed me a Bible and had me pray to my fathers ceramic robed man sitting in the living room. 

“Do you know how hard it is to walk around the supermarket without someone whispering something about our family?” I hear the feigned concern in my mother's voice, confirming now that she had in fact joined the unwanted and somewhat awkward conversation, as they throw their now reputed image at me. The labyrinth in my head tries to make ways out of the situation as I mentally countdown until they leave for church, leaving to them ultimately praying for the savior of their Catholic-Jewish religions to wash the sin away, and possibly turn me to the correct path. 

“What exactly does that have to do with me?” I asked them before I could stop myself. I had never talked back in my own defense towards my parents. I had to convince myself that this was something that this was something that I had to do as I waited for what they would say. They would choose the church over family. A toxic trait of most religious societies. “I truly fucking love him,” I add, adding the words I hadn’t said out loud to him, and adding gasoline that had already been lit. 

“I’m sure that boy doesn’t love you. He’s just playing with your emotions,” my mother tells me in a tone that seemed as though she was trying to convince herself more than my father or myself. The ironic ephany as she says it. There was no way I could convince them that I was in fact with someone who they wouldn’t approve of, as I sat there at my writing desk, wondering what there was to say. 

If the robed man didn’t care that Christian and I were together, shouldn’t they be just as happy for me as a ceramic figure was? 

“He probably fell in love with you over a bet,” my father chimes in, giving me the last effort to convince me that my first love was an imaginary plot line, an overplayed high school romance story, leaving me to be convinced that they had still wanted me to tell them that this was some prank, that I was in a teenage phase, and that I didn’t really like penis. “That’s what the kiss was about. He wanted proof and money,” my dad adds. 

“It’s not like that. Christian wouldn’t take a bet,” I tell my parents what I had believed. The bet trope was overplayed, and never ends up well, though in the movies, they always fall in love anyways. “He loves me,” I defended the lavender dyed haired boy who I had just sent a text to a half an hour ago. 

“It makes me sick that all the gay phased teenagers say that,” my mother chimes in, showing me exactly where she stood on the grounds. “With that being said, I want you out,” she tells me with no remorse in her voice. “No child of mine is going to be gay in a house of religion,” I hear her tell my father as they head downstairs to get ready for church, leaving my heart shattering as she says it. 

***

The pouring rain surrounds my body when I show up at Christian’s doorstep. Weird in the movies, this part is where the MC’s would play out their over clichéd love steamy scene, instead I just stand there frozen wondering whether to knock or not as the rain continues to surround me as I hold my phone with the text box titled Vampire King on my phone. Don’t most people just knock? My overthinking kept making ways for my anxiety to get worse, at this point I was sure I’d need medication for it, leaving me to question whether I was ready to have that talk with my doctor or not. 

Before I could answer my own thoughts, my muscles and veins free fall to knocking on Christian’s door. The  pouring rain started to make my body shiver under the weight of the soaking clothes, and the dampness of the precipitation as I played out our imaginary steamy scene in my head to wait for him to answer. Of course in this moment I would think of fucking him after being kicked out of my house. What was up with that? 

“Christian,” I reply as he stands there shirtless in the doorway. His hair wet and styled as though he had gotten out of the shower, he stretches his arms as his stomach shows off his v-cut, making me wonder how he isn’t chilly in the rainy dampness. 

“Hemsworth,” he announces, the old nickname I hadn’t heard for a while, sends a happy shiver down my spin, as he pulls me inside, wrapping himself around me. The imaginary fantasy of us having a comfort fuck plays out in my head. It wasn’t supposed to play out like this. I played out how I was going to tell him that I love him, this was not how I imagined it. 

Melting into his warmth, he rubs his thumb underneath my eyes, wiping the rain and stinging tears away. Neither one of us is saying anything, just feeling the embrace.  “Let’s get you warmed up in the shower, or at least a change of clothes,” he tells me, making me feel like he had stolen cliche lyrics from Taylor Swift. 

“A shower sounds great. I have no dry clothes though,” I add in a matter of factly tone as I take in his crooked smile, light reflecting off his ear piercing, as I feel my cheekbones pull themselves into a smile, despite what had happened a while ago with my parents. 

“You’ve worn my clothes before,” he tells me as he shuts the bathroom door. In the weirdest fantasies, or mindset of trauma, I was sure sex in the shower would be an overplayed moment. Yet, like an overplayed trope, I’m mere inches away from him as he smells like strawberries and bourbon mixed with a dash of hope; putting every effort into not wanting to create steam in the shower. 

Before I can stop myself, the gravitational force of my lips land on his, with guilt tripping events picking away at my thoughts, I break myself away from his soft lips, before he could have a reaction. He grabs my wrist, as the water from the shower eats us alive, like butter in a microwave my body melts with his touches. 

I find myself not wanting him to stop. 

***

He’s sitting on his bed, legs folded underneath each other, as a Harry Styles album plays on a vinyl player while he’s reading a Colleen Hoover book. Beaded water still strays on his v-cut as the only thing on his body is his maroon coloured boxers. 

 “I’ll get dressed in the bathroom,” I tell him, feeling awkward, though I was sure that I shouldn’t have to. It Christian, the love who I had just told my parents that I was in love with before they kicked me out. The boy who I had almost had sex with, and now the boy who had held me and let me cry my heart out in the steaming hot shower with his jeans on. With all that, why did it feel so awkward? 

“Hemsworth, you’re fine,” he tells me as he tosses me a plaid shirt. “I’m not worried about you getting dressed,” he adds, determined that it was more of a convincing statement. I was here. I had nowhere else to go. There was no turning back now. 

“I’m not fine. I  know I should’ve called, it’s pouring buckets,” I start to tell him as we sit together on his bed; Harry is still playing in the background, the book he was reading now abandoned between us.  Everything I had wanted to tell him seems locked in my head, not wanting to spill every detail before the shower moment. 

“It’s been raining before you got here,” he tells me, as he lays his head on my naked shoulder. The chill of his room, and his body heat giving me shivers; goosebumps climb over my body. 

Which part should I tell him? My mental health is taking a roller coaster of a ride with my emotions. I had never been in this proposition, and if it were a cliched love triangle trope, I was certain that Dryden would have lost his chance a long time ago. I hadn’t gone to Dryden’s house. Would Dryden even give a shit about wanting to talk about this? For a moment, I had hoped that as my best friend, even though we had outgrown each other, I was hoping that he would. Then it occured to me; what if he had been the one who had exposed me to my parents? 

“My parents found out,” I finally told Christian as I realised the lyrics of Harry Styles had stopped, though I wasn’t sure as to when. The tears from earlier start picking at the back of my eyes again, trying to make their way back to fall. 

“How did it go? I mean I know how it went,” Christian tells me, sounding confused on how to comfort me. “You’re here,” he scoffs with his Christian smirk. 

“They kicked me. Their religious values won out over their son,” I reveal as I wonder if I should cry some more, or call the crying a relatable word for my new related trauma. Should I be mad at my parents for choosing religion over their son for being gay?

“Linda will be home soon. I think it’s pizza night,” Christian tells me. “Unless she orders Hawaiian. Pineapple doesn’t go on pizza,” he adds, " I think mainly for a change in the topic to break the silence about what I had told him about my parents kicking me out. 

We just sat there in silence for a bit longer until I shut my eyes, though I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. “I’ll come get you when pizza shows up. Get some rest,” Christian tells me, as he gets up from his warm bed. 

I didn’t want him to leave. 

He has his door wide open, getting ready to head downstairs, when I say what had really been on my mind. “I love you”. That’s the last thing I remember before I was sure sleep consumed me.