“How do you know that?”
“I see how you are with Gael. You two seem like cousins who grew up together and have this secret language, this way of sharing whole conversations with just a look. You didn’t lose your connection and I wonder if you know how special that is.”
He shrugs. “I always was a little bit stubborn.”
I laugh. “Alittlebit? Okay.”
“Whatever. You’re stubborn too. We never talk about your history, but Anja called your mom a cunt. Which means you had to be smart and get out at some point as well.”
I nod, thinking back to the day I left.
He narrows his eyes. “Hey. No fair. You know my tragic story. What’s yours?”
“It’s not a story I like retelling, but if anyone would understand, you would.”
His smile is encouraging, so I take a deep breath and tell him about my last day in Norway.
* * *
Ålesund is often calledNorway’s most beautiful city, but all I feel here is cold. More specifically, this conversation with my mother has turned my entire life into a deep freeze.
“Mama, please believe me. I know who I am. I am gay,” I tell her in Norwegian.
“No. You are not gay. We do not believe in gay in this house. I don’t care how liberal Norway has become. You are not gay here.”
“I am gay. I am gay here. I am gay everywhere I go.”
“Well, then you will not be gay in my house,” she says. “Aksel, tell him.”
I look to my father, a hard man, and wish I’d been born to a different Bash brother. My cousins live in the United States with my father’s brother, Georg, and his wife, Anja. Both of my cousins are queer, and their parents are so supportive. I wonder how Georg got all the kindness and my father got all the bastard.
At no point have I ever felt my parents’ pride. They often speak proudly of their big, strong son in public while ripping me apart in private. Making sure I don’t think too much of myself. Like the time my mother found porn on my computer and made me watch it in front of her.
“Oh, you think you’re handsome,” my mom says if she ever catches me looking in the mirror. “Well, you are not handsome. You are too tall. Too stretched out. Look at this hair. Why do you have to wear your hair long like that? Proper boys don’t have long hair.”
She claims she does it to keep my ego in check, but my parents both make sure I don’t have much of one to begin with.
My father likes to let his fists do the talking, and frankly, I prefer his fists over my mother’s cutting words. Still, I learned early on that being quiet and not doing anything to upset him is important for my survival. My father has shown me plenty of ways to hurt someone without leaving a mark. He would have been an excellent interrogator.
“Fine. If you’re old enough to know you’re gay, then you’re old enough to get the fuck out of my house.”
I blink back tears. I will never let them see how they’ve upset me. It’s not that this is some big surprise—I knew this day would come, and I knew this would be the result.
Maybe that’s why I’ve already packed the soft leather overnight bag they gave me last Christmas. Maybe that’s why I waited until Nava, the cat I’d grown up with, died last month. Maybe that’s why I’ve been hoarding money from my work on the fishing boat. Maybe that’s why I’m no longer on my parents’ phone plan. I had to buy a shitty phone and pay way too much for the scarce minutes, but this shitty phone will get me where I need to go.
I hope.
I grab my bag and shove my laptop into it, then grab a few warm pieces of clothing and say goodbye to my plants. Two minutes later, I walk out of the apartment I grew up in, through the hallway, down the stairs, never once looking back.
Walking onto the street, I shield my eyes and look up at Town Mountain. I make my way to the staircase leading to the top and start running. There are about four hundred stairs, and by the time I get to the top, my lungs burn, I’m coughing, and the tears I managed to hold back in front of my mother flow freely down my face.
Catching my breath, I take in the city I used to love. The buildings, the mountains, the fjords. All my life, it’s been drilled into my head how unique and beautiful this place is…but if I have to share this town with my parents, I’ll die. Maybe not physically, but they will kill the very essence of me if I let them.
And I want to live.
* * *
Ant shakeshis head as I go quiet. “I’m so sorry you had such awful parents. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I mean, how stupid are they? They’re totally missing out on being your parents. The loss is theirs, not yours.”
