“I want to help you.”
“I know you do.” Mac brushed down a clump of Gideon’s bedhead. It didn’t make any difference, but it made Mac smile. “I have to stop letting people fight for me. I am so lucky that I’ve had people in my life who care about me this much to stand up for me. It’s my turn to stand up for myself.”
Gideon noticed how scared Mac was, but he was pushing through. That was the very definition of courage.
“I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I need to try and make things right myself,” Mac said.
Gideon wrapped his arms tight around Mac and kissed him.
“You do what you gotta do, but don’t get too comfortable back on the farm,” Gideon said.
“We don’t have a farm.”
“You know what I mean.” Gideon tapped at Mac’s chin. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
Sometime around four, Gideon managed to fall back asleep. When he woke up the next morning, Mac was gone.
CHAPTER twenty-seven
Mac
Mac stepped off the bus, groggy from his nap. Rain splashed against the pavement of the bus station parking lot. It looked like it wasn’t going to be a White Christmas in Kingwood, West Virginia. A fog enveloped the trees and mountains, as it usually did. “It’s God’s whipped cream,” Mac’s dad once said to him when he was little. It felt like eons ago.
He had little memories like that pop into his head on the ride down. Instead of preparing for battle, Mac chose to remember the good times with his parents. He thought back on holidays and early mornings cleaning the store with his dad or reading a bedtime story with his mom. It was easy for Gideon to hate his parents. He only saw one side of them. He only saw the after, not the before.
The town of Kingwood wasn’t large, and even though it was spotty with sidewalks, it was still manageable to get around on foot. His family’s store was about a mile and a half from the bus station. One hundred years ago, this town was just an intersection with a gas station and general store. Now there were strip malls and big box stores, but that small town spirit remained.
Mac remembered it well.
He strolled down the main strip. Lights were strung around the lampposts. Rain be damned, it was Christmastime!
He let the memories wash over him. He had lots of great times in this town, until he got gay bashed. Then the small town charm gave him the cold shoulder. If the pastor hadn’t wielded so much power in town, then maybe he would’ve had a shot at fairness. A slim chance, but a chance. Mac spent years trying to move forward. Instead, he had just repressed.
The store looked the same, for the most part. His dad had installed one of those spirally energy-efficient light bulbs above the front door. And they replaced the old Santa-themed holiday welcome mat with a more generic Christmas tree design.
“You can do this,” he said to himself. He grabbed the door, but before turning, something caught his eye. His dad had tried to paint over it, but the traces of graffiti streaked the outside of the store, just above the grass. Mac could only make out hints of an F, then an A. He didn’t need to know the rest.
The door to the store swung open, giving Mac a shock.
“Mac?” His mother held her hand to her heart.
“I took an early morning bus.”
Neither knew what to say next.
“Can I come in?”
His mom nodded and stepped aside. She looked Mac up and down, as if she hadn’t had a chance to really see her son in a while.
The interior of the store hadn’t changed. He always thought this store felt especially homey. It was like a second home to him, from the signs behind the register, to the long scratch on one of the tiles in the paint supplies aisle.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s just finishing up in the stockroom.”
“Is he still lugging around heavy boxes?”
