My eyes burn and I choke back a sob. “I’ll go with you. I’ve struggled with this for so long.”
I’m not talking about being gay. It’sthemI’ve struggled with. This feeling that I’m supposedto love the people who are supposed to love me. But they don’t. For so long I made excuses; I thought, eventually, if I didn’t piss them off—if I pretended to agree with their unhinged thoughts on politics and humanity—they might be proud of me.
But they’ll never be proud of me. Even if it were possible to fundamentally change who I am, they’ll never love me. They didn’t love me before—my creativity, my imagination, mysoul—so why would they love the kid they had to pay thousands of dollars to cure of his queerness?
Garrett eases up and nods. “I’m so happy to hear you say that. And I know your parents are, too.”
I nod and stand up. “So we go now, right?” I’m hoping the answer is no, but my eagerness throws him off. If he says yes, I have to run, as fast as I can. Leave everything and go.
But he doesn’t say yes. Instead he holds up his hands, laughing. “Gosh, I just love your enthusiasm! You might want to pack a bag first. Just enough for a day or two of travel. We have a uniform while you’re with us.”
Without saying another word, I go back to the front door and grab my backpack. I make a show of unpacking my books and setting them on the floor, then head to my room.
Locking the door behind me, I fall to the ground. Now the sobs really hit and I bury my face in my elbow, trying to stifle them. But then I laugh. It’s the hysterical laughter of absurdity and it catches me completely off guard.
Because I realize that if my parents had confronted me—if they hadlookedat me, said one thing out there while Garrett was trying to pitch this to me—I actually might have believed they love me. That they’re making this choice because they think it’s best for me. But they just sat there, looking ashamed.
Ashamed and embarrassed by their queer son. They’re scared this is a ding on their heavenly scorecard. Like people who raise gay kids don’t go to heaven.
Fuck that.
I can run.
So I wipe the tears from my cheeks and pack as many of my clothesas will fit in my backpack. Then I go to my secret stash of money that I’d been planning to use doing fun gay stuff over the summer with Frankie.
There’s only a hundred and seventeen bucks, but it’s enough to get me to a city. I’ll take a cheap train or a bus and go to DC or Baltimore. They have shelters for kids like me who have to run from home.
There’s still enough suspicion in my mind to look out the window for people waiting before I open it. I turn back one more time to look at my bedroom.
It feels like something I’m required to do. Like I’m taking a snapshot to remember it by. But I don’t want to remember it. I don’t need to. If Garrett brought a gun with him and put it to my head, demanding I tell him one good memory about this place, about my family, I don’t know that I’d be able to.
“This,” I whisper to myself. Leaving is the good memory I’ll have.
I push out the screen. And I run.
Three
I hold tight to that memory of leaving, when everything felt possible. But now I’ll be sent back.
This police station smells damp and chemically. As though it was recently mopped with dirty water that someone added a capful of lavender-scented bleach to. Only I’ve been handcuffed to a chair in the waiting area for over an hour and the smell hasn’t changed, so I don’t think it matters when the mopping happened; it just always smells like this. Perpetually un-Fabuloso.
I’m getting antsy and panicked. Like a trapped animal. When he put the cuffs on, Baldy-Cop made them tighter than they needed to be—my left wrist is starting to chafe.
And my stomach cramps are getting worse.
My ID is still in my bag under the Starbucks dumpster, but all they have to do is give me food and I’ll tell them everything. Whatever they want in exchange for anything in the vending machine to my right.
I turn to stare at the Honey Bun teasing me from B7. My mouth is somehow dry and sticky at the same time as it struggles to produce saliva. My stomach grumbles again.
At least in juvie I’ll get food.
When I left home, I underestimated how hard it would be to find food on my own. Before I got rid of my phone, I looked up a queer youth shelter and decided to get on a train to DC. I thought I could walk through the front doors and they’d find a place for me. That I’d have a newfound family of queer kids who had been through the same thing I had.
I didn’t realize howmanyqueer kids have already been through what I have. Or worse.
There was no room for me. The social worker called around to other shelters—even some in Baltimore, Philly, and New York—but everywhere was understaffed and they didn’t have the room or the budget.
So the social worker told me the only option they had was to call Child Protective Services.
