15 years ago.
Matt
Yesterday was the worst day of my life so far. Not because of anything that happened to me, but because I realize that I can't count on my family. My cousin came out of the closet and the whole family turned against him, the entire fucking Town turned against him.
After his father, my father and our grandfather gave him a beating and threw him out, not only, no one helped him, but he was cursed at by family and neighbors alike.
Thank God he doesn't live in town anymore, has a job and doesn't need any of us.
I might be only thirteen, but I already know that I like dick way more than boobs...
What would happen to me if they find out...
Thank God for this exchange, right now I'm pretending to be asleep in the bus that's taking my football academy to stay for the week with families from the academy of Hilltown.
Everybody knows what happened yesterday at home, so no one is trying to talk to me, which is fine cause I really don't want to talk about it.
The bus parks in front of the town square, and as we get down we are introduced to the families hosting each player. The family hosting me doesn't live in town, but in a tobacco plantation up the mountains, like fifteen minutes from town by car. I don't know if the coach put me here on purpose so that I don't have to interact with my teammates that are all staying in the town, but I'm glad about it.
The family of four is really nice, the parents after the greetings left us to our own devices, the younger brother, Sammy, about five years younger than me is the one from the academy, he is like hyperactive wanting to go play football with the kids from town. But I'm really really tired, I couldn't sleep at all last night, and it must have shown in my face because Mike, the older brother who is also thirteen, sends I'm packing and shows me to his room, which we'll be sharing.
He really hates football but aside from that he is pretty chill, and kind of cute...
we were having a really nice chat, I don't know when I fell asleep, but he woke me up for lunch, fuck I really needed a nap, I feel like I'm alive again.
I get the feeling that Mike doesn't have many friends, and that makes me like him a little bit more, and he is super smart, his room is full with books, and he also knows how the entire plantation functions, and I'm already crushing hard.
While I want to talk with Mike, Sammy wants to play football, so I'm doing both things at the same time, cause technically I'm Sammy's guest, but the age discrepancy makes things kinda awkward, and the parents seem to notice, so they take him to play with cousins or something leaving me alone with Mike. Awesome!
He takes me on a tour of the fields, we are getting all muddy and when we get to the end there is like a forest behind it. I turn around and I can see the entire valley. This is so weird, my town is in the plains in the east, so this is the first time I've ever seen something like this. And when I tell him that this is my first time in the mountains he starts laughing so hard that he is hunching over, with a hand on my shoulder. I'm really really crushing.
Well, turns out these aren't mountains, and mountains are supposed to be a lot taller, like, for real? How would that even look like?
Anyway, it was a cool hike, with a cool dude, so we came back, we ate snacks, we played videogames, we had a lot of fun and now his parents are taking Sammy and me to the teams dinner.
Just as I had expected, the dinner is fucking boring, this is the last year I go to this academy, it's mostly little kids and I'm not a kid anymore.
The coach gives us a free hour to go to town square to have ice cream or whatever, so I'm hanging out with the only four guys of my same age from both teams, their making plans for things to do during the week, but I don't commit to anything, I tell them is cause I'm staying so far away up in the mountains and I don't know how will I be able to come and go, but in reality is cause I just wanna hangout with Mike. Even his name is awesome and manly.
And what the fuck is that? Suddenly everyone is silent and looking at two twenty something guys walking holding hands. And they are hot, like out of a magazine hot. They are walking like it's the most normal thing in the world, they say hello to most everyone they came across to and they say hello back, I mean there are a few nasty looks here and there, but it's nothing like what my cuz had to go through.
While we're looking, the locals are filling us in, turns out the guy came out a few years ago and was a whole lot of drama when his boyfriend went missing, but the guys were too young so they don't really know much about it, and now he is about to graduate from law school an brought his new boyfriend to introduce to the family and everyone is really chill about it.
I love this town, when I grow up I wanna live here.