I didn’t mean to really say that but I guess I thought out loud and there it went. As soon as the words escaped my lips I felt that I should have apologized but a second later I had to wonder why I felt bad.
I mean, she was acting like one.
Maybe it wasn’t a very gentleman way to put it.
“He’s right. You are acting like one,” Skylar exclaimed as she pushed herself closer to me.
“Who the hell are you to talk to me like that?”
“He’s just calling it like he sees it.”
“Fine. I will too. Confused gay boy.”
“Take that back,” Skylar yelled.
“I’m calling it as I see it. Grandpa will too.”
I thought about apologizing. I stepped into a family issue that I had no business at the moment getting involved in. However, that day of reckoning would eventually come, so perhaps it was best it was happening at the very beginning. At least I would be ready for future Christmas dinner drama.
Skylar took my hand and dragged me down the hall.
“If you go into that room with him then I will tell them everything: form when you first took my clothes to the reason why your hair is long.”
“Go ahead, make sure you throw a few good lies in there too!”
Skylar shoved me into the room, slammed the door behind her and locked it. However, the door was the type that could be unlocked by simply turning the knob counter-clockwise and then clockwise. She leaned on the door and I expected Katie to try and barge her way in, or at the very least scream a few nonsensical sentences.
There was only silence.
Skylar looked at me, her face red and her expression saddened. I would have been furious and maybe she was, but had a different way of showing it to the world.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No. She really hurt me with that.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied as I stepped toward her.
“You hear things like that at school and out, out there. Really hurts to hear it from your family.”
“Do your grandparents have any idea at all?”
“A little…I guess. Some of my clothes, hair and the way I talk sometimes, but, I’ve never come out told them.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “Katie’s right. They won’t take it well.”
“You should tell them anyway.”
“I really want to do that. But I can’t. They’ll probably throw me out.”
“Let them. I’ll be there for you.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“You’re not letting me. I’ll do it anyway. And if they raise an eyebrow at you, then you have a foot in the door to talk.”
“Katie’s not going to give me the chance to do that.”
I was going to respond when I heard Katie’s voice yell out: “Grands!”
The color in Skylar’s face drained to white and she sunk to the floor against the floor.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”
I kneeled down in front of her. “I’ll be right here with you.”
“Stephen!” A male voice shouted from down the hall.
Skylar’s face fell further down. “See?”
I reached my hands out and motioned for her to stand up with me. She hesitated for a moment, but rose up anyway.
“I’m ready if you are,” I whispered.
“I’m not.”
“Where’s Stephen, Katie?” The voice asked.
“He’s in the room with a boy.”
“What?”
I opened the door and stepped right up to an older man, maybe in his seventies, who looked surprised to me.
“Hello, sir. I’m Spencer Logan,” I said with a slight Tennessee drawl to my voice as I held my hand out.
“Oh, hello, I—Stephen, what in the world are you wearing, boy?”
“It’s a dress, sir.”
Her grandfather looked past me and to Skylar. He then looked away, past me and down the hall.
“Sheryl!”
“Yes, Paul.”
“Cancel our reservations at the Crab Bar.”