Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 15:57:40 -0400
From: Lucas Brimstone <lbrimstone00@gmail.com>
Subject: Never-12

DISCLAIMER: This story is based in truth.  Some events/persons have been
altered for the purpose of the story.  There may be scenes of unsafe
practices which are not endorsed by this author.  All other usual warnings
and precautions should be considered here.  Feel free to write with any
comments, corrections, etc.  Think of this as a Gedankenexperiment.  And
remember to donate to Nifty to support all of these great stories.

A bitter truth is always better than the sweetest lie.  This idea does not
immediately sound correct but it does hold weight.  I had been living with
the belief of telling people what they wanted to hear to move them along.
It took me until the Sunday after Columbus Day weekend that year to learn
otherwise.  A lie can move someone forward, but it cannot progress them.
Truths reveal things to people which they did not otherwise know.  They
progress people.


Vacations at school were never that exciting to me.  There was more time to
work on projects and explore the non-academic side of college life.  I
understood the precious value of time, but was a vacation really the best
use of time?  That Columbus Day weekend I spent two nights part way drunk
and another finishing a problem set.  For me I would have done that
regardless of whether or not we celebrated a murderous explorer.


Vacations at school were exciting to my parents.  They enjoyed having me
back from school for short bursts throughout the year.  Well, my mother
enjoyed it more than my father did.  Work made my father indifferent to
most things over the years.  He was a lawyer turned hardware store owner
and landlord.  My family had invested early on in a few properties in town
which turned out very favorable for us.  We didn't have enough money to be
considered affluent, but I appreciated having my education covered.  My
mother didn't hold a definite career.  She did however enjoy arranging
flowers and obsessing over her children.  I had two sisters, I was the
youngest child.  Since I declined to visit for Columbus Day weekend, I was
obligated to return home the following Friday.


"You absolutely have to tell them."


Cole and I were walking back to his apartment that Friday afternoon.  The
week prior had been amazing for us.  Ever since we started to figure out
how all of this was going to work, everything else just made sense.  We
read comics together, critiqued new bands, did math homework, and just
watched leaves fall off the trees.  All of those things were ways of
sharing what we enjoyed and exploring parts of each other which were still
unknown.  Nothing could have been more perfect.


"I know, it's important," I replied solemnly.


"You'll do great," Cole gave me a kiss as we arrived at his corner.


"I love you," we made eye contact.


"I love you too," he turned and walked away.


This would be my first obstacle to face alone.  I told Kyle and Lex about
Cole on my own.  For some reason though this felt different.  There was no
one at home I could turn to if things went poorly.  I chose not to retain
my friends from high school except for one, and even then we didn't discuss
personal matters.  This would be a test of my fortitude for certain.


Friday afternoon I boarded a bus for home.  The bus trip was as boring as
ever.  I listened to a variety of Kanye West songs and watched the New
England landscape roll past the window.  Few other passengers joined me on
the ride since this weekend was no different than any other.  I anticipated
the trip to take the normal two and a half hours of riding.  Sure enough I
arrived in my hometown at 8:42 that evening.


My hometown was nothing exciting in my opinion.  It was a standard New
England coastal town in Vermont.  There was a main area with a few shops,
restaurants, police station, and boat dock.  My family did not own a boat,
but we did own the hardware store, photography shop, fish fry, and a small
apartment building.  The town was burgeoning with broken dreams and
innocent hopefuls.  It was almost like a 1920's Hollywood, but colder and
not nearly as much noir.  If one could picture soot stained brick buildings
smelling of salt and crisp leaves then my town was not far from that
vision.


I embarked from the bus at a corner gas station.  Luckily I had the
forethought of wearing my winter coat here.  With my duffel bag slung over
my shoulder I made my way for home.  I felt like a character in the
beginning of some horrible holiday romantic comedy.  Walking back to a
world which was once familiar to me.  I was going somewhere, but I wasn't
sure it was home anymore.


The house was unchanged since I left it that summer.  Usually something was
painted or a new plant adorned the front yard, but not this time.  I was
glad that our house was modest yet accommodating.  If there was one thing I
was grateful my parents taught me it was humility.  Actually, they taught
me the value of modesty and I took it to another extreme.  I almost never
spoke of any of my successes and didn't like to gloat over others.  Our
house was a typical two story New England style home with shutters and a
red wood door set back on the porch.  The white paint was starting to peel
away from the salt spray of the nearby ocean.  I hadn't changed since last
summer either, I just figured out who I was.  The house always knew it was
a house.


Three knocks on the door.  Suddenly I was mortified.  A great unknown
awaited me inside this home.  The place where I held so many memories, an
almost sacred space of my development.  They would view me as a profane
distortion of all they stood for.  The door flew open moments later and my
mother greeted me in an expected manner.  Tomorrow I would have to tell
them.


Even though it was later on in the evening my mother still decided to cook
dinner for me.  I hadn't eaten anything on the trip so I was not opposed to
the idea.  I sat at the counter in our kitchen and let my bag fall to the
floor next to me.  We spoke about how school was going and how life was
here in town.  I could detail at length her accounts of what our neighbors
were doing and how the real estate was holding up, but none of that really
mattered to me.  There was a feeling of hollowed existence where once I
felt at home.  It took me two years of college to finally feel that this
was no longer my home.


After dinner I went upstairs to my room and threw my bag on my bed.  I
suspected my sisters wouldn't be home this weekend, and they weren't.  It
was just me and my parents in the house which was no longer my home.  All
of this was chalked up to the idea that I was moving on.  Life was teaching
me a lesson in growing up and figuring out who I was.  No longer would I be
the kid who walked down by the water in jeans and a plaid shirt waiting for
something to happen.  Now I was the person who had discovered a number of
things worth living for.  I discovered my true passions in mathematics and
music.  Cole was the person I would love and devote myself to.  Now that I
knew what was most important to me I could start trying to formulate a life
around them.


This conclusion sparked an idea.  I searched through the desk in my room
for a legal pad.  My existence would not be complete without legal pads.  I
flipped through the random thoughts jotted down on countless pieces of
paper and tore off a blank page. I decided I would start a flowchart for my
life.  The first three boxes I created were "Music", "Math", and "Cole".
Whatever boxes followed would have to be founded in at least one of those
three ideas.


At some point I fell asleep as I stared at my ceiling thinking about what
my future may hold.  I hadn't realized how tired my traveling had made me
that day.  My exhaustion was also partly due to how anxious I was growing
over telling my parents about Cole.  Was I gay?  Even I still couldn't
answer that question but the evidence truly was pointing to "yes".
However, my parents didn't need to know about my inner struggle.  I would
simply tell them about Cole and leave it at that.


The next morning was like living in a flashback.  It was as if I never left
for college.  My mother had cooked breakfast downstairs and I could hear
her calling for me.  Her call woke me and I realized I was still wearing my
clothes from last night.  I took out some clothes from my bag and changed
before heading downstairs.  The house was cold.


"Good morning sweetheart," my mother greeted me.


"Good morning," I stated as I sat down to eat.


My mother gave me a report of her plans for the day.  I mostly listened to
what she had to say as I ate my waffles.  Apparently my father had to leave
earlier this morning to fix a broken gas pipe in the apartment building.
The reason I addressed my parents so formally is that there was nothing
casual about our relationship.  They weren't strict in any sense, but I
couldn't help but feel that every exchange was a formality.  I felt removed
from whatever world they had created.  I excused myself to take a shower
but I asked that my mother not leave until I could speak to her this
morning.


That shower was the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes of my life.  Well,
that was until the forty-five second exchange I had with my mother about
Cole.  I could not think of how to express my thoughts in a way which any
human could comprehend.  Something would come out of me and hopefully she
could interpret it.  I finished up in the bathroom and headed back
downstairs.  My mother was just putting on her coat to go run errands.  I
suspected grocery shopping and checking on my father.


"Was there something you wanted to tell me Lucas?" her voice was full of
kind inquiry.


"Mother, there's been a development at school," that was probably the most
awkward beginning I could have thought up.


"Did you fail a test?  Is math too hard for you?  I told you not to switch,
I always thought political science was better for you," of course she had
the solution to everything.


"No I'm doing just fine in math.  Better, in fact, than I was in my other
major.  This is about my personal life," I was nervous.


"What is it?  Did someone hurt you? Do you have a girlfriend now?" that
last question hurt for some reason.


"Worse.  Mother, I have a boyfriend, his name is Cole," at this point I
didn't even feel like I was inhabiting my own body.


"Lucas, that choice is your own.  I look upon you no differently than
before.  I'm going grocery shopping now," and so she did.


My mother turned and left the house as if I had just told her I changed my
mailing address.  It was as if I had asked her if she preferred Coke or
Pepsi.  There was no sense of acceptance or rejection.  She merely
processed my words and went on her way.


I sat in my living room stunned and unmoving.  I watched as it rained
lightly outside and the oak tree in our front yard shed more of its leaves.
But I couldn't think.  My capacity for rationalization had escaped me.  I
remained motionless for five hours.  My phone vibrated a number of times,
but I did nothing to check what might have been happening.  Finally at
three o'clock my mother returned home.


"Lucas can you help me with the groceries?" she had brought two bags into
the house and set them in the kitchen.


"Sure," I saw no reason to oppose her request.


We unloaded the groceries from the car as the rain fell steadily.  Not once
was there mention of our prior conversation.  I decided I wouldn't bring
anything up if she wasn't going to.  There was no point in pushing anything
and angering my mother.  After all of the groceries were packed away I went
upstairs to my room.  In order to clear my head I researched potential
career paths for mathematics.  Statistics sounded particularly appealing to
me.  My flowchart gained a box from the math box.  At this point in my life
I would now try to become a statistician.


At six o'clock my mother announced that dinner had been prepared.  I headed
downstairs to eat and noticed that my father was also home.  The three of
us sat at the table to eat.  My mother had prepared chicken and mushroom
with wild rice in a cream sauce.  The meal truly did taste delicious.


"Hello father," I said as I took a seat at the table.


"How is school going?" he asked.


"It's fine.  I'm glad I changed to math, I like my classes much better," I
replied.


"That's good.  I've heard you have been making other changes at school
too," clearly he had been told about Cole.


"Yes, and I'm happy with those changes too," I was afraid of what might
come next.


"So long as you don't do anything you regret and stay in school, those
choices are your own," he went to eating his food.


"Understood," we all ate our dinner.


The rain outside subsided after dinner was finished and the plates were
cleaned off.  I watched the local news with my parents until eight that
evening.  Then I announced that I would be going for a walk, something I
had always done while living there.  My parents weren't opposed to my
leaving.


That night I didn't go to sleep.  In fact, I didn't even return home.  I
walked down to the coast and sat on a rock under the faint glow of the
lights on the boat dock.  The sand was still wet from the earlier rain.
Smells of the ocean and dirt permeated my nose.  Immediately I thought of
Cole.  For a while I merely thought of him and everything we had been
through.  I listened to the sound of the waves and the boats knocking
against the wooden dock.  I accepted that my parents would retain the idea
that, "my choices were my own".  It was their way of saying that they would
not condemn whatever I decided to do so long as it was not forced upon
them.  I harbored no anger against them, they had their own lives to live
and I had mine.


At six o'clock that morning I watched the sky begin to brighten.  Despite
the early hour I decided to call Cole.  When I drew my phone from my pocket
I checked the seven notifications I had.  Three of them were emails from
school about whatever events were occurring that weekend.  One was a text
from Kyle asking where our spatula was.  Two were texts from Cole asking
about the weekend and the last was a missed call from Cole.  He didn't
leave a voicemail.  Now was as good a time as ever to call him back.


"Lucas?" Cole had clearly been woken from sleep.


"Yeah, did I wake you?" at this point I was tired too.


"Yeah, it's six in the morning.  Why are you up?" he asked.


"I never went to sleep last night."


"You're fucked up.  What did you end up doing then?"


"I walked down to the beach and sat on a rock by the dock all night."


"Did your parents kick you out or something?"


"No.  They just told me that `my choices were my own'.  I decided to come
down here on my own.  I just want to go back to school.  It's weird here."


"Coming from you that's saying something.  Well if your parents didn't get
angry with you I guess that's a start.  But what exactly did you tell
them?"


"I just said that I had a boyfriend, Cole, at school.  It wasn't a very
long conversation really."


"At least you said something.  I want you to come back to school too.  I
have a surprise to show you."


"Anything like your last surprise?"


"Which was?"


"A blowjob."


"No, it's not that, but we can do that too."


"Oh my sir, a surprise and a blowjob, you sure do treat me well," I mocked
him.


"Just go to bed so you can get on a bus in three hours.  I love you Lucas."


"I love you too Coleton."


At this time, breakfast was in order.  I walked back in town to the bagel
shop close to my house.  My order was the usual egg and cheese on an
everything bagel.  It was like eating nostalgia.  Despite how much a
stranger I now felt in this town, every aspect of it was still very much a
part of me.  There were only a few customers at this hour ordering coffee
and assorted other breakfast items.  The bus ride home sounded so good to
me right now given how tired I was.  After finishing my breakfast I made my
way home.


Only two hours remained until the bus arrived at the gas station to take me
back to school.  I suspected my parents were asleep as I slowly trudged up
the stairs.  A shower was necessary at this point to wash away the remains
of last night and the smell of tiredness which clung to me.  I gathered up
my things and did just that.  After I had finished my shower I could hear
that someone was awake and in the kitchen.  Now that I was more presentable
I went back downstairs to inspect who might be awake.  My mother was in the
kitchen preparing the stove for breakfast.


"Good morning Lucas," my mother removed a pan from one of the drawers.


"Good morning.  I've already eaten breakfast.  I wanted a bagel from town
so I got up early," I lied slightly.


"When did you get back from your walk?" she asked.


"Late," I sat down at the counter.


Nothing else was shared between us except that father went in early to the
store.  I gathered up my belongings with fifteen minutes to walk down to
the bus stop.  I hugged my mother goodbye and was on my way back to school.
Sleep came immediately to me on the bus.  The gray light from the New
England sky served as a very soothing addition to the dreary atmosphere.

I woke up three hours later to my stop for school being called.
Reluctantly, I disembarked from the bus back onto campus.  The walk back to
my apartment was brief under circumstances where I had slept the night
prior; today it felt like hours.  When I got back I headed straight to my
room, sent Cole a text that I would see him tonight, and fell right asleep
face-down on my bed.