Concealed Hearts (Hometown Jasper #4) - Nicky James Page 0,61
lose the people of Jasper’s respect, which I know logically is probably stupid. We have any number of openly gay men and women in town. Why should I worry, right? But I do. It’s how I’m programmed.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think Easton does.”
“I don’t think my brother does or Josiah or my parents. I can’t turn off the part of my brain that’s convinced it will change how people look at me, maybe even how I look at myself.”
I touched Tomi’s cheek, stroking the smooth skin where he’d recently shaved. “Do you think we make it worse in our heads?”
“Probably. What happened to you at the academy?”
I pressed my lips together in a tight line as the past resurfaced. It wasn’t a time in my life I liked to revisit, but it was the driving force behind all the choices I’d made. I coward in the closet still because of what had happened years ago.
“I met a guy in college. His name was Alan. We dated for almost a year. I dare say I probably loved him, but I was too young to admit it. Love is a big scary word at that age. He was out to his parents, and I wasn’t. After we graduated, we both planned to join the academy together. Before we left, I brought Alan home to meet my parents and to officially tell them I was gay and dating a guy. I was excited. Ready.”
I paused, remembering the look of venom on my father’s face, the tears in my mother’s eyes.
“It didn’t go over how I’d hoped. I didn’t know my father was a raging homophobe until after my confession. He called me a hell of a lot of nasty things and kicked us both out of the house. I didn’t know what to do. My dad basically gave me an ultimatum.
“We left for the academy the following week. We weren’t there long before we learned that being gay was frowned upon. It was different back then. Alan outed himself and ended up taking a hell of a beating one morning after training. Instead of defending him or fighting beside him, I vanished into the shadows and pretended I didn’t see it. It happened a lot after that. Any time he was caught alone, he got jumped. It wasn’t long before they kicked him out for fighting—at least fighting was their excuse. It was never him who started the brawls, but he was the common denominator. Plus, he was gay, so it made their decision easier.
“The day he left, I saw the hurt in his eyes because I hadn’t once stood up for him. I broke his trust and his heart because I was too afraid. I’ve never forgiven myself for that. Alan deserved someone who would stand beside him and say, ‘Me too. I’m gay too.’ That man wasn’t me.
“I grew up in Jasper. The small town has a nasty habit of leaving a person blind to world issues. It’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. I was twenty-two and getting my first real dose of what it meant to be gay in the late nineties. It wasn’t pretty. After I graduated, I went home, groveled to my parents so they’d take me back, and I swore up and down I wasn’t gay. I told them I’d made a mistake. That was the day I crawled back into the closet and locked the door.”
Tomi hung on my every word, his fingers tightening around mine.
“So, I got a job with the Jasper police and never mentioned or faced my sexuality again. Until my father lost his mind to dementia, he figured I was a reformed gay man, living a purer heterosexual life. Didn’t matter. Our relationship broke the day I brought Alan home, and it was never fixable.”
“Where are your parents today?”
“Dad passed away four years ago. Mom is in a retirement home in Red Deer. She won’t see me. Says I killed my dad because I broke his heart, telling him I was gay. I’m to blame.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “So, here I am, a forty-five-year-old man who is still too afraid to be who he is because his daddy was ashamed, and the academy destroyed the first man I ever loved for being gay.”
“Is there hope for us?”
“I don’t know, Tomi. The idea of being out sets me off something fierce. Part of me thinks I really need to get over this, but I don’t know how.”