“I’m glad we’re all in this together.” Shane gingerly places a hand over Sang’s. “Everyone at Knightsbridge is so starry-eyed and gets feedback from professors. They perform in all these cool venues. But they’re just delaying the inevitable. We’re good enough to get these gigs, I know it. Especially you guys.”
“I’ve been searching for a little bit longer, so maybe I’m jaded.” Sang offers a sad smirk to Shane, who in turn looks defiant.
“Some days,” Sang continues, “it’s like the universe is giving me a sign. Telling me to move home, hang up my guitar, and give up this whole thing.”
Shane clears his throat and hesitantly grips Sang’s hand with his own. “Forgive me for being dramatic here, but some days the universe is just wrong.”
Sang lifts his gaze, but I see the exhaustion taking its toll. Sang’s the experienced one of our group, but he’s only eighteen.
“Is there anything I can do?” Shane asks.
“This helps.” He offers each of us a smile. “I didn’t come out of the academy with many friends. And you’ll find out the longer you get into this mess—London on your own is not easy. It’s expensive, and I have two roommates, and we live out in fucking Tooting.”
I chuckle. “Where is that?”
“South,” Shane answers, while Sang says, “Nowhere charming.”
I look up at my phone. Sighing, I grab my bag. “I hate to say this, but I have to call my parents before they have a full-on meltdown. Texting isn’t cutting it. Did you want to walk back, Shane?”
He looks from me to Sang, who’s got his eyes locked on Shane. I feel my cheeks burn from the secondhand romantic tension.
“I think I’ll stay for a cup of tea.”
Sang’s smile shows all his teeth. “Yeah, me too.”
Back at the apartment, I call my mom. She picks up the phone on the first ring.
“Hi, hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, there you are. I’ve missed you. We haven’t gone this long without speaking since …”
Since I came out? I finish in my mind.
“Well, it’s been ages,” Mom says, deciding to not go there.
We talk about everything, and I line up my list of lies:
Aunt Leah’s doing great. She’s not at all bitter that you unfriended her from Facebook last year and won’t take her calls, yet trust her with your only child.
The school is great. The professors are really helpful, and I’ve learned so much from my classes already. I can tell this program’s going to be great.
But then she brings up the one topic I want to talk about least—even less than talking about boys: church.
“Did you get my necklace?”
“I have. Been wearing it every day,” I lie. “Thanks for dropping it in there.”
“Good, great. You would have loved the sermon today; it was on putting God’s will first. Really training your mind to know and choose the Lord’s way, so that when you are faced with tough choices and temptations, you’ll be better able to make the right decision.”
I pause, not really sure if this is her recapping her day or if she’s trying to tell me something. Living as an out gay kid in a Christian household is actually not just cliché passive aggression and Bible verses thrown out everywhere. But for me, it’s the knowledge that the one thing that brings ultimate security and peace to your family is the same thing that threatens your emotional well-being (and in some cases, your life).
“So did you take a look at that church? The one across from that coffee shop? Dad was telling me about it, but I wasn’t able to learn much from the internet about the pastor or their sermons.”
Slowly but painfully, it sinks in that this is all my mom wants to talk about with me. I haven’t talked to her in a whole week, and in that time I’ve had my first alcoholic drink, my first kiss, I’m falling for someone so completely, and I have no guide for it. I want to talk about my friends. About how Dani had the audacity to call Morricone a hack. I’m living my life alone in a new, beautiful city filled with the most amazing people.
And all we can talk about is some sermon about learning how to put god’s will first?
I know what I’m supposed to say, what Megan trained me to do. I’m supposed to pick a new sermon, summarize it blandly but enough that it appeases my parents, and throw in some specific but minor details about the church—the