Page 19 - The Bridge Vol 17_pgs

VOLume 17

Jesse McCartney. I so desperately wanted to ask my mom to get me clothes like his—boy’s clothes—but
then I decided not to. I was afraid of what she would think of me.
When I was twelve, I came out to someone for the first time—well, kind of. Her name was Audrey,
the first friend I made in middle school, who I had a huge crush on. We were talking on the phone one
night and, inevitably, she asked if I liked anyone. I told her no, but she could tell I was lying, so she
listed pretty much every guy in our grade that I possibly could like. I genuinely said no to liking every
guy she brought up, so she jokingly asked if I liked her. I got dead silent when she asked this—sort of
like a cricket, hiding in the cracks, that abruptly stops chirping when a human gets too close.
“Laine, are you there? I was kidding,” Audrey blurted out in a worried tone.
“Um,” I uttered, trying to say something, anything, that would make this less awkward, anything
that would lead her to believe that I didn’t like her.
“Oh my god, Laine, do you like me? Do you actually like me?” Audrey asked in a tone of mostly
disgust, but also a hint of curiosity.
“Uh, yeah,” I muttered, not really seeing the point of lying.
Audrey laughed a nervous uncomfortable laugh after I admitted this and then hung up. The next
day at lunch she told the loudmouth in our class, and they proceeded to yell out to the whole cafeteria
that I was gay and that I liked Audrey. I tried to salvage all of this by saying it was a rumor. It kind of
worked, but not really. I got stared at, laughed at, kicked around, made fun of, banished from my lunch
table—all the hallmarks of being outed in middle school. This was my first coming out experience, and,
really, I had no control over it.
When I was thirteen, my mom found out I was gay by snooping through my journal in my room.
I went across the street to get some candy and when I returned, I found that a page of my journal was
missing. The page she ripped out was specifically about a girl I liked named Hazel. I freaked out and
contemplated never going downstairs and dealing with my parents ever again, but then eventually
went downstairs to both my parents sitting in the living room.
“We were expecting you would come back down here,” my mom said while simultaneously shutting
off the TV.
“Yeah,” I said, not really knowing what exactly to say.
There was a long pause, a slow, awkward, dreadful, pause, until my dad finally stood up.
“Laine,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“We love you.”
My father hugged me, and then my mother, and then I was forced into a long talk full of the famous,
“When did you know you were gay?” and “Have you ever been with anyone?” questions. During all of
this I was crying. The tears I cried were both happy and sad. Relieved and frustrated. They were tears
of convolution. My parents accepting me saved my life—there is no doubt about that—but, to this day,
I still am angry at how all of this turned out. My parents accepting me was a good thing, but it is just
another example of how I was never able to be gay on my own terms.
This theme followed me into age fourteen, when I told my friend Brian to ask a girl on my softball
team (who I liked) if she was gay. I told him not to mention my name when he asked her, but he did,
and she freaked out. The next day at practice I plunged into a pool of whispers. She told everyone on
the team that I liked her, and my stomach dropped as if I were free falling from a building. Everyone

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