Chapter Six: The Preparations

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Landen said as I walked into the kitchen where he was making French toast.

“What time did I fall asleep last night?” I groggily muttered, clearing the sleep from my eyes.

Landen shrugged. “I put you back in bed around 2, but we fell asleep sometime before then.”

“I didn’t get any of my book organizing done,” I replied. Shoned chomped loudly on her breakfast, her tail wagging. “You distracted me.”

“There will be other days. Do you any feel better this morning?” Landen asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I guess it’ll always be weird to me and I just have to learn to cope with it.”

Again Landen remained quiet.

“You’d think I could cope with it already…ya know?”

Landen leaned over the counter and kissed me. “I don’t think anyone ever really copes with that stuff.”

“Maybe not.” Shoned had finished eating and was prancing around my feet. “What do you want?” I asked her, scooping her up. I closed my eyes as she licked my face.

“Want some French toast?”

“My favorite,” I responded.

“Why do you think I made it?” Landen replied, winking.

“You’re so good to me,” I said, biting the right side of my lip. Landen was twinkling. “What?”

“What, what?” Landen answered.

“You’re twinkling.”

“No, I’m not…am I?”

“Yes, you are,” I said. “Why?”

“No reason.” I looked knowingly at him. “I just like seeing you when you first wake up.” He put a plate of French toast in front of me as I lowered Shoned to the ground and slid into one of the bar stools.

“Mm, peanut butter and bananas. God, I think I just wet myself.”

Landen smirked and held back a laugh. “Are you going to change before he gets here?” Landen placed a coffee next to my milk glass.

“Before who…ohmigod, I completely forgot.”

“How could you forget,” Landen questioned, “you’ve been so excited all week.”

“See what yesterday does to me?” I pointed out. “What time is he coming?”

“8:30.” Landen began cleaning up the dishes.

“8:30? That only gives me…”

“Almost an hour and a half. I think that’s plenty of time,” Landen said.

“You think that’s plenty of time?” I asked. “I have to finish eating, shower, prepare…”

“Prepare what?” Landen turned around from the sink to look at me.

I paused. “Me,” I finally answered.

Landen stumbled for words. “What?” was all he could finally muster.

“I have to prepare myself mentally, emotionally, physically.” I was waving my hand over my facing, gesticulating like a deaf man using sign language.

“It’s not a date,” Landen reminded me. “He’s 17, and he’s coming to work on our house because you wanted to spend five hundred dollars on him.”

“We did not spend five hundred on him,” I pointedly said. “We donated five hundred to the Youth group.” Landen raised his eyebrows. “He’s just an added bonus.”

“Okay,” Landen conceded. I continued eating as Landen continued cleaning the dishes. When everything was either clean or in the dishwasher he turned around. “What if you’re wrong?”

“What?” I almost fell out of my chair responding. “About what?” I squinted at Landen.

“Him being gay.”

I laughed, or chuckled, or something. “My darling,” I began, “as you told Ben, I can smell gay three miles away.”

“Yes,” Landen began. “But he’s young. You coulda just misread.”

“I could have,” I mused. “But I don’t think so.” I rinsed my plate in the sink and put it in the dishwasher.

“You seem so sure of yourself.”

“Well, I could tell he wanted to jump your bones. Oh, don’t look so shocked,” I said, hugging him from behind. “Who wouldn’t want to jump your bones?”

“You’re so vulgar, sometimes.”

I kissed his ear. “Does it bother you?”

He turned in my arms. “Nah,” he replied, kissing me. “Now, go change.” He smacked me on the butt as he said this.

“What? I’m too dirty for you?”

“You’re the one who said you needed to prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically.” Landen moved towards the sliding door and let Shoned dart out into the backyard.

“You should prepare yourself too,” I said, taking a swig of coffee.

“Why?” Landen asked laughing.

“This could be a defining moment in his life.”

Landen turned and looked at me. Clearly confused. “How do you figure?”

“Well, think about it,” I replied.

“I’m trying to.”

“What was your first thought of being gay?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What was your first thought of society’s view of homosexuality?” I reworded.

“That they didn’t like it,” he answered.

“And where did that come from?”

“Donahue,” he stated. “There were some ‘preachers’ on it that were stating how God hated gays and that they were sexual deviants.”

We looked at each other for a couple seconds. Both thinking: me of a response, Landen in general.

“I never really thought about it until now,” Landen finally said, his arms crossed. His brow was furrowed and he was biting his lower left lip. “Ancient scarring. My first thought of who I am was negative. How did that affect me? Affect others? God, people like that must seriously fuck kids up. And how do we reach the point where we realize that they’re wrong? That we are okay, and there is more to what they’re saying than just…I don’t know, whatever is fueling their tirade. It’s just hatred, or fear, or something that’s…that isn’t God. How do we heal that? How does one even begin to heal that?”

“I don’t think everyone can heal such things.” Landen and I looked at each other. “It’s a deep scar that has torn through the skin and ripped the soul. We’re left with an emptiness trying to rebuild itself, trying to close the gap and return to normalcy or join normalcy for the first time. Trying to accept ourselves in a culture that condemns us. And I don’t think it always works.”

“So we’re the lucky ones,” Landen said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

“Yeah,” I replied. Half-smiling at him. “Yeah, we’re the lucky ones.”

“And that’s why it’s so important to you?” Landen asked. “All kidding aside, help him heal.”

“Don’t you think we should? I mean isn’t that our job?” I responded. “We’re family. Whether we want to be, or agree with everyone, or even like everyone. We’re a community and family and it’s our job as the big brother figure to make sure the younger ones are okay. Make sure they’re taken care of. Healed.”

“It guess it does take a village.”

“Yes Hil, it does,” I replied, laughing. “In all seriousness though, he needs to know and understand that who he is, is okay. That he’s not a bad person and he’s not destined to Hell. And that’s what I meant by a defining moment. Shoned wants to be let in,” I finished, swallowing the last of my coffee and walking to the dishwasher to put away my mug.

Shoned bounded in and peeked into the dishwasher as I was shutting the door. “Nosy little mutt,” I said more to myself than her. She tilted her head and looked at me.

“Are you going to change?” I furrowed my brow and looked at Landen. “Your clothes,” he amended.

“What, this isn’t good enough.” I spread out my arms.

“I have no problem with it,” Landen said. “I just thought that you were so determined to change your clothes.”

“I’m thinking of going with the hot shorts and silk robe.”

“Oh yeah,” Landen replied. “That’d be hot.”

“I thought so.”

“He’d definitely know we were gay if he saw you in that,” Landen laughed.

“We need to show off our pride, right?” I smiled, broadly.

“Absolutely,” Landen answered.

“Alright,” I finally conceded. “I’ll go change.”

“You don’t have to,” Landen insisted. “It’s not like you’re going to be doing work to ruin that robe.”

“Have you looked at me this morning?” I replied.

“Yeah,” Landen said. “You look fine.”

“You have to say that. I look like a hung over sorority girl on the walk of shame back to her dorm,” I responded, walking towards the stairs.