Before I Break (11 page)

When we first had decided to do the rally, we wanted to give it a couple of weeks to make Pastor Morrison think that we weren’t coming back for our rights.
Avery’s rights,
I had to clarify.
These were his rights, his problem, not mine.

In the living room, I grabbed the remote and flipped the news to find that it was being recorded live. There was Melissa and Avery, holding signs reading, ‘Gay is Okay’ and ‘It’s not our rights—it’s human rights.’ This could not have been happening.

“Oh, lookie!” Jake said, laughing entirely too loud. “There’s your girlfriend with the homosexuals!”

Goth was there too, who had later identified herself as Eve, ironically enough. Why was this happening right now, of all days? My parents were probably already there in the church, talking to Morrison about the sins of this.

Then the reporter was speaking to Melissa, asking, “Why are you and your friends protesting today?”

Melissa smiled right into the camera, looking beautiful enough to make most guys probably go through with this. “An incident occurred last Wednesday night where my friend and I got into a heated discussion with Pastor Morrison about whether homosexuality was a sin or not. While on stage, a person from the audience threw a cup of boiling hot coffee at Avery, so my friends and I decided to come protest.”

“We hear you’ve been banned. How long have you been coming to this church?” the reporter went on.

“I’ve been here my entire life,” Melissa said. “I have come to see that the church is twisted in their beliefs and my friends and I strongly disagree with discrimination.”

“Thank you, Melissa. Back to you, George.”

A man, who I assumed was George, was on screen then, saying, “Thank you. While Pastor Morrison is displeased with the situation, officials cannot stop the pride rally due to it being across the street from the church and not on church property. With the freedom of speech, some say it would be unconstitutional for officers to invade.”

Unconstitutional my ass. I couldn’t let Melissa continue on with the pride rally like this. Grabbing my jacket, I said, “Come on, Jake. We have a rally to interrupt.”

The hardest part about not doing weed anymore is the fact that I was now responsible for Jake, even though I really didn’t want to be. We pulled onto the street of the church as he sang really loudly the entire way, giggling like a two year old playing Peek-a-boo.

The march across from the church continued and I got out of the car, trying to get passed the officers, but they wouldn’t let us through.

“That’s my girlfriend,” I lied. “I’m here for the rally.”

The officer nodded and let me go by and I dragged Jake along with me, and the officer stared him down, probably knowing how stoned he was but brushing it off. Melissa saw me and smiled brightly. “Are you here to show your support?”

“No,” I said, sounding a little harsher than intended. “I am here to stop you from doing this, ‘Lissa. This is drawing attention to you that you don’t need.”

Melissa was angry, that much was obvious. “Then go home, Cy. We don’t need you here if you’re going to be just like them.”

“I’m not trying to be! I am not trying to be like them, but as your friend, I want to stop you from embarrassing yourself.”

She threw her sign down as the others all stopped to stare at us. Several cameras were pointed in our direction and I was sure this was going on live. My nerves were really getting to me and I just wanted this all to stop.

“Is it me you’re worried about,” Melissa asked, “or you?”

“Why would you ask something like that?” I demanded. “I am not embarrassed.” Even as I said it, I wasn't quite sure it was true.

“Then let me embarrass myself if I want to. Goodbye, Cyril.” Turning her back on me, she went back with the others and grabbed her sign off the ground, leaving me alone.

“That went well,” Jake laughed. “Look at all the rainbows!”

“Oh, just come on,” I replied angrily, grabbing onto him and tearing through the crowd to the church. “I’m not done here.” Walking over to the officers, I shouted, “You guys can’t do something? This is ridiculous!”

“Freedom of speech,” one of them said.

“I don’t give two shits about freedom of speech! That’s my girlfriend out there and she’s setting the wrong image for herself. Damn it!” I kicked a rock hard across the street and knew what I had to do. So much anger was building inside of me and there was only one person to blame for this. Stomping across the street to the church, I pushed through the crowd and threw the from door open, looking for the chapel.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked, completely oblivious to life right now. Oh, how I wished I was him at the moment. Inside, there was a whole group of people, and from the looks of it, they were holding hands and all singing Kumbaya. All eyes turned to me as I stormed down the aisle, seeing Pastor Morrison on stage.

“You bastard!” I screamed in rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

A couple— who I identified as my parents—got up from the front and walked over to me. “Son, enough of this,” my father said. “We have this under control.”

“Under control?! You call this under control?” I didn’t even know what I was mad about. I wasn’t even mad at Morrison, or Melissa, or even Avery. The whole world was to blame right now. I was sick of the fighting, the arguing, and the condemning. “That’s right, I forgot, we’re all just going to come in here and ask God to strike down my friends, aren’t we? Because that’s what real Christians do, right?”

“Cyril!” my father yelled at me, making my heart stop. “Let’s get out of here. We’re going home. Now.”

“I’m not done here!” I screamed as my dad took a hold of my arm and dragged me out. “Do you hear me? This isn’t over until you all give it a rest!”

Jake followed as my parents and I left the church, but no one said a word once we left. My parents got in their car and I got in mine with Jake, but no one seemed to really know what to say. My throat was sore from all the screaming I did back at the church, but I couldn’t help it. Once I calmed down, I realized that probably wasn’t going to be very good for my reputation once
that
was seen on the news.

So much for saving our reputations.

Gay rights aren’t rights if they aren’t given

Just like any of human right.

A human right isn’t a right

If others are trying to take it away.

If others are trying to take it away

Then freedom is not an accurate description.

When freedom is not an accurate description

Then what is this world we’ve so terribly created?

At home, as I was getting ready for sleep, I couldn’t help but replay all the events from that day in my head. I had embarrassed myself terribly, just like I had intended
not
to do, and I was at a complete loss. Downstairs I could hear my parents arguing about something, but I didn’t really care enough to listen. About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on my door.

“Go away!” I yelled angrily.

My mother stepped right on through, smiling softly, and closing the door behind her. “How are you feeling?”

Feeling annoyed, I asked, “Have you never heard of ‘go away?’”

Mom looked genuinely upset, but she didn’t say anything at first. As I sat down on my bed to go to sleep, she sat next to me and smiled sadly. “I know today was hard for you, honey, but you can’t lock yourself in your room forever.”

“Watch me,” I replied harshly. Pulling the covers over my head, I wondered how I could ever feel so down. Why was there so much going on in my life right now? There was so much anger that I needed to release, but luckily I was able to calm down not that long after. Now here I was, moping in my sadness over all of this.

But what exactly was
this
?

The warmth of my mother’s hand touched my arm as she said, “We need to talk about something.”

“If you’re going to ground me forever, I understand,” I told her. “There’s no need to discuss something we both know is entirely inevitable.”

“Awww,” my mother said, leaning over and hugging me tightly. “I always knew you were a smart kid. This is just all a big misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, it’s just a huge misunderstanding that I am going to hell for cursing at the Pastor of a church. I forgot, our God is supposed to be all-loving.”

My mother was silent for a couple minutes, leaving both of us to drown in my statement. Right now I didn’t even know if I believed in God anymore, mostly because there was so much
hate
. So many terrible things that wouldn’t go away no matter what. Did God really just hate everyone? Maybe it wasn’t just the gays, but every living thing that walked this Earth.

“He is.”

Her words were so soft, I almost didn’t hear them. Lifting the covers off of my face, my mother was staring at me with tears streaming down her face, and I sat up to touch her arm. “I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t mean it…I just…” I didn’t know what to say. My heart ached and I felt so ruined, so hurt, and so dead inside.

“He’s supposed to love us,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I just don’t know anymore, sweetie. I really don’t know.” Her arms flew around me, pulling me to her as she continued on. “Cyril, we don’t have the answers to everything as humans. We pretend like we do and we pretend like we’re on the top of the world, but it’s true that we don’t. For a while now, I’ve felt like the way we’re raising you may be wrong.”

I didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Mom, what are you talking about?’

Sighing, she said, “I’ve been doing some reading since you met Avery. This whole last week I’ve been tearing apart the Bible, trying to find scriptures strictly on homosexuality, but do you want to know what I found?”

“Leviticus?”

“No,” she cried. “Nothing, Cyril. I went on this search because I realized that my whole life growing up I was told that it was wrong, but no one ever explained
why
. There answer was always, ‘Because the Bible says so,’ and I never had enough courage to question it. All the verses about homosexuality mean something completely different when looking at the context of the whole chapter. Over time…over time I started to believe it for no good reason, and now I feel like something about it is wrong, so I went searching. All of the things speaking about homosexuality aren’t speaking against it at all. In Leviticus, it was a holiness code, so they made those laws in order to honor God. In Romans, it was speaking of a town full of prostitutes having sex with everyone and was not just targeting homosexuality, but sexual immorality. I realize now that things have gotten so twisted with the translations over the years and I want you to know that I know that now.”

It took me a while to understand exactly what she meant because it all came out so fast. Was she telling me that homosexuality could possibly be okay?

“Mom, you don’t mean this,” I told her. “That does against everything you believe.”

“Sometimes you learn that what you believe isn’t really true,” she explained, hugging me again. “That’s why your father hasn’t been around lately. We’ve been fighting.”

Ah, so my suspicions were correct. My family was fighting over something that
I
had brought into the house. Pulling the covers back over my head, I said, “I need sleep. School’s tomorrow.”