I was so unbelievably embarrassed. I tried to imagine some plausible excuse, to manufacture some escape from my predicament, but my thoughts were shorted by bolts of panic.
Everyone knows, especially god, and they've already discussed what measures to take.
Something switched inside me, and I stopped struggling and let my feelings pull me down. I couldn't resist, I couldn't fight back, and so I gave up and just went home. When I got to my front door and rang the doorbell, my mother didn't answer. Of course; the one time I really needed her to be home, she wasn't. I unlocked our front door myself and went inside the apartment. It was the middle of a school day. I closed the front door, and walked to my parent's bedroom. I looked around at their furniture- my mother's dresser, my father's oak armoire, their wooden desk covered in bills; A letter opener atop the scattered, torn envelopes. Her jewelry box set open, I saw my mother's Virgin Mary resting at its lid, perched above her weeping-dish rosary.
I was overwhelmed.
I walked over to my parent's bed and hovered over its tucked perfection; Their down comforter, spread wide over the expensive parent-mattress, created a sprawling, soothing feather dune. Even the top layer was off-limits to my sister and me, let alone the hidden underbelly of delicate cotton sheets that were stretched under its cover. The visible level of pillows, for decorative purposed only, covered the hugging-pillows and thin-feather head pillows that my parents actually slept on.
In the darkness, I ran my fingers over the comforter by the foot of my parents bed. I felt woozy, a knot in my stomach, and in the dark room it was as though nothing was real. I clenched my hand around the comforter, and felt the feathers through the cool skin of the blanket. I renewed my grasp, grabbing all the layers of covering into a fist, and felt my hand on the underbelly of my parents' comfort.
I held on tight and tore my arm backwards like I was starting the engine of a motor boat. Pillows went tumbling starboard as the comforter came roaring off the bed in a reckless burst of adrenaline. I had broken open the bed's seal of freshness to revel the top sheet’s hospital corners. I grabbed underneath the remaining displaced pillows and ripped one side of the top sheet down to expose the innards of the bed. I wrapped the goose feather comforter and around my body, and protected by its cool membrane, climbed the heart of my parents' bed. I put my head on their pillows and tucked myself underneath the sheet, swimming in a burial of linen and feathers.
I stayed there, unable to relax or leave or sleep. I decided to just lie there and let my mother find me, wait for her to discover that I was in her bed. When she questioned me in surprise and concern, I'd respond by claiming asylum, telling her like a political prisoner, quite simply, "I defect."
She didn't come home. I lay there for over an hour staring at the lit orange numerals of the digital bedside clock. I was sweating under the heat of the down comforter, but I wouldn't move, willing it to be some kind of therapeutic, punitive sauna to address my worries and my trouble. At no particular time, a triangle of light slowly spread across the ceiling above my head. The bedroom door was creaking open, and my mother peeked her head cautiously into the room, as if she already sensed that something was wrong.
"Benjamin?" she offered tenuously into her own bedroom.
When I heard the sound of her voice, my eyes started to well up. A lump formed in my horizontal throat, and I couldn't answer my mother; I saw everything that was about to happen.
"What's going on- are you alright? Benjamin?" My mother lunged for the light switch and switched it on. "Oh my God," she whispered, and grabbed onto the down comforter I held over my ear. Pulling the blankets, she rolled my body toward her and her eyes darted to my own. "Oh my god, Benjamin- what's wrong?" she said.
"Mommy, I'm really in trouble, " I said at her, and sitting up, I threw my arms around her and started to cry. "Benjamin," she said in a shaky voice, "tell me what's going on- it's okay - calm down - tell me what it is."
I held her tightly and let myself go, releasing myself to the relief of my tears. She held me firmly and her voice calmed. "It's okay - tell mama what's going on," she cooed, and bringing me back to arms length, she studied my eyes and massaged my shoulders.
I wheezed, caught my breath, and as I settled, wiped the tears from the side of my face.
"It's just... It's New York," I lied, "I just...I can't make any friends here and I really can't keep...I dunno," I paused.
"Oh baby," she said, pulling me back to her chest, "I'm so sorry." She held me tightly again and apologized, "It was so unfair to do this to the two of you. I am so sorry."
I allowed myself a deep breath, and sampled the sweet relief of escape. It gave me a moment of respite, but I could feel its dark temptations leading me down the wrong path- a path even more painful than the one I was stuck on. I felt the lie arresting me, engulfing my air; it was bringing me farther from my mother, and myself. It's a time in my life that I truly feel that God was with me, showing me the way through my own heart, telling me to do what was right.
I held my mother tight, and went in the only direction I could.
"Mom, that's not it- I'm lying."
"What are you *talking* about?" she gaped, and she started to panic. "Benjy, what the hell is going on?"
"Mom, can I tell you? I mean, do you promise that you won't tell dad?"
"Benjy," she started to yell, "tell me what the hell is going *on*?"
"You have to promise"
"I promise," she cried, and I realized she was yelling at me, which she never did, "What??"
I took a couple of seconds and then told her: "I think that I'm a young homosexual."
She was silent, and kept her eyes on me as they started to tear. I heard her breathe.
"I know," she said, and she started to cry. She looked down as the first tear streamed down her face, and then she put her arms around me. We hugged each other tightly and cried together.
For that one moment, I really didn't know what was going to happen to me - at that instant, I would have believed anything.
But my mom was there, and she told me later that she believed God was with her. She swallowed, and wiped the tears into her cheeks and back up into her hair.
"It's okay, Benjamin," she said as she pulled me back to arms distance. "This is not your fault."
"Promise you won't tell dad?" I begged, starting to cry again.
"I promise - I promise. shhhhh," my mom had stopped crying, and she held me tightly as I sobbed. "It's okay, it's okay," She said, and pulled me to back to arms length,
"Everything's going to be okay," she said to me. "But first, I need you to know that this is not your fault."
Then I started to nod and my crying slowed. I moved toward her again, and holding each other, we stared over each others shoulders and were silent. She started to rock me slowly from side to side.
"We're going to take care of you," she said, and I stayed quiet.
I knew what she meant, and I was scared.
