Logan sits at the dinner table looking between his parents. The cups of tea are growing cold on the table as Logan gives several false starts to what he’s trying to say.
“It’s…a few things…” He mumbles, followed by silence.
The creeks and moans of the old house always grow louder when the family is at a loss for words. The layers of wood and brick and old insulation that have been in their family for a century almost become part of the conversation, the house putting in it’s own quiet two cents. Tonight, it’s grumbling, maybe about Logan’s predicament, maybe about the mice in the basement.
“You know…” Logan finally speaks again, his voice sounding louder than reality for a moment, breaking the pause.
“I’m failing English…” He offers, looking defeated. Kelly and Michael share a look, but don’t interrupt yet. It’s not like Logan to do badly in a class, but they’re far more surprised at the idea that he’d think they’d be…mad? No, that doesn’t make sense.
When his parents say nothing, Logan continues.
“And I hate living in my dorm.”
Alright, that made some sense, sort of, but the world was on lock-down, living in his dorm couldn’t be an issue now.
“The showers are down the hall and you have to carry your stuff and change in a weird kind of communal space.”
Another pause.
“Like, it’s private! But it’s also not? Like a pool changing room? Or public bathroom? It grosses me out!”
Logan is on a roll now. His parents nod sympathetically as he vents, letting him go.
“And I hate this lock-down, I miss the grocery store! I didn’t think I would and now I do!”
Fair enough. No one is enjoying the current situation.
“And- and David! I called him when I got back home! And everything was fine until I mentioned a guy on campus asked me out! I was just laughing about it and…” Logan is looking hard at his parents’ faces, trying to gauge their feelings. “I’m not even gay! I don’t think? I don’t know! I didn’t say yes!”
Logan grows more and more animated, all the bundled up feelings of the last few weeks coming rapidly to the surface.
“But David got really grossed out! And said some really awful stuff! We’ve been friends since like, eighth grade and I didn’t know he felt that way! And then…I realized I didn’t know how my mom and dad felt either, and maybe I had this whole idea of how everyone thought and then wham! I find out my best friend is a homophobe! How were we friends for years and years and I didn’t even…”
Logan is experiencing a paradigm shift. A nasty, frustrating paradigm shift.
He slumps, and puts his head in his hands, speaking into them. “That whole friendship is just gone…we fought…and…”
Kelly puts an arm around her son, Michael gives her a hopeless look. Neither of them know what to do, their son’s world has just expanded rapidly, and he’s gotten hurt in the process. It’s easy for a twenty-something to think everyone thinks the same way, especially if they’ve never been challenged. ‘Homophobe’, to Logan, was a word for a nasty little Disney villain type out there, kicking puppies and picketing parades. To another kid, ‘Homophobe’ is something some self righteous little shit throws around as a way of saying ‘less open-minded than myself’. Both of those kids are wrong, and both of them have to learn it sometime. Sadly, for Logan, he’s lost a friend to the process.
Despite the fact neither parent fully knows where they stand or how they feel yet, they affirm that David shouldn’t have said those things.
Kelly and Michael later stay up, sitting and reading through several advice columns and Reddit threads about having gay kids. Logan hadn’t come out to them, but he had admitted he didn’t know what he was, so they decide to get ahead and read up just in case. Would either of them have really cared or been upset if Logan brought home a boyfriend? No…but they also wouldn’t have been prepared for it. The thought hadn’t even crossed their minds.
The age of the internet is strange. Logan had an entire belief system built on the part of the internet he used in high school. David had his own, and Kelly and Michael didn’t experience either. All they can do now is go to research on the exact thing that cause the whole situation and try and be more prepared. This is a mess.
Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them
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