Page 1 of Just Is Not Enough

Chapter One

Anxiety Is My Middle Name

Kaden

Siblingscanbeannoying,or really pushy in Lanie’s case. She is always making me do things I don’t want to do to make me step out of my comfort zone. I know she means well. Lanie is the best little sister I could have asked for, more so my best friend.

She knows me better than anyone, sometimes more than I know myself. Lanie knows I don’t like being in big crowds. The thought alone makes me anxious. Peopling is not my thing. I get to do enough of that at work. Dealing with people in my personal time is limited to my inner circle as much as possible.

Being a dentist, I am with people all day. One-on-one is easier though, and they usually have my hands in their mouths. At least there, I don’t have to talk about myself. I can mindlessly make small talk about their dental hygiene and the weather, if necessary.

Meeting new people, in a casual setting? I get all in my head and forget to listen to the conversation. Ask me their name a minute after they told me, and I will have no clue. I’ve convinced myself I can’t be the only person like this.

Lucky me to have a sister who happens to be the most outgoing person I have ever met. The social butterfly at every event. She knows when I zone out and saves me every time by taking the attention off me and onto her in some way. One time she even jumped on the nearest bar stool, dancing and making a spectacle of herself. We are different in many ways but so in tune with each other at the same time. She’s the type of fun I want to be.

Mom always said, ‘I made sure to put some extra spice in Lanie’s DNA to keep us on our toes since you were such an easy baby. I may have put too much.'

That’s me, always ‘the easy child.' The quiet, straight-A student who never made my parents worry about a thing. My sister being the wild one gave them enough worries for both of us. I added what I thought to be my first worry to the list by coming out senior year of high school.

To say they were not surprised would be an understatement. After working myself up with courage, I had ran into the living room and blurted out ‘I’m gay’ with my eyes shut. I held my breath for a few moments, trying to not let the anxiety build up waiting to hear their reaction.

It wasn’t that I thought my parents would be the kind of people to disown their child for being gay, far from it. My parents were two of the coolest people around, but I worried about adding more stress to their plate knowing how queer people were treated in our society at the time. Shit, it’s still not much better now.

When I had finally opened my eyes, Dad said, ‘Was that supposed to be a secret? Do I need to act surprised?’ looking to my mother for the right answer.

Ignoring my father, Mom walked over to hug me. ‘Kaden, honey, I am so glad you worked up the courage to say it out loud. I knew you would get there on your own. I’m proud of you, baby.’ Always the nurturer. Anyone that knows her never wonders why she became a nurse.

I loved my parents even more for making it easy after my internal meltdown. At the time, Lanie was the only person whoI thoughtknew. I guess I’m worse at hiding things than I thought.

Not that I am ashamed of being gay in any way, but teenagers can be the worst. Growing up in a southern state didn’t help either. Some southerners’ mentality about queer people can be worse than others. Maybe not so much in the bigger cities, but in the outskirts of the cities in the rural areas you see it more often. Hearing ‘you’re so gay’ as an insult when someone did some dumb shit was practically a daily occurrence walking through the halls at school.

Waiting until graduation to come out was my personal preference. Starting college an out, gay man represented a ‘new me’ of sorts. It was slow going at first, trying to meet new people always induced stress. I joined the LGBTQ+ club the second week of the first semester, which was a big step in and of itself. Everyone was very welcoming and sensitive with my social anxiety. I wouldn’t say it was smooth sailing from there, but I had a lot of support. Having my best friends since middle school attending the same college was helpful, too. We all had different majors but tried to take any classes we had in common together if we could. Ender is far less social than I am, but Connor makes up for the both of us.

When I graduated Dental School and started working at my Aunt Olivia’s practice, I emerged as a somewhat confident gay man. Well not exactly at first, but that’s a story for another time.

I have no issues meeting guys to hook up with or get my dick sucked. There are plenty of apps or clubs that I can go get a quick fix anytime I want. Dating men long term is a completely different story. You’re not likely to meet someone wanting a monogamous long-term commitment with either of those options. They are full of fuckboys.

Either way, no one has ever given me those sparks or butterflies everyone talks about. I honestly don’t believe in them at this point. Lanie on the other hand does, so she insists on dragging me to every social event she can in hopes of finding me, ‘Mr. Right.’ I don’t bother protesting any more. If I do, she gets even feistier than her normal self.

Which leads me to my current situation. The Singles Jingle Bell Mingle party some local radio station is throwing the weekend prior to Christmas. Lanie swears it’s going to be the place we meet our forevers. The ever optimistic, hopeless romantic in her. She swears it will rub off on me one of these days.

She insists the only reason we haven’t met our lobsters yet, my sister and herFriendsaddiction, is because whenever we go out people always assume we are a couple and avoid us. We are always laughing and having so much fun together I guess it looks like we’re ‘together.’ It’s weird when people make that mistake. Tonight, she says she has the solution to that little problem. I can’t say I’m not terrified to see what she comes up with.

Chapter Two

I Followed My Own Path

Luke

Whyismyfamilyso interested in my love life? Does everyone think I need to settle down by the time I turn 30 in a couple months, or will a catastrophe occur? Like the world would end if I don’t get married and have kids as soon as possible. “Find a wife and have babies. I want to be a grandma while I can still have fun with them,” Mom says on repeat every time I see her. It sounds weird coming from her. They wonder why I don’t visit more often.

Jackson is all about finding a wife, having 2.5 kids and a big house with a white picket fence. Don’t get me wrong, I love my younger brother. He means more to me than anyone in this world. But I’m the ‘rebellious bachelor’ son that only visits a few times a year, even though I live less than an hour away, that everyone worries about. My brother and I may think differently about relationships, but we are more alike than we would usually admit.

While he appeases my mother with her constantly sticking her nose in our personal lives, I hear ‘Are you dating?’ and ‘I can introduce you to that nice girl at the church, you know, Lucy’s daughter. Didn’t you go to middle school with her?’ far more often from my mother’s meddling. Sometimes the pressure gets to be too much to bother engaging in any conversations with her. It doesn’t help that my parents act like we had the perfect childhood.

A tiny town outside Lancaster that I called home, where my parents still live, felt smaller than a shoebox to me. Getting out and moving to Charlotte was the best thing I could have done on my eighteenth birthday. I moved in with my mother’s hippie sister, Aunt Brenda, and her wife Grace. Working in their café in NoDa those first few years laid the foundation for where my career is today.

I always knew I didn’t want to be a police officer like most of my family were, going back generations. I was more at home in the kitchen than anywhere else growing up. I learned basic cooking skills from my Aunt Brenda but watching as many cooking shows as I could helped a lot. I was creating my own recipes around the time I entered high school. After a couple years, my dishes were always a success at the dinner table.

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