Page 139 of If This Gets Out

“STOP IT!” I roar, snapping back into focus. “I know, okay? I know I did something stupid, but it happened, and it happened for areason.”

“You stand there and youdareto—”

“I don’t need this,” I cut her off. “I need support right now. I’m not a fucking idiot. I know what happened! The last thing I need is to hear it again from you!”

“Well, guess what, Ruben, this isn’t just about you—”

“Today it is,” I yell over her. “Today I just came out to the world and I’m getting sued by my management team, which means today it’sall about me.”

“Just like the rest of your life is, huh?”

Three things strike me simultaneously.

One: it feels wonderful to say what I’m really thinking, for maybe the first time while my feet are planted on these floors.

Two: shouting back at her hasn’t made things worse. She barely seems to notice I’ve fought back. The room didn’t catch aflame. She isn’t going to physically hurt me. She’s simply screaming, exactly as she always does. Terrible, but no more terrible than it was when I didn’t stand up for myself.

Three: I don’t need to stand here and be screamed at if I don’t want to.

So, I turn on my heel and go right back out the front door. “I’m going for a walk.”

I slam the door in the face of her reply.

I sit in the park for a while, watching the sun slowly set. As the darkness creeps in, fear starts to scrape at my chest with shadowy fingers.Maybe yelling back only went okay because shewas so shocked. Maybe you’ve made it worse. Maybe when you go back, she’ll have something planned to make you regret what you did.

But if that’s the case, I can leave again. I can go to a hotel, I can go to Jon, I can even go to Zach in Portland.

It’s okay for me to leave.

So, psyching myself up with this mantra, I walk back home.

Mom and Dad are both on the couch watching TV when I enter. There’s no yelling. Mom looks up at me with a cloudy face, but all the redness is gone. Dad places a hand on her arm, and neither of them speak.

“I’ve been wanting to come out publicly since I was sixteen,” I say, by way of a greeting. “Chorus never let me. Whenever I tried to push back, they pushed me further into the background in the band. They make me dress plainly. They won’t give me any good solos. They never wanted me to be too big, just in case people saw too much of who I really am. When we got overseas, it got bad. They didn’t let us leave the hotel. They stopped allowing us to have visitors or speak to friends. They didn’t make time for us to eat every meal. Then, when Zach and I happened, they turned on us even more. They basically told us we could never make it public. They lied to the media about our personal lives, and forced us to lie, too. They separated us in public, and they punished us if we even looked at each other onstage.”

My throat is tightening, and it’s getting hard to force the words out. Usually, I’d swallow the sensation down, and breathe until everything loosened up. Instead, now, for the first time in a long, long time, instead of my emotions coming out in a tangle of anger and anxiety, I don’t fight them.

“I decided to come out anyway,” I say, the words fractured. “Which isnotagainst our contract terms. It was so,so important to me that I don’t have to lie about myself anymore. I want to bemyself.I want to be allowed to have boyfriends without hiding them. And then… I… started… and they turned my mic off.”

The anger has disappeared from Mom’s face. Dad’s nodding, but it’s a severe sort of nod. A funeral nod.

Finally, tears well up in my eyes. And I don’t fight them.

For the first time in a long, long time, I just let them fall.

“They turned my mic off,” I repeat helplessly.

Mom rises to her feet and wraps her arms around me. I fall against her chest, and everything feels hot and humid and wet. The tears flow more freely now, and I break into sobs as she rubs a flattened palm over my back.

At least she’s stopped screaming at me. It won’t be the last time she does it, but at least, in this moment, I don’t have to deal with her fury on top of everything else. Right now, I’ll take it.

“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs.

I don’t know how to believe her. But I try.

Jon’s mom calls a group meeting at her sister’s apartment in Orange County the next day.

When Mom and I arrive, Zach and his mom, Laura, are already there. Dad wanted to come with us, but he had to work and Mom convinced him she’d give him the rundown when she got home.

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