Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Cam and Ford’s property seemed endless despite Ford telling me it was only about twenty acres.
Only twenty acres.
I’d managed to hide my surprise at his comment but having lived in places where there was more cement than grass most of my life, I’d been strangely excited to be off and exploring even as Ford had explained what was in each direction. I was glad when Ford hadn’t offered to come with me that first day despite clearly wanting to. He and I hadn’t talked for more than a few minutes since I’d arrived in Pelican Bay, which had been fine by me.
My encouragement that he must’ve had better things to do than babysit his new houseguest seemed to have gotten my message across.
The truth was that keeping my I’m great despite everything that happened since he’d punched me in that shed years ago mask in place was getting harder and harder every time I was around the young man who’d been my everything when we’d been kids.
For his part, Ford had respected my wishes and merely suggested which ponds and streams I should check out.
He wasn’t very good at masks.
Like, at all.
I suspected Cam had a lot to do with that. Not to mention their makeshift little family. It was hard to hide that kind of joy.
That passion.
Love.
Happiness.
I sighed as I began making my way toward the tiny waterfall and narrow stream I’d discovered the day before. It was a good half-mile walk, but despite how tired the exercise left me feeling, I needed that waterfall, that stream. I needed to hear the water caress the rocks; I needed to watch as the birds tentatively landed by the stream to take a drink. I needed to sit perfectly still as the forest eventually forgot my presence and came alive around me. It wasn’t like I was some fairytale princess covered in birds and surrounded by rabbits and such, but seeing even the tiniest of creatures peek its head out from its hiding place and approach the water despite my presence made me feel more alive than I had since Ford and I had kissed for the first time when we’d been teenagers.
The smile that tugged at my mouth felt foreign to me. In truth, I hadn’t thought much about my friendship-turned-more with Ford in a long time. I hadn’t allowed myself to. My friendship with Ford had been the brightest spot in my life for as long as I could remember. From the moment we’d met, no one would have called us two peas in a pod. Ford had always believed what he’d been told to believe while I’d always asked questions. Even though Ford had rarely had the answers to my endless queries, he’d always smiled and shaken his head. Then he’d walk me directly to the library, depending on whose hometown we were in, and sit for hours trying to help me find the answers to those endless questions.
But there was one subject Ford had always refused to talk to me about because he’d known the answer. It had been instilled in him from the time he’d been able to even understand the meaning of it and he’d been beyond horrified upon learning that, like me, he was afflicted with the same “impurity” that would destroy his entire life if he couldn’t get a handle on it.
Being gay was a sin and those who didn’t repent had a one-way ticket to hell.
I’d heard that argument dozens of times.
From Ford.
From my parents.
From my pastor and fellow parishioners.
There must have been something about the way I looked or behaved that had all those people reminding me on a nearly daily basis that God wouldn’t let me through those pearly gates if I even dared to look at someone of the same sex the wrong way, and yet not one of those people had explained why. The basic response had become like a record stuck on the same track. God hates fags and you’ll burn in hell.
As fucked up in the head as I’d become from the moment Ford had betrayed me in that athletic shed when he’d slammed his fist into my jaw, I’d never once questioned the one thing everyone had been warning me would be my downfall.
I was gay.
I’d known it from the moment Ford had pinned me on the grass when we’d been fourteen and we’d been wrestling for control of the football that we’d been tossing back and forth to each other.
I’d still been gay when Ford and I had kissed for the first time and the dozens of times after.
I’d been gay when I’d dropped to my knees and pulled Ford’s hard dick from his pants so I could finally taste him.
His beating when his older brother Jimmy had caught us, the silence of my disappointed parents that had followed even as blood had been pouring from my broken nose, my tears of pain as I’d tried not to move my broken arm, the “therapy” I’d been sent to that I’d known was a pray the gay away camp…