The Chief And The Captain - Chapter 29 Twenty Nine

“Get out.” His father screamed at me when he saw me standing by the door. His fingers pointed at me, shaking. I could feel his rage from his eyes and all I could do was stare at him, my insides were churning in fear.

Rick stood between us, his hands clenched to a fist ready to pounce. “pa, be reasonable.” His face a mask of rage, his lips were bruised, almost bleeding.

“Reasonable?!” He snapped. “I don’t have a son who’s gay!”

Rick flinched. “Fine.” He took a step back, forcing me to move as well, back into his bedroom.

I knew rejection was inevitable, that it would take at least a few times for some people to understand, some would take forever, some wouldn’t. I knew it would not be as easy as my parents made it but I never did expect that it would be this painful. I could feel a stabbing pain in my chest, what more does Rick feel? His father, talking that way to him.

“Just say you don’t have a son I’d gladly leave..” Rick said through clenched teeth. He was about to shut the door when Raymond showed up.

“Calm down both of you.” He almost screamed, the veins in his temples were pulsating. “You” he looked at Rick “you told Dad to be reasonable, you should be too.” Then he turned to their father. “And you, why can’t you just accept it?”

“Why?! He’s gay. ” He looked past Rick and directly to me. “I can’t have a gay son. ” He looked at Rick. “Why can’t you just date Jessica like I told you?”

“I did, didn’t I?” Rick half shouted. “but it didn’t work out”

What does he mean by that?

“Stop.” Raymond raised his voice once more. “Pa, when mom left and you brought a new girlfriend, did we ever reject her? Did you hear us complain? We didn’t want mom to go but we wanted you to be happy.”

Rick’s dad looked at his younger son, a picture of his ex wife. “This is different.”

“It’s no different Pa, it’s my brother’s happiness, can’t you see?”

“No.” He shook his head violently. “This is different.”

“My brother finally admitted that he was capable of love, no whims like his ex girlfriends were, see?”

Their father heaved a sigh. “I can’t do this.” He turned to his heel and went to his room at the other end of the hall. I heard the door slam.

“That went well.” Raymond murmured. “Hi.” He then looked at me, gone were the anger on his face, he smiled at me like he was the biggest sunshine. No wonder Rick was so fond of him, he had the aura that you just can’t hate him “I’m Raymond.”

I pushed Rick to the side so I could reach a hand out to his brother. “Alvin”

“Your hands are cold. ” He chuckled. “Dad must have scared you.”

“Kind of. ” I gave him a smile.

“He’ll come around. ” He shrugged. “Let’s go have dinner?”

“We’ll be down in a minute.” Rick interrupted and pulled me back inside. He gently shut the door and faced me, worry etched on his face.

“I’m sorry. I knew it would be like this and I didn’t want you to see it.. but .. I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine. I understand. After all I did say that we’d do this together, right?”

“No, I shouldn’t have let you see this, he looked at you like”

I wrapped my arms around him, forcing him to look at me. “It’s important that we face your father, the way you did mine. How are we supposed to face the rest of the world if we couldn’t have the resolve to face our families?”

He didn’t answer but his eyes were agreeing with me.

“We’ll face far worse, more painful than that. We’ll be shamed, humiliated, ostracized. But we don’t care, as long as we are not hurting anyone, we are not doing anything wrong.”

He pulled me to him, closing the gap between us. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Thank you for being you.”

A smile spread on my be lips and I buried my face in his neck. “You’re welcome.”