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NoV: Warning: strong content ahead. This chapter deals with heavy stuff, guys.
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Phineas didn't make it until noon; he actually woke up at around ten-thirty. Unable to fall back asleep, I had been watching TV for the last three hours or so.
Finny stretched and cracked his knuckles. I informed him that Brinker, Leper and Ollie had ventured to the motel's game room.
"Why didn't you go with them?" he wondered, pulling on an extra pair of sweatpants.
I froze. I realized then that there was no feasible reason in the world for me to stay all alone in the room with my sleeping friend. I felt like I was breathing extraordinarily loudly. "I…um…didn't have any quarters," I said lamely.
Finny shrugged, but seemed to take this as a reasonable excuse.
I noticed that he was gathering his clothes together to form an outfit, so I wondered, "So, where are you going?" I hoped that my voice wasn't shaking. That I sounded as though I was just making conversation instead of genuinely wondering.
"Boardwalk," he answered. "You comin'?"
"Uh, no thanks," I replied, giving him a pathetic smile. I could hardly breathe just talking to him. I desperately needed some time alone to get my act together. This whole weekend was turning into a great disaster.
He shrugged and put on a toboggan. "See you in a few hours," he said.
"Hurry back," I instructed. Then panicking, I added, "I want to get home before midnight tonight."
He smiled, going out the door. "Okay," he said.
As soon as the door closed, I buried my face into my hands. Feeling like a complete moron and social failure, I headed for the shower. I dropped my clothing, feeling abnormally thin and weak. I turned on the shower, full on cold. When I stepped inside, two things hit me: the first was the shock of the freezing water, making me want to retract and jump out of the small space; the second was the heart-wrenching feeling that my hidden affections for my oldest friend, Phineas, were wrong. My whole life, I had been aware of the social stigma placed on such feelings. But, was it morally corrupt?
I had to stand outside of myself and look at how I had been living. Surely I couldn't help who I fell in love with….but was it still wrong.?
I raced from the shower, grabbing my pants from the floor and roughly pulling them on. I went into the main room of the hotel room, grateful to be alone. I searched through the drawers of the small desk for a book that I hadn't read since I was a child: the Bible. I found one and went immediately to the index, hoping to find a reference to homosexuality. No such luck. I flipped past the index and somehow found a few pages dealing with ethical questions. I read through them, skimmed over them, until I found one written by someone close to my age.
The entry read: "Timothy, 17. Indiana. 'Lately I've been having feelings of homosexuality. Am I going to go to hell? What should I do?'"
I gulped, worrying that the writer's answer was going to condemn me. What I read helped shape my life from then on out.
The response read: "First of all, you are not going to hell if you are saved. Many young people experience these same feelings as they are entering adulthood. But just as a married person shouldn't give in to temptations of adultery, you must not give into temptations of homosexuality."
I set the Bible down on the table. I felt as though everything had been put into a tangible perspective for me. All my months of worrying, headaches, desires could finally be put to rest. Now that I had identified my problem, I knew that I could overcome it. My temptations would be no match for my newfound willpower.
Just as I was about to return to my shower with a ridiculous grin on my face, the door to the room burst open with such force that I worried it might come off the hinges. Phineas came into the room with such grace and speed that he appeared to be coming in on his roller skates. I was reminded of a time when I complaining about his superior skating skills. We had been walking up a hill to school and at about the same time he had tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, tumbling over into a bush. As I helped him out of the shrubbery, he had said, with a weird smile, "I can skate; you can walk."
As he made his way toward the center of the room, I smiled inwardly. I couldn't wait to have my first conversation in months with him, without my lusty feelings clouding my head. "What'd you forget?" I wondered, glad that I didn't have to force myself to sound casual.
He sat down on the bed next to me, and with eyes that wiggled and pierced down into my soul, said, "I love you, Gene."
Shit.
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NoV: Please, please nobody be offended by this! I do not intend this to be prejudiced at all. I am probably the most open person you will ever meet, so please do not take this chapter as my personal opinion on the subject. I got the question and response from an actual Bible, and this chapter is very important to my plot. Otherwise, hope you enjoyed, and look for the next chapter very very soon!