Tomorrow
David didn't remember a specific time when it occurred to him that he was gay. It seemed to him that the knowledge had come as a process, a slow understanding over time that deepened with each particular incident that further his suspicions. By the time he was certain, he had realized that some part of him had known all along. He had not been "learning" of his sexual orientation; he had simply had to take his time in accepting it.
There was the incident in sixth grade, when another boy in his class had pulled him and some others aside in the boys' locker room to show him a Playboy magazine, and David had looked at the centerfold with no interest or understanding of why the other boys gasped and groaned and showed such excitement at her display of skin. There was the fact that through the rest of middle school, and going into high school as well, David had found himself increasingly drawn towards watching the other boys undressed, sneaking glances at their bodies at the lockers near his or in the showers, how he had found himself drawn towards only biting or killing the girls, but not kissing or having sex with them. It had been thoughts and fantasies of his male classmates that had kept him up at night, and it was around them that he found himself feeling even more awkward and self-conscious than usual, certain that they saw right through him and were mocking his every movement, his every word and gesture.
He was not wrong. Before David himself understood or admitted to himself his sexual orientation, they appeared to have already noticed it themselves or to have decided upon a label, whether or not he gave them information or proof to ground it on. Based upon his appearance and his clothing, his mannerisms and his style of speaking, they called him a fag and a fairy, a queer and a queen, and his days were filled with such mocking and occasional roughness that it took considerable self-control for him not to lose control of his temper on every one of them, to show them just what he was capable of. He had thought that within his home, at least, he could hide his tendencies, that his parents had never found the magazines or videos hidden about his room, and to their credit they never spoke or asked him. His parents, though, he had always known would love and accept him for who he was, for who all their children were, and it had not been fear of their disapproval that kept David from speaking up.
It had been his own disappointment. He was not the sort of man he felt that he should be, and so even after his parents' death, even when it became almost physically painful to keep such a large part of him a secret when there were already so many other secrets to hold in, he did not speak up. Even when his siblings confronted him about the men they had seen him bring home, when the twins began to regularly refer to him with sly comments about homosexuality and to use homosexual slurs against him when angry, David said nothing. Tomorrow, he always thought, was the right time to come out, tomorrow would be the day.
But tomorrow never came, and in the end, it wasn't necessary to speak. His siblings knew, and gradually, they all settled into an understanding that became more respectful, more at ease, and coming out in an official manner would have seemed redundant, even ridiculous. Without a real conversation, they had somehow said it all.