Page 8 of Teach Me

I bent down, retied my shoelace, and set off for home.

There was a tinge of spring in the air as I walked across the U’s main quad, and everyone was taking advantage of it ahead of an arctic blast that was rumored to be arriving next week. A bunch of Sigmas were playing a pickup game of flag football. I sketched a wave to the ones I recognized. I’d bailed on the frat when I’d returned to the U, unsure initially whether I could handle all the partying, that the temptation might be too strong. As it turned out, the only thing I’d really missed was the camaraderie, but I’d fucked that up, and there was no going back. It’d taken me months to get back on better footing with Mark and Nate, and while the rest of the Sigmas were chill, it had been immediately apparent when I returned that I just didn’t fit in there anymore. I had no idea where I fit now, but I was certain it wasn’t in a fraternity.

I scanned the players, trying to find Sam among them. The guy lived for anything sports related, which was why him coupling up with Jesse had caught me off guard at first. I tried hard to forget I’d basically offered myself up to Jesse once, but neither of them made it weird, and I fucking adored them for that. Offering no-strings to Jesse had been a sort of misguided attempt to ease into hookup culture, which seemed to be the prominent MO of half the campus. Jesse had felt safe in a way I couldn’t explain, though I’d never truly crushed on him. Butonce he and Sam had made it official and I’d seen them around each other, they made total sense, like puzzle pieces that slotted together perfectly. Or yin and yang. I didn’t know how the fuck anyone found that. Maybe the answer was that it wasn’t something you could seek out. It either found you or it didn’t, and I was starting to get the idea I was a lost cause.

“Cam, wanna join?” Eddie Fisk shouted, and I shook my head, holding up my phone as the silly excuse it was.

I moved on, glancing through my notifications, then sighed as I punched my parents’ number and steeled myself. I’d put off returning their weekly call for as long as I could. Despite sending them texts a couple of times a week and always answering theirs, if I waited too long to speak to them on the phone so they could hear my voice, they’d start calling incessantly.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted cautiously as the call connected.

“Hi, dear! Gosh, I’m glad you called. I was starting to get a little worried.” Her voice, although warm, was tinged with concern that’d become familiar to me since I’d returned to campus. It wasn’t unwarranted, given how sophomore year had gone, but sometimes I wondered if it would be this way forever, them always on tenterhooks, expecting me to relapse at any moment.

The therapist I’d seen after I returned to the U had told me to give them grace, whenever possible, because they were dealing with two blindsiding events. My overdose and the fact that I wasn’t straight. For the first several months I’d been back in Silver Ridge against their wishes, I’d taken weekly drug tests and sent them the results, trying to ease their mind. But it didn’t seem to make any difference, so I quit.

“How are your classes?”

This was our routine. My schoolwork, polite questions about my social life, and then eventually, we’d get to sobriety, if I still thought returning to the U was the best thing, was I sure I didn’twant to come back home and reconsider seminary or equivalent work within the church or a less secular field. The answer to the latter questions had been no for a long time.

Today, once we’d covered all the usual bases, she paused and then said, “I’ve just left a support group.”

“Oh?” The last support group she’d gone to had been through her church, and while they weren’t outwardly homophobic, there had been an underlying implication that if I would just stick to going to church regularly, switch to religious studies, especially at a college that was religiously affiliated, I would magically no longer be a gay recovering pillhead.

“It’s a new one, not through the church. It’s only parents with LGBTQ kids who are struggling with addiction or their sexuality.”

I gritted my teeth but kept my voice even. “Do you mean the kids are struggling with their sexuality or the parents are?”

“Cam.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

“Thank you for the apology, sweetheart. There’s no need to get worked up.”

We’d had this conversation a hundred times, and I kept trying to be patient, but holy shit, sometimes I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. I was grateful that they’d taken care of me and gotten me the help I needed when I’d spun out of control, but rehab hadn’t changed the fact that I was gay or that I had no interest in centering religion in my life, particularly their brand of religion.

God, I missed freshman year, before I’d taken that first stupid pill Ronnie Meecham had offered me outside a frat mixer. So fucking stupid. “What I was trying to say,” my mom continued, “is that I like it more than the other groupbecause of the LGBTQ aspect. It made me feel less alone, more understood.”

I scraped my teeth over my lower lip to keep from saying anything harsh. I’d wrestled with my sexuality throughout middle school, high school, and the early part of freshman year. I hated that there was a struggle at all or that my parents would struggle with who I was attracted to, so that even now, with all the progress made, the word “struggle” could still be so easily attached to anything that wasn’t heterosexual. I hated that I’d ever felt ashamed of my sexuality. I hated that I’d felt like I’d had to take pills and drink a shit ton to shut down my brain long enough to explore and satisfy the sexual urges I’d had since I was thirteen. Which was why, when I’d decided to transfer back to the U from the little community college I’d attended in my hometown after rehab, I’d changed my major immediately. I wanted to help people try to figure out who they really were and what they really wanted out of life, help those struggling break through the coded messages they’d been receiving all of their lives. My primary problem hadn’t been pills. The pills were a shitty solution to a larger struggle, which had been merging my sexuality into my reality and unraveling my own internalized homophobia.

“That’s really nice, then. I’m glad you found the group.”

“I was wondering if you might consider going to a meeting with me when you’re here for spring break?”

“Mom, I told you, I’m probably going to just stay here and work over spring break. And there’s also the queer outreach?—”

“Do you have to use that term? It’s so crass.”

My jaw tightened as frustration bubbled inside me. “As I was saying, there’s an outreach event for students staying on campus over the break.”

“Will there be alcohol or drugs there?”

“No, Mom.” I winced at the suspicion in her voice. “It’s not that kind of event. It’s during the day, and there will be plenty of faculty attending, as well.”

“Well, you have a home and parents you can visit, so we’d like for you to make time for us. It’ll be a good time to talk over your summer plans, too.”

I’d stayed with them for a week over Christmas and could hardly wait to get back to Silver Ridge. Every visit seemed like another reminder of how far we’d drifted apart.

I started to tell her I was uninterested, that I was in a different place in my life than she was. I’d worked through a lot of guilt and shame over the last year, but mom guilt was still a struggle. “Okay, Mom. We’ll work something out. Hey, listen, I’m almost home, so I’m going to let you go. Tell Dad hey for me.”