All The Things You Said (gxg)

After College Continued

The next day Kyla called me in the morning.

"Babe, I'm sorry about last night." she said, "I didn't mean to get so mad at you, and I understand why you were upset. Can we move past it?"

"Yes." I said, "We can move past it. I'm sorry as well."

I was feeling tired. And I just wanted to not have any issues with Kyla at the moment.

Kyla and I didn't argue a lot- and even if we did, she always wanted to just move past it right away.

After I hung up, the thought of Max being in my car last night flooded my mind.

Should I have told Kyla? No. There's no reason to.

And I knew Max wouldn't tell Kyla either.

I was also glad that Kyla and I resolved our issues because I wasn't going to be seeing her all weekend. She was going to Ocean City Maryland for three days with some of her friends from law school.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do that weekend. Friday night I worked, and Jamal pointed out that I seemed down.

"I'm just really in my head about a lot of things." I said to him. I had told him about Max, and how she was Kyla's Paralegal.

"Is that thing by chance a certain female whose name starts with an M and ends with an X?" Jamal gave me a knowing look.

"I plead the fifth?" I said.

"Nope. That's not going to work for me." Jamal said, as customers walked in.

We helped them, and after they left Jamal said, "Kyla is gone this weekend, right? Let's do something tomorrow night, we both don't work. Let's have some fun. You can invite McKinley if you want to also."

"McKinley is going to a wedding this weekend, so count her out." I said, "But I would love to go out and do something- get my mind off everything happening."

"We will have a blast." Jamal smiled at me.

Jamal and I went to a town called New Hope the next night. New Hope is very LGBTQ+ friendly, and there are lots of bars and restaurants to go to.

When I texted Kyla that I was going out, she responded to me saying to have fun. Kyla never minded when I went out, and she even encouraged it.

Jamal and I went to a bar, and got seats toward the end of the bar. It was very crowded- there were pool tables as well, and the upstairs, that was visible from down below, had tables where people were being served food.

"How has it been at home with your mom and dad?" Jamal asked me, over the loud Rock music that was playing.

"It's been okay so far." I said, "As I've told you, my dad has really come around. Him getting cancer two years ago really seemed to change his mindset. I can tell he is still not 100% there, but he's about 80% there with acceptance."

"And your mom?"

"That's a work in progress. My dad said she wants to work on the relationship, but I don't see much effort. Then again, I could be putting in more effort as well." I said.

"She will come around." Jamal said, "You know at first my mom was not thrilled about me being gay. But she has fully come around to it. Times have changed, babe. Gay marriage is legal. It's not like how it was back in the early 2000's."

"You're right." I said, "Even in the media, look at how much more representation there is. We didn't have that back in middle school and even high school."

"It's nice for the younger generation as well now." I said, "I think about my niece, and if she happens to be LGBTQ. Things will be easier for her."

Jamal started to speak, but my eye caught two girls walking into the bar.