All About Tyrese (COMPLETED)

Seven

After a long day's work at the training facility here in Seattle, my mind began to wander back to when I lived in Mississippi. When life was carefree, and I had no worries. I remember running out into the fields in front of my childhood home, and I remember hanging out with my dad and watching football and going to little league football practice. Those were some of the good things that happened when my life was carefree, but during those years, especially my teenage years is when my life began to take a turn for the worst. I started to have feelings for the same sex. I was brave enough to have a talk with my father and let him know how I felt. I decided to ask him to take us on a hunting trip. My dad and I had a couple of beers (even though I was underage, it was between us), and we hunted in the backwoods of Mississippi. Once we were far away from everyone, I decided I would let him know my true feelings in the middle of the woods. I explained to him that I was attracted to both men and women. Almost instantly, my dad exploded like an atomic bomb.

"No, Son of mine is going to be a FAG! This must be a phase you're going through!" he screamed at me as we stood in the middle of the woods.

I stood there, and I stared at him. I didn't cry or show my feelings because that wouldn't only make the situation worse. Therefore, I pushed my feelings deep down within me. I suppressed the sadness and anger in me, and slowly through the years, it began to fester into something evil. To make matters worse, I was raped by one of my older cousins. We were hanging out, drinking, and having a good time. I remember it like it was yesterday; I was a sophomore in high school, I was still scrawny, and I had not hit puberty yet. I distinctly remember him sniffing up a white powdery substance off of the coffee table in front of him. I stared at him in confusion as he slowly began to take his clothes off.

"Alight, Imma head home." I smiled nervously as I grabbed my keys, phone, and my bookbag.

"You ain't finna go nowhere," he smirked as he held his dick in his hand.

I stared into his eyes, and they were dilated from the drugs he ingested into his body. It pains me to discuss the details of the encounter even to this day. Sometimes I have fits of rage, and maybe I feel like it's because I have never dealt with the emotions I kept pushing down within me. Around this time in my life, when I began to take football seriously, I began to have a growth spurt, and I was in the gym religiously every day, even on Sundays after church. This gave me validation, especially when I saw my dad scream and beam with pride as I ran up and down the field during football games at my high School. Even during the brightest times in my life, I was still in a dark place. When I accepted a full scholarship to play football at the University of Mississippi or was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, I carried all of this around with me. Now at age twenty-three, I decided I would take matters into my own hands, I was no the breadwinner in the family, and I called the shots. I paid everyone's bills and had control of living my life the way I wanted to live it.

As I pulled up to my apartment building downtown Seattle, I decided to call it off with my girlfriend. She was a cheerleader for the Seattle Seahawks, and I refuse to speak her name in fear of revealing her identity. I decided it would be best to end things amicably to focus solely on one goal of mine...making Tyrese mine and finally standing up to my father and accepting the past. I needed to stop being in denial about everything that has happened to me, and this was the first big step to realizing that I needed to break up with my fake girlfriend. I needed to kill the hurt in me that was festering and occasionally showing itself through angry outbursts. I needed to put my heart back together, piece by piece...