Todd Anderson paced around the theatre as his boyfriend tried to explain something he otherwise thought was idiotic. Neil was at the stage in his relationship where he felt it was necessary for his significant other to meet his parents. Todd, being the gay ball of anxious disaster he was, quickly said no and paced as he thought of logical rebuttals.
Maybe a few 'my mom wouldn't want me missing dinner's and 'I wouldn't want to keep you away from your family' s would do the trick. Truth was, Mrs. Anderson didn't like the hassle of making food for twenty plus people so she always let the family go to her sister's and Neil wasn't too fond of his own family.
"Todd," Neil frowned as he watched him walk around even faster, almost resembling a hyperactive chihuahua. "My love, I'm trying to talk here. I don't think you could hear me with the air swishing in and out your ears."
"Keep talking, I'm fine," Todd stumbled on his words. After passing a few times Neil decided to stop him. Todd sighed uneasily before making eye contact with Neil. "Neil, I don't think taking me to meet your family is a good idea."
"Why?"
"Why? Because if I remember correctly your dad has this whole future planned out for you and I don't fit into the picture. I...I just don't want to be reminded of that, alright?" Todd bit his bottom lip as he looked away, almost gnawing it to the point of drawing blood. "Excuses aside you wouldn't take as bait...I mean what I say this time. I care about you too much to have your dad tell you I'm not the type of friend you should have if you want to be a doctor. And then, if they can't take the awkward silence, they'll ask about any girls that have caught your interest. And you'll have to lie, I'll have to listen."
Neil nodded slowly, fully understanding Todd's concerns. "What...what if they didn't ask? You would come then?"
"Neil, you can't guarantee anything," his eyebrows raised as he spoke, indicating he was ready to start getting passionate with his message, no matter the tone and volume for everyone else in the theatre to hear.
"I could talk to them."
"When have you ever faced your parents?"
He hadn't intended the words to come out sharper than they did but the diction tore through Neil's chest in a way both gruesome and insensitive. Todd pursed his lips as Neil blinked back in disbelief. "You don't need to get aggressive, just say you don't want to go and leave it at that."
"That's all I've been saying!"
"Fine," Neil looked away with a smile on his face, one that had no trace of content and made fire dance inside his brown eyes. "I have to go run lines with Ginny, I'll talk to you later."
"Wait!" Todd hesitantly reached out. "What if we go to thanksgiving dinner...with other people?"
Neil put his Puck crown on and started walking away, jittery, Todd followed. "Listen, alright? I have a friend who's family loves thanksgiving dinner but she can't bring her girlfriend cuz her family doesn't know she's gay. So we got to talking the other day and at first I wasn't going to suggest it but now you're getting mad and I think this will fix it. How about you go to the dinner with Maeve? You told your parents you'd take someone so that's done for, and I could take Layla. Like a relationship swap, me and Layla, you and Maeve. And we can pretend...we're normal, for your parents."
"I'm perfectly normal, Todd. The internalized homophobia is still pretty integrated in you, I see," Neil walked up the stairs to go to the back. Todd spluttered in shock:
"Says you! And internalized homophobia? I meant what's normal for your parents. Obviously they're not going to like us going around making out on their couch, they wouldn't like it equally if I was a girl too! I'm just saying...wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice to finally feel accepted by your parents? It might just be my desperate need for validation talking but a few hours and food would hurt the way I feel about you."
"Hm, erase my gayness for a couple hours. I'll think about it," Neil joked, with an undertone of aggressiveness. "Now, how do I unsuck your dick? I haven't found the page in my anti-gay bible."
"Neil!" Todd's eyes widened in disbelief. He went beet red, but just as his words to explain how Neil's words could've been caught out of proportion to anyone that was eavesdropping, Neil let out a belly-aching cackle at the look of horror on Todd's face. Todd's face shifted onto amusement as Neil walked passed him and went on with his day as if nothing he had said was somehow incriminating. He walked himself back down the steps and took a seat in the front row. And just like that Neil turned into Puck and Todd watched him act his heart out.
This is one of the things Todd loved about Neil.
But again, his list of things he loved about Neil put the Library of Congress to shame.
The phone kept on ringing as Mr. Hall did his paperwork and fixed his folders into the new office Eivind had given away. He got particularly ticked off the more it rung and the louder it seemed to get in the inside of his skull. I had suspicions about who would be on the other side, it gave him more the reason to not answer. Call number three, which sounded more desperate than the others, he disconnected the lines in the entire house. His head was pounding dementedly.
His pen scribbled away as Sigrid put the last pile of her clothes away. Her thoughts ran incessantly, of Charlie and his plans to run for the hills. Of Theresa and her murderous precession in destruction. She wanted to call, but she had no idea to who and what time. If she was at Welton she'd be in the middle of Latin but instead she was deciding what to put in her donation box. It wasn't like they were dozens of states away.
Still, she couldn't call during Thanksgiving break in the fear that Theresa would answer. What if he was long gone by then? She wouldn't be able to live with herself. She feared she'd follow behind him.
Following blindly was one of her many talents. It's called the art of vulnerability.
Downstairs, Eivind read his daily magazine with a cup of black coffee in his non-dominant hand. He didn't like sugar in his coffee, so the black hole he usually drank spiraled him into a more than mild coffee addiction, he couldn't go anywhere without his cup of coffee in the morning.
Away from the rich man's world they just might make it.
This is a metaphysic declaration left from my
Lips as my mind roves wantonly.
My thoughts drove themselves out of control
Down streets I'm unaccustomed to.
When is my dead end?
Why is it my dead end?
Where is my dead end?
Who is my dead end?
The render is set in my stomach,
Rummaging for answers with the lights off.
Screaming meaningless lyrics from mountain tops,
When thoughts hit ninety and the cops
Grow tired.
Its silent with deceit for a little while,
Convinced this won't end soon.
If ever,
Turning on the demister as the rain goes nebular
But the last thing I want is to kill the messanger.
I'm here, I'm there, I'm in every corner of the world
Except next to the people I love.
I wonder, how quick I am to shove my feelings under rugs
And tug my hair in closed rooms. Where no one can hear me,
See me, touch me. It feels like a glove, in which I'm the hand
Suffering. Sweating, clammy. Surgical, man he
Could really get me to worry for a while.
I think it'd be lovely to be somewhere no one could follow,
And smile on those mountains tops I scream the lyrics to songs
I've grown detached to. I think, I wish, I wonder, I desire.
I crave, I lust, I love, I detest it all in the end.
New York feels like a safe place,
A city, a state, so big no one could find me.
But I need to stop running,
At least,
I need to stop running away from myself.
And all I want to do at the end of the day,
With the lights off,
With the screamed lyrics in the background of my roved thoughts,
With the car crashing on the dead end,
And that messanger's blood on my gloved hands,
Is stare myself in the mirror
And find suffixes for all the pleasure I'd have
To pack my bags and "start" all over again.
How I pray for New York.
Tick tock. 10 o'clock, Sigrid looked at the empty chair at the far end of the table. The Hall-Farrow's didn't celebrate Thanksgiving but dinner was at its usual time. It had become a tradition. Peter Benjamin wasn't home, which she wouldn't have cared about if it weren't so late. He didn't know many people in town and he wasn't old enough to go to night clubs. She wondered if he had snuck his way in. She grew more distressed by the minute.
"That face looks troublesome," Eivind murmured as he picked at her plate. She blinked a couple times before humming in confusion, "Daydreaming huh? I promise the turkey isn't that good, Siggy."
"Not that," she gave a small smile. "I already know turkey is dry, it's nothing special."
"Then what?" he moved her plate closer to himself. She'd been eating sweet cherry pie Miss Dorothy had made. "You've been blanking out all day. It's either you're not getting enough sleep or you're wishing you celebrated so you could stuff your cheeks with mashed potatoes," he pinched one of her cheeks, earning a swat to the hand and angry eyebrows in return.
"I'm just thinking."
"I think too," he covered his mouth to avoid chewing coming to her sight. "But it doesn't prevent me from doing everyday tasks."
"Especially eating," she snorted as she looked at the empty plate.
"You got that right!"
"No talking at the table," Mr. Hall interrupted. Eyebrows creasing as he twirled his fork into his spaghetti. They both tsked in dismissal. Mr. Hall smiled, "Unless you let me hear."
"Sigrid said she wants another slice of pie."
"Vinnie I did not say-
"Miss Dorothy, please get Sigrid another slice of pie," Mr. Hall called out. The small woman scurried and fetched the white plate. Eivind quirked an eyebrow before turning to his father, "Has Benny called, father?"
"He has not," Mr. Hall mumbled. "He took the car to go visit his friends back in Vermont, I tried with that boy and God has only shown me I shouldn't deny what he's adamant about."
"How come you didn't allow me to go along with him, father?" Sigrid frowned. She looked away for a millisecond to express her gratitude to Miss Dorothy and took the plate back. "I wasn't even aware he'd gone, I was beginning to worry."
"I do not want you back in the place, you're the only reason we're here."
"Jeez, and I thought it was because you all missed me," Eivind mumbled under his breath before taking another forkful of pie.
"But Peter could go whenever he pleases?" she scoffed, swatting Eivind's hand away when he reached for the pie a second time, "Get your grimy hands off my pie," she whispered angrily before pulling her plate closer to herself.
"Visiting Vermont won't get him killed."
"Killed? No need to exaggerate."
Eivind looked between them and realized the beginning stages of an argument were stirring clockwise. He scooted away before getting out of his seat and dismissing himself.
"Sigrid," Mr. Hall warned. She raised an eyebrow challengingly before putting her fork down on her pie, stabbing. "I do this for your own good. I've repeated this a million times."
"And I still don't believe you."
"Well you've ought to."