Sta.sh
And so what? Ch 1
by ~DavidCalisuni"And so what," I thought to myself. I couldn't believe I was doing this again.
"What if I told my mom, my sister, all my friends at my church?"
My mom was asleep, and my sister was watching TV in the living room, so I was quite safe in my own room. I don't know why I was so afraid. It's not as if telling the world I am queer or a fag (god I flinch at that word) was going to bring it down. But that's just how it was for me. Tears stream down my face as I think of what could happen and what probably would happen.
My whole world was built around my mask, my outer shell, my lie. Part of me was afraid of the hate and disgust that would come my way, but for some reason, I think I was more afraid of revealing my lie and tearing down my own "integrity", causing me to hate myself more. I feel like I'm consumed by my sexuality, that I'm being forced by two hands, one unseen and the other my own, to live as a homosexual and to cover it up every waking moment, respectively.
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"Hey, Mark!" I couldn't help calling him; I hadn't in a while, so I decided it was alright.
"Hey, David!" There was a little glow in his voice that made me happy.
Mark goes to my school: a private, Christian university. I'm thinking of transferring, but the professors there are still amazing, talented, and still impressed with me. I don’t have a voice scholarship anywhere else either.
I don't feel completely abandoned there, though. At the end of last semester, I met another guy who is gay. I thought I had feelings for him after I found out about him and came out to him (the first person, ever), but I quickly learned it was just a phase thing; he’s definitely not my type. Not like Mark. He has this special look in his eye, a smile to shatter any girl’s heart (or guy’s for that matter), and hair that I could run my fingers through to no end.
“What are you up to?”
“I’m just hanging out with my brothers and my sister-in-law at the store. We’ve been camping in Northern California for memorial day weekend.”
That caught my attention. I live in Northern California. I asked, “Where in Northern California?”
“In Arcata; it’s near Eureka.”
“Oh,” I sighed. That’s really far north, near the border. I was secretly hoping for a far off chance that I might be able to see him.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m at my mom’s work’s barbeque for Memorial Day, and I’m bored to death.”
As we talked, I couldn’t help but notice how nice it was to hear his voice again. Summer has been killer after only two weeks. After chatting for a little bit, he had to go, so we said our goodbye’s and hung up. I don’t know why that made me so sad, but it did.
No matter, though. I don’t know why I can’t get over him. He’s so sweet, and he’s so borderline that I can’t help but hold on to any hope of him being gay. I melt when we laugh together and he looks at me and we’re but a foot away. Those eyes are addicting. Very unlikely, though; he’s told me about a girlfriend in high school, but only one. Gosh! I’ve had more than that. Maybe there is hope.
I went home after a boring barbeque with my mom’s work “friends”, some of whom she complains a lot. I went to bed early; I had work the next day.
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Man, work was stressful. I was all over the shop with phone calls and computers that had come in together in one big heap. This is what happens in your shop if your repair computers and you’re closed four days in a row. I took lunch at 1:30, very late, because of how busy we were. I’m a great employee, ya know.
“Finally! A break!” I got to enjoy some time to myself outside. It’s not too hot, and the breeze was steady. I was eating my sandwich when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Mark.
“Strange,” I said to myself, “Mark hardly ever calls me. Hello?” I picked up the phone.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing, just on lunch break.”
“Cool, hey listen. We’re coming back down tomorrow, and we didn’t want to make the trip all the way back down in one day. Do you know a place we could stay?”
I’m pretty sure at this point, my heart stopped.
“Hello?”
“Oh, yeah,” I snapped to, “Well, I guess you could stay over at my place.”
“That’d be cool. We could hang out for the rest of the day when I get there.”
“Yeah, so let me give you directions.” With much, concealed, excitement I gave him directions to my house and hung up. “Oops,” I thought, “I didn’t ask mom if it would be alright. Oh well. I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.”
“Mark is coming over! To my house!”
I love the start of your story and your character seems very authentic. When you broke to the next scene with the dialogue, I went in thinking they were in the same room, until your character said he couldn't help calling Mark. I would suggest some indication before the dialogue that he's entering into a telephone conversation. Also, I'm not sure about the punctuation. Do you need the exclamation mark? It makes it seem as though they are shouting to each other. Your initial tone was somewhat quiet and serious and then the exclamation marks change it to loud and exciting. I'm not sure that's what you were going for.
"Mark goes to my school: a private, christian university." A comma would work fine after school. What you have infers that you are about to create a list and all that follows is a description.
I love your writing style and your grammar is good, I would just work on punctuation. However, you could re-work this sentence: "I thought I had feelings for him after I found out about him and came out to him (the first person, ever), but I quickly learned it was just a phase thing; he’s definitely not my type." It's a little clunky.
One question I find myself asking as I read through: How well do Mark and David know each other? Perhaps that could be introduced earlier. It's confusing because it seems like they met already, but they never talked about where they lived or were from? So, when Mark goes camping, would he or wouldn't he realize he was somewhere near David?
When you break scenes again David had to go to work and then he's talking about work. I know work is the transition, but it still jumps from needing to go and having been to work and the jump is somewhat jolting. You write in past tense so perhaps you could smooth the transition by connecting the post work paragraph with the previous section saying something like... "I had work the next day, which only turned out to be stressful". You could also scratch it all together and in the last section introduce by saying something like, "After work,..." We don't really need to know how stressful work was to him. It doesn't (at least thus far) appear to be important to the story.
Next, play around with your punctuation and review what you've written, decide what you want to do with the story and complete it. I'd like to know what happens when they meet up.
You're off to an excellent start, but you're leaving me at a huge cliff hanger!
Yeah... after reading that, I see what you mean. Sorry I didn't get back to you. I haven't been on in a while.
Danke!