Before I Break

by Alec John Belle

  Melissa, who was catching on like all of us in the audience, smiled. “According to you, homosexuals should be killed, as it’s against capital laws. So go on, Morrison. Stone him to death. Right here, right now.”

  The audience remained silent, watching in suspense, no one having a clue what to say. My heart raced, hoping this would end soon, and sure enough, a girl in the back, wearing all black, stood up. The next words out of her mouth shocked everyone: “I’m a lesbian. If it’s true what you believe, Pastor, why not stone me, too?”

  This was not happening. The crowd remained silent as Goth walked toward the stage, looking completely confident with herself. With her long black hair and blue eyes, you could say she was pretty, and this didn’t seem to bother her one bit.

  Avery, on the other hand, looked as if he was about to snap. His face was stone cold hard, not moving at all, and I could tell he was clenching his teeth in anger. Melissa, still having her arms crossed, welcomed the girl on stage.

  And to make things even better, just then, Jake walked in, looking completely out of tune with what was going on right now. He gave me a questioning look, though I waved him off. He could hear about it later. Right now, there was a gut feeling inside of me that wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t shake it off. Right now my girlfriend—possibly ex soon, but I didn’t want to think about that—was on stage with a new guy I had befriended and was trying to earn back. Both of them knew I had messed up, and this could be the first step to redeeming myself.

  But could I really go up there and embarrass myself?

  They’re your friends, my conscience told me. You need to do this. Go up there. Show the world that you’re changing.

  “Enough of this,” Morrison said, dropping the stones. “I will not stone you.”

  “And why is that?” Avery asked with Goth standing at his side. “We’re gay. I like having sex with men—not that I have yet—but would like to one day.”

  “Then how do you know you like it?” Morrison asked.

  Melissa smirked. “How did you know you were straight before you had sex with a woman? It’s the same thing, Morrison, and you know it.”

  Now’s my chance to stick up for him. I can do it.

  I couldn’t do it.

  Yes I can.

  No I couldn’t. Just three days ago I was against homosexuality, and now here I was thinking about defending it? I thought back to my conversation with Lauren today and it brought me to my senses. Right as I was about to stand up, Lauren was walking toward the stage. She smiled as she got up there and said, “I agree with these children completely, Morrison. Practice what you preach.”

  “’Thou shalt not kill,’” he quoted in his defense.

  That’s when I did it. My nerves, all bundled up inside, exploded and I said, “But doesn’t the Bible say to kill homosexuals?”

  All eyes fell on me, especially Melissa’s, whose were on fire from anger. Realizing how wrong that came out, I clarified, “One of the Ten Commandments is to not kill. So why would there be a reason to kill a gay person? Unless you're saying they're not human?” Walking up to the stage, shaking all over, I continued as I walked up the stairs and got a microphone of my own. “Don’t you get it? Melissa was right. Those laws no longer apply because killing is a sin, if homosexuality is a sin at all. I’ve come here most of my life and have gotten all my prejudice from you, but…” But what? I tried to find the right words to say. “Jesus loves us all, whether you believe in him or not. Homosexuality should not be a religious issue, or even an issue at all. Love is not an issue with God, because that’s what he wants from us.” Dropping the mic, I held up my hands in defense. “So stone us all, Pastor Morrison. Stone us all for going against Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. I’m sure God would appreciate it.”

  Seconds ticked by that felt like hours. I didn’t know what to do next and clearly did no one else. Then, the strangest thing happened. I expected applause like in the movies. The cheers. The joy. But the next thing we got was a hot coffee thrown on the stage.

  Right at Avery.

  My gasp seemed to ring out across the room but Avery remained very still, looking genuinely sad. Melissa reached out for him, but he pulled away, the tears forming in his eyes, and he ran off the stage, leaving us alone as he ran out of the loft and down the stairs. All of us—Melissa, Morrison, Goth, Lauren, and I—were left on the stage alone.

  “Go,” Morrison told all five of us. He sounded exasperated, like this tired him out. What a dick. “Leave and do not come back to this church again.”

  “But—” Lauren started but Morrison held up with hand.

  “You defy the Word of God and embarrass me in the House,” he went on. “You are no longer welcome here. Any of you. And be sure to never bring a homosexual here again. Any of you, even those not involved in this show tonight.” That was directed toward the audience.

  Melissa, completely enraged, said, “Fine. You’ll see us again soon, though, I promise.” She grabbed me by the hand and we got off the stage, exiting the room with Lauren and Goth behind us. Outside, Avery was nowhere to be seen.

  “I can’t believe we just got kicked out of our own church,” Lauren said, looking confused. Sitting on the side bench, she put her head between her legs. “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid.”

  “Same here,” I replied. “I can’t believe that just happened and Pastor Morrison let it.”

  “I can,” Melissa said. She received a text a second later and sighed. “He’s okay; he’s sitting in the car waiting for me to take him home. He says to tell you all thank you for helping support him tonight.”

  We sat in silence for a moment before I said, “So what do we do now? Are we just going to leave things like this?”

  Melissa smiled, and I knew that look, too. “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I have a plan,” she replied. “A good one.”

  I stepped quietly inside, hoping that no one would hear me. Closing the door softly, I headed into the living room, hoping to avoid confrontation tonight—more than I already had, anyway. Just as I was about to walk up the stairs, a light flicked on, and standing behind me were Mom and Dad.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Uh, how are you guys?”

  My father stepped forward with an angry gleam in his eyes. “I think we could ask the same of you. Pastor Morrison called about a half hour ago.”

  There went avoiding confrontation. “So you know?”

  My pointed to the chair and said, “Sit.” Taking the seat at the kitchen table, Dad and Mom sat on each side of me, staring me down. Dad particularly looked pissed, but Mom looked unsure of what to say.

  I didn’t want to have this conversation. I wanted to just go upstairs and go to sleep, but I knew they weren’t going to let me right now. Right now it was more important that we discussed this, although I didn’t want to.

  “What were you thinking?” Those were the first words out of my father’s mouth, and I felt kind of sick to my stomach. I let him down. I let everyone in my life down tonight all because I wanted to support Avery. Now that I was banned from the church, I was sure they’d never let me see Avery again.

  “I was thinking…that I wanted to help a friend,” I said quietly. “I didn’t expect this to happen. I thought…”

  “Thought what? That people would honor your bravery? This isn’t the movies, kid.” Dad looked at Mom and she shook her head. “We want you to promise you’ll never see this Avery guy again.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why? This wasn’t his fault—”

  “He’s a bad influence on you,” my father went on. “Trust us when we say it’s for the best. Would you have done this you had ever become friends with him?”

  Well, probably not, but that didn’t make it his fault, did it? I shook my head no and Dad stood up, going refrigerator. “We want you to stop seeing him, period. No ifs, ands or buts. Avery is gay, Cyril, and it’s not normal. They ge
t in your head. Do you really want to spend the rest of eternity in hell for a guy you just met?”

  The thought did scare me, I could admit that much. If it was true that you could go to hell for being gay, it had to be possible that we go to hell for supporting them too, and that was the last thing I wanted. My heart ached, but I really felt it to be true.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You really are right…I just…I let him get to me. That’s all. I promise I won’t see him ever again.”

  They both stared at me as if they couldn’t tell if I was telling the truth or not. I noticed that my mom didn’t say a thing the entire time, which was totally unusual for her. Dad finally said, “Go upstairs and get some sleep. Just remember what we said.”

  They didn’t have to tell me twice. Walking up the stairs and closing my bedroom door behind me, I dropped on the bed and pulled out my phone, staring at Avery’s number. I knew what I had to, even if I didn’t like it.

  I typed.

  Remembering the scars I saw on his arms earlier that day, I realized that someone needed to know that he may have been in harm. Tomorrow I needed to tell someone.

  No one knows the pain I hide,

  But tonight I’ve finally made up my mind.

  There’s nothing anyone can do

  To save me from the world that’s full of likes of you.

  I’m a bomb that’s counting down the time

  Before I explode and leave this world behind.

  Please don’t come when all is lost

  Because I’m pretty sure I won’t be the last.

  When Thursday morning came, I knew what I had to do but was absolutely terrified to do so. I promised Dad I would stay away from Avery—but this wasn’t necessarily getting near him. This was most likely going to save his life.

  I pulled into the school parking lot when I saw Melissa running toward the car. She and I, though still on a break, were going to talk here and there. We didn’t hate each other, but she just needed time to see that I changed, and the worst part was, I didn’t really feel like I had changed at all. The car came to a stop and I opened my door to get out, and Melissa said, “How are you today?”

  “Great,” I lied. “Listen, I need to get inside, okay? It’s important that I get to guidance this morning.”

  “Are we still on for the plan this weekend?” she asked me, looking a little worried. Not that I could blame her, because I was honestly worried about a lot right now.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied, stepping by her. “Text me if you need anything.” If she was upset, she didn’t say anything as I walked away.

  Inside the building, there weren’t many people, because school didn’t open for nearly an hour. Most students preferred to stand outside in the courtyard and wait for the first bell, but Melissa and I spent a lot of time in the library last year during this hour. Heading down the hall, I turned into the guidance office, finding no one at the front desk. I took a seat in one of the comfy chairs they had and waited for someone to come.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the scars that Avery had. Usually when someone had scars like that, it meant they did it themselves. Why would Avery harm himself? And does he still do it? Questions were running through my head as I waited, but none of them really had any answers that I could come up with. It was possible that he harmed himself because he was gay and the way people treated him, but I felt like that might not have been a very good reason. Something bigger had hurt him, and he felt the need to relieve it with that, and I needed to see if I could get him help.

  That was when the thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe he already had gotten help. The honest truth was, what did I really know about this guy? The scars certainly weren’t new, so they could have happened a long time ago and he just got help for them. After the event last night, though, it sure would have been good to check and see.

  Dad also told me to stay away, though, and I had to respect that. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew he meant stuff like this, too. Deciding this wasn’t the best of ideas, I grabbed my bag to get up when the secretary came up to the desk.

  “Can I help you?” she asked me, smiling.

  I shook my head and threw my bag over my shoulder. “No, no, it’s not important. I gotta go.” I ran out, leaving the secretary looking pretty confused—probably as confused as I felt with life right now.

  When lunch came around, Jake asked me if I wanted to sit with them, but really I didn’t. I wanted to be alone with Melissa and tell her that I couldn’t go through with her plans, not now, not ever, unless I wanted to be grounded for the rest of my life.

  As I suspected, when I got to the table, Avery was sitting with her and they were laughing about something she had just said. Obviously last night didn’t bother him that much, so hopefully this would make things easier. I touched her shoulder softly and said, “Can we talk?”

  She nodded and stood up, saying, “I’ll be right back, Avery.” We walked outside into the courtyard and felt the blazing sun against our skins. She frowned and said, “Avery told me.”

  “It’s not like that,” I replied. “My dad is basically telling me I can never see him again, which sucks, but that’s what he told me. You understand that, right?”

  Melissa looked sad, just as I knew she would. Grabbing my hand, she spoke softly when she said, “I understand, but that doesn’t mean I like it. You’re going to be eighteen before the school year is over. When are you going to stop letting your parent and church dictate what you believe about life?”

  The truth, I wanted to say, was that I actually did believe what my dad said. For a day or two my opinion might have changed, but in honesty, I really shouldn’t have expected I’d feel anything different after Avery. Last night on that stage, I felt sick to my stomach doing it, and I thought it might have been nerves, but now I knew.

  Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “When I turn eighteen and won’t be told what to do anymore.” Pulling her close to me, so close I could almost taste her lips, I whispered, “Can you let him know that I don’t hate him? Because I really, really don’t. He and I just can’t be friends.” And despite my beliefs, a small part of me actually believed that.

  “So…I guess that means no rally for us?” Melissa asked. “You know, Avery was really looking forward to having the two of us at his side.”

  I knew that, but I truly didn’t want to be. As hard as this was, I knew what I was doing was right. I couldn’t be seen with someone gay anymore. “I’m sorry, Melissa, I just can’t do it. Jake is my friend, not Avery.”

  Sliding my hands out of hers, I walked away, leaving behind the guy I couldn’t be friends with and the love of my life to themselves.

  Sunday came a lot quicker than you could imagine. Most of Saturday, having nothing else to do, I was studying for an AP Bio quiz, doing research for AP Lit and doing over a hundred math problems for Geometry. They were not kidding when they said junior year would be the hardest year of all four years, although most would probably imagine it’s senior year.

  So after staying up until two in the morning studying, Sunday didn’t necessarily seem like the best of ideas. Mom and Dad were heading out to church, leaving me all alone, because no matter how much they tried talking Morrison into letting me back, he said he felt obligated to say no. Now there I was, deciding to spend the day doing things I actually enjoyed.

  In my room I was flipping through channels trying to find something to watch, but just wasn’t feeling it. Heading downstairs to the kitchen, I heard the doorbell ring along the way and wondered who it could be.

  I opened the front door and Jake was standing there, smiling. “Hey man. I got some stuff. Can I come in?”

  “Jake, listen—”

  “I know you aren’t doing it anymore,” Jake said, stepping through the threshold. “Doesn’t mean I can’t. Where’s the fam?”

  “Um, at church, where you should be,” I replied as I
closed the door. Hunger settled inside me and I realized I needed some food. Now going to the kitchen, I asked, “Please tell me you didn’t get kicked out, too.”

  “Of course not, man,” Jake said, plopping his very happy, and very high, butt on my couch. He lit a joint and said, “There’s some fag-rally going on.”

  My heart nearly hit the floor. “This weekend?”

  “This weekend what?”

  “The pride rally. At the church, it’s this weekend?”

  “Guess so,” he told me, taking a huge puff of the pot. “When we got there, there were a few people outside with picket signs and stuff dressed up like a bunch o’ damn unicorns. They’re probably shittin’ rainbows on the sidewalk.”

  When we first had decided to do the rally, we wanted to give it a couple of weeks to make Pastor Morrison think that we weren’t coming back for our rights. Avery’s rights, I had to clarify. These were his rights, his problem, not mine.

  In the living room, I grabbed the remote and flipped the news to find that it was being recorded live. There was Melissa and Avery, holding signs reading, ‘Gay is Okay’ and ‘It’s not our rights—it’s human rights.’ This could not have been happening.

  “Oh, lookie!” Jake said, laughing entirely too loud. “There’s your girlfriend with the homosexuals!”

  Goth was there too, who had later identified herself as Eve, ironically enough. Why was this happening right now, of all days? My parents were probably already there in the church, talking to Morrison about the sins of this.

  Then the reporter was speaking to Melissa, asking, “Why are you and your friends protesting today?”

  Melissa smiled right into the camera, looking beautiful enough to make most guys probably go through with this. “An incident occurred last Wednesday night where my friend and I got into a heated discussion with Pastor Morrison about whether homosexuality was a sin or not. While on stage, a person from the audience threw a cup of boiling hot coffee at Avery, so my friends and I decided to come protest.”