Page 2 of Michael's Awakening
Chapter One
Gabriel
Being gay in a southern state was hard. However, being an androgynous gay man living in a southern state was a damn nightmare. Everywhere I went, people gawked, stared, and glared daggers my way.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved attention. But intolerance? Not so much.
I’m from a small town in Arkansas called Mulberry. Yes, I was raised in the country with tractors, cows, chickens, and all other things that screamed farm life and I was still fabulous. My high school was packed full of country folk that lived and breathed chewing tobacco, going mudding in their trucks, and shouting country music from the top of their lungs. They also lived to make my life hell.
Needless to say, I didn’t fit in.
No one understood my passion for all things fashion and style.Chanel,Dolce & Gabbana,Gucci,andManolo Blahnik? Forget about it. I might as well have had a third eye and an alien antenna sticking out of my head by the way everyone looked at me.
My family was all I had. But, they loved me and taught me to rise above any intolerance thrown my way. I would’ve rather been true to myself and had no friends than to have lived a lie just in order to please everyone else. So, although I had very few friends, I was happy.
Before this goes too far, I need to make one thing clear. Labels are for clothes and food, not for people. I do not define myself by any label. I am simply me: Gabriel Greyson.
And I was damn fabulous.
I knew I was different at a very young age. Instead of playing with toy guns and pretending I was a cowboy like every other six-year-old boy, I would play ‘beauty shop’ where I’d dress-up my stuffed animals and give them little makeovers. I imagined my very own beauty salon and I felt the most comfortable there. As the imaginary salon grew–and my flair of creativity along with it—I’d used my mother's fingernail polish to sloppily paint my nails, and eventually I’d paint my toys with it as well.
I made the mistake of painting on one of my older brother’sBatmantoys once, and I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast in my life. I told himBatmanlooked better with a hot pink cape instead of black, so I was just doing my civil duty by helping him out.
He chased me all around our backyard, threatening to shave my head bald. Even back then, I cared about my hair and how it looked, so his threat didn’t go to deaf ears. My mom and dad told me that my beauty obsession was just a phase that some boys went through and would eventually pass.
It never did.
Once I discovered my mom’s makeup drawer, I felt like I had just discovered a chest full of treasure. One day, while she was preoccupied with cooking dinner and my dad was watching a football game on TV, I opened the drawer and began decorating my face. I didn’t really know what went where, but I had a blast trying to figure it out. Satisfied and proud of how I looked, I’d pranced into the dining room where my parents were setting the table for dinner, eager to show them what I had thought to be a masterpiece.
My father almost had a heart attack the first time he’d seen me.
“You tryin’ to practice for clown school, Gabe?” he joked after the initial shock wore off.
I remember my mother slightly furrowed her brow, but then smiled at me when she’d first seen what I’d done. After playfully slapping my father on the arm for the comment he made about clown school, she had knelt down in front of me and lightly pinched my cheek. Her hazel eyes held traces of sadness in them, but at that time I had no idea why.
“You mad at me, Momma?” I had whispered and looked down toward my feet, thinking I was in trouble.
“My angel,” she said with love in her voice and gently tilted my head back up to look at her. “You look beautiful.”
I’d been eight years old at that time. A child doesn’t think of the societal norms of right and wrong and what isnormalbehavior at that age. I’d just wanted to be myself. Later on, I understood the sadness that was in my mother’s eyes that day. She knew the hardships I would face in life for being the way I was. It sucked, but it was a sad truth.
She loved me anyway. Her and my father both.
Around the age of eleven, I really began noticing my attraction for boys and it scared the hell out of me. At that time, I knew my love of fashion and makeup wasn’t considered normal for boys, so I hadn’t fully embraced myself or let my freak flag fly yet so to speak. I was already bullied for being more feminine than the average boy and I was terrified of what people would say.
That had been back when I actually cared what other people thought about me and I’d still struggled with who I was. Over time, all of those worries disappeared and I now knew how amazing and unique I was.
Screw what anyone else thought, I didn’t live my life to please anyone but myself.
But anyway, my older brother Zack, who was fifteen at the time, was heavy into sports and people always compared me to him.
“Why don’t you join the football team like your brother?” Or my personal favorite. “Playing sports like Zack may help make a better man out of you.”
As if a man could only be defined by the size of his muscles, instead of the strength of his heart or the intelligence of his mind.
Even though I had never come out and said it, my parents knew I was gay before I even told them. Or they at least had their suspicions. The day I actually told them was a day I’d never forget. My palms were warm and sweaty and I remember how my heart was rapidly beating like a tiny army was banging away on their war drums directly inside my chest cavity.
Sweat lightly dampened my brow and my knees shook as I walked to tell them my news. My mom was sitting on the sofa with her dainty legs folded beneath her as she sipped on a warm cup of tea and worked on a crossword puzzle, while my dad sat beside her in his recliner flipping through the channels on the television.
