ZACK

“Jackson’s Creek College – Class of 1995 Reunion.” The banner stretched across the front of the Great Hall, where for six years we’d met each morning for an uplifting speech, an inspirational reading and all the other things schools think are necessary for the development of character and intellect in their charges.

For a moment, I felt sick with terror. My stomach churned and twisted. I wanted to vomit. It had been twelve years, years when I’d changed a lot, when I’d come to terms with what I am. And now I was going to meet people who hadn’t seen me since that awful day.

****

Debbie had phoned a few weeks before. “Gabie, they’re having a reunion at the madhouse. The inmates are invited...”

“...No!” I knew that I had to interrupt her before she got into full swing. Debbie has always managed to persuade me to do things I don’t want to. Sometimes they turned out all right. But sometimes they were... unfortunate. This would be one of the latter. I knew it in my bones.

“Gabe...” Debbie put on her special voice. “I’ll be with you, darling. I’ll protect you from him.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!” I had a terrifying vision of Debbie bashing Zack with her handbag. Or her shoe. Or her flute case.

“It’s time you faced up to him, Gabie-babe. Time to get over it, put it behind you.”

“Bleh.”

“Look, you won’t have to even talk to him. There are all the others too. Mick, Angela, Jerro, Bert – all of them would like to see you again.”

“I came out. They don’t fucking want to know me. I’m gay, Debs.”

“I know that, you dill. But they do want to see you again.” Which meant she’d been talking to them. Great. “Ah, c’mon, Angel. Please?”

The Angel Gabriel – our old joke. I don’t think gay angels exist – never mind go to heaven. My parents had made that abundantly clear. I knew she was using her personal nickname for me deliberately, to show again that it was all right to be me, to be gay. She detested my parents. But then I hadn’t spoken to them for twelve years, either. It still stings, being cut off like that, even though you know it’s pointless, that they will never listen, that they are impervious to reason and sense. I felt a little warmth unfold in me at Debbie’s words. All the same, I had no intention of going. Some things are best left in the past.

She was still talking.

“Aw, Gabie. They’ll be glad to see you.”

“Debbie...” I put a bit of backbone into my voice. “No!”

[You can read the rest of the story at  Forbidden Fruit, the gay/bi/slash e-zine]