Gary is a simple yet complicated young man who is only 18 years old with brown hair, brown eyes, a round face and an average build. He’s never been one to befriend people easily because he moved around so much during his childhood. Call him slightly damaged if you will. Throughout Gary’s life he always made a choice to continue the trend by moving to avoid his problems or escape those who found out about his secret.
The beautiful sunrise guided Gary to work every day where everyone knew him as a serious, but at times, fun individual. No one had a clue about Gary when night fell and the mysterious moon cast its light on the earth.
In cover of darkness Gary morphed into a new man with a new mission and a new life. These friends knew him as the kind, outgoing and somewhat confused Gary.
“What did you do last night?” his coworker asked the following morning.
Gary glanced at his black work boots and then at the wall as he tried to come up with a story for his night activities. Later in the day his other coworker invited Gary to karaoke night at the local pub. Again, Gary declines and searches for a valid excuse not to attend. His nightlife was too important, or so he thought, to skip out on.
As days and months passed, keeping his day stories and night stories straight became increasingly difficult and virtually impossible to do. The lies compounded and the stress began to eat away at his soul and unravel his life. Gary hid from his family because he didn’t want them to know about his life and who he was. Eventually he gathered his belongings and fled to another state with hopes that life would somehow become wonderful, and that his secrets would ease away from his troubled mind. This never happened and only got worse as Gary slipped into the shadows of life, often crying himself to sleep at night.
His secret friends were no friends at all, but a group of users taking Gary the naïve on the ride of his life. Now he has no one, no one but the mother who said she would love him unconditionally. The same mother he created a wall with so she would never know the real Gary.
His huge brown eyes swelled as the tears of stress, fear and turmoil boiled to his soul. Gary picked up a pen and tablet and began to write. Page after page of emotions came flooding from the tip of that pen. Now nineteen, years of anguish poured from his tired body that day. His most inner secret was now on paper but his relief still hadn’t come. Would his mother stay true to her word and love him or would she reject her own blood? Gary’s eyes again swelled with tears at the thought of losing his mother.
He placed the letter in an envelope containing a cassette tape with a song telling his mother how he felt. He put the stamp in place and nervously sealed the envelope with shaking hands. Gary made the drive to the post office and pulled up next to the drop box. He sat there contemplating whether or not to drop the secret in the box. His heart raced and his stomach felt like he just started down the slope of a roller coaster. Tears still on his round little cheeks as he reached toward the mailbox and dropped the letter inside. Still, he felt no immediate relief by his actions.
Three days later Gary sat at home when the phone began to ring displaying his mother’s number on the caller I.D. Gary locked himself in the bathroom refusing to come out no matter what his roommate said. He only feared the worst and couldn’t bring himself to face his mother.
Minutes and hours that passed felt like an eternity as his world stood still. Gary finally reached for the phone, crying and falling to pieces as he said hello to his mother. His throat felt like it was closing shut and he couldn’t speak, not one more word. On the other end his mother spoke those magic words Gary longed to hear. “Son, it’ll be okay. I still love you no matter what, even if you are gay.”
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