"Are you sure you're ready?"
Marcy looks into my eyes, her hands on my shoulders. She looks concerned, empathetic.
"Yeah..." I say unconvincingly, "Yeah, it can't be much harder than with Simon, right?"
We both know that Marcy's foster father Simon is a kind soul who would always be supportive of his rock star foster daughter, if she loved men, women or anything in between. My mother however...wasn't like that. She was the one that pushed me to get good grades. But she pushed me so hard I was pushed out of my home and started a new life, not as Bonnibel Bubblegum but as Bonnie.
She definitely would not take this change in her daughter lightly.
"If it helps, we can do Simon first?" Marcy offers.
"No," I say, "I'm a grown woman. I need to do this. What's the worst that can happen?"
I march across the street with Marcy following in my wake. Taking a deep breath, I press the doorbell to No. 12 a bit harder and longer than intended. The door is opened by a lady with artificially curly hair, bleached blonde, and so much make-up I wouldn't recognize her if it wasn't for the well-known scornful disapprovement in her eyes.
"Bonnibel! What a nice surprise!"
My confidence gone in a wisp of smoke, I stutter for words. Marcy, appearing from behind me, comes to my rescue.
"Could we come in? Bonnie has some good news!"
"Oh, certainly!" My mother says, but I see in her eyes the anger at Marcy referring to me as anything but my birth name. We enter a brightly-lit hall into a lounge, where my mother provides us with tea.
"So, what's all this about, then, Bonnibel?" She asks, heavily stressing her chosen name for me. My mouth feels like sandpaper and Marcy has to nudge me to get me to say something.
"So, this is Marcy..." I introduce quietly and my mother nods in assessment. "And...she was very close to me when I...ran away." she purses her lips at the memory. I'm sure she's not regretful about the way she treated me, but about the disgrace that followed. "She helped me through a really hard time. And we were the closest of best friends. But I wanted to be closer. What's closer than best friends? Only...only a significant other." I hung my head in shame. My mother always made me feel this way. Like everything I do is shameful and wrong. Still with her fake smile plastered on her lips, she goes, "W-what?"
Taking a deep breath, I say loudly, "I'm gay, Mom! I'm gay and I don't want to marry a boy, I want to marry a girl. I have a crush on Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix and when I watched Aladdin the best part for me was seeing Jasmine in that sexy outfit and that was when I was seven and I just...I'm gay." I finish my mini monologue breathing hard. Marcy rubs my back and holds my hand sympathetically.
My mother stands up and clears her throat. "Can I talk to you in private?"
I nod and stand up. Marcy, sensing discomfort, starts to rise too, but my mother holds out a halting hand. "Just...my daughter, if you may." We enter a conjoined room, and my mother sits down, rubbing her eyes.
"So...you think you can just be gay and that's OK?" she asks.
Confused by her line of questioning, I stay silent. She sighs and continues, "Do you know...the pain of being the person whose daughter ran away? The stares, the laughter. The judgement. Now, I have not only produced a run-away daughter, but one that also decides to be gay. I have failed. It's the end for Barbara Bubblegum."
I am so shocked at what she's saying, I actually feel faint. I prepare for a new round of saying nothing, but then I see Marcy through the frosted glass of the joining door. She wouldn't settle for this. She wouldn't let my mother get the last word.
"I'm not a failure, Mom!" I shout, standing up. "I'm just different and that isn't wrong! You haven't done anything wrong in raising a lesbian child! I'm not broken!"
Then all hell breaks loose.
My mother, also rising to be eye level with me, shouts, "YOU. ARE. WRONG. You-you can't date girls! It says so in All Mighty Glob's Blibe!" She throws the book in question at me, and I catch it and throw it right back.
"What century are you living in!?" I scream, "I'm not wrong. I'm not going to be punished for my sexuality! I'm not a disgrace!"
"YES YOU ARE. YOU HAVE BEEN EVER SINCE YOU RAN AWAY!"
"I RAN AWAY BECAUSE YOU PUSHED ME AWAY!" I'm sobbing now, tears streaming down my face. I try to wipe them away but more quickly replace them. "I...I...I just wanted a loving parent."
My mother appears taken back. "Bonnibel...I do love you."
For a second I think about forgiving her. Then I shake my head. "You don't love me. You love the potential fame my smarts could bring you. And what you said back there, those weren't the words of a loving mother. Goodbye, Ms Bubblegum." I walk out of the room. Marcy stands up when I appear. She takes one look at my tear-stricken face and embraces me tightly. Over her shoulder, I see my mother watching. So, naturally, I pull Marcy even closer and kiss her, hungrily and deeply. My hand behind her back, I make sure to flaunt my engagement ring in my mother's line of sight.
