Girl's Love | Editing |

Chapter 13

So, I realize that I haven't talked much about my experiences waiting for the bus. My bad. To be fair, my Mondays and Thursdays were booked now, so it wasn't an everyday thing anymore.

But two things happened the day after my conversation with Amber. Things that made me realize that supporting my sister wouldn't be as easy as I'd thought. One of them happened while waiting for the bus.

George and Peter were complaining about how they had to wait until July for Game of Thrones to come out. Apparently, new seasons had always started in April, but this year the newest season would premiere. My uncle watched the show, but I had never seen it (for obvious reasons). I decided to ask George about it.

"Well, you like fantasy, right?" asked George. "Like Lord of the Rings? It's like that. Except they replace the dwarves and elves with dragons and sorceresses."

"Sounds cool!" I said. "But... isn't there a lot of sex in it?"

"Just don't watch it around Amber!" said Peter. "Or your uncle. Or your brother. Or..."

"Yep, got it."

I turned to George. "I've seen some clips of it before, I think. Who's the guy with the big fur coat?"

"Sean Bean or the guy with black curly hair?"

"Uh... both?"

"Sean Bean's character is Ned Stark. He was Hand of the King. And the other guy is his son, Jon Snow."

"Oh. Wait, is Snow a nickname or something so he sounds cool?"

George chuckled. "No, he was born to another woman out of wedlock. All bastards in the North have the last name Snow."

He showed me his phone screen. "If you want to look into it more, there's a Wikipedia page."

"Alright!"

I pulled the site up on my own phone and started to scroll through the different houses; Lannister, Stark, and Baratheon seemed to be the main ones. I was surprised to see that one of the members of the Baratheon house, Renly, was gay.

"Huh," I said out loud. "I didn't think Game of Thrones would have any gay characters."

"Oh. Yeah, Loras and Renly," said George. "They're not in it for long, though, thank goodness."

"No spoilers! Also, why 'thank goodness'? Were they bad people or badly written?"

"I mean, they were a bit boring. But I guess also, since it's HBO, they had to throw gay sex in there."

Of course.

"Yeah, I don't really like when they throw representation in there just to say 'we're woke'" said Peter. "But I don't think Game of Thrones was doing that. I mean, people were gay back then. It's not anything new."

"Except it is new. Renly wasn't gay in the books. Some people think the author implied it, but I think they were reading too much into it. I guess the show had to throw it in for the liberals, huh?"

Something took over me in that instant. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was empathy. I don't know. But I surprised myself, and George, by what happened next.

I clenched my hand into a fist at my side. "You ever think maybe it's not a political thing? Maybe some people just... exist? And the art is just reflecting that?"

I hadn't noticed my voice shaking, but apparently, George did. He put his hands up. 

"Whoa," he said. "Relax, Reese. It's just my opinion, you don't have to agree with me."