Love

Off we go

-1

"Shelby if you don't hurry love we're going to miss it, again!" I yelled up the stairs.

"I need to do my hair Arice I can't just go with bed head now can I?! What first impression is that?!" Shelby yelled back at me.

His voice was jittery when he talked. I slowly walked up the stairs skipping a few so he wouldn't hear the creaks of the wood. When I turned the corner I saw him hovering over the sink in front of the mirror. His hair was was done, hands still covered in a slick shiny layer of gel. He had a royal blue button up on that complemented his light blue, eyes that sometimes look white if the light caught then just right. His face was so pale it looked like it was covered with flower. And being quite frank, he looked like we was going to hurl.

"Alright spill, what's that matter?" I asked.

He chuckles softly and looked at me with a soft nervous smirk, his smile just slightly folding downwards at the corner. When he chuckled there being just a small quiver in it, a glossed over fear in his eyes as he flicked his eyes to me in the reflection of the mirror. So of course I just stood, and stared, waiting for him to talk.

"You're funny ya know that? There's totally nothing wrong with this idea, I mean we're just a gay couple about to go to yet another orphanage, ran by catholic volunteers, and you're not worried in the slightest?! Oh no nothing can go wrong with that, it's just fine and dandy ain't it love?" he said in a sarcastic tone.

As he talked he clenched the sink, not minding to look at me other than with slight glances in the mirror. Then he flicked the faucet on and rinsed his hands. He almost seemed mad at me, which of course he isn't. He was afraid, nervous, it just came out in anger. And he has every right to feel so. Every reason.

As he turned off the water he laughed again before he turned and sat down on the toilet burrowing his face in his hands.

"Ah god Arice they can kick us out just for that, and let's not forget when we got pelted with rocks at the last orphanage, I mean seriously do they think it's roman times or something? What do we have to do to get a kid love? Cuz at this point I don't know if we ever will be able to. Society obviously is against us. Everyone knows if you're opened to homosexuality in anyway you turn gay too and we don't want those innocent children to turn into sinners like us now do we. No we want them to go to horribly abusive homes or no families at all before that ever happens. Because we must protect the children. " he mumbled through his hands.

He sounded so defeated, with no hope at all. I could feel my heart digging a tunnel into my stomach like a miner looking for the words to say. Words that would make it all better, to comfort my beautiful husband, to do anything... But only coming to a loss.

"Sorry it was stupid to bring up, I didn't mean to worry you just forget it. It's just me being stuck in my head and getting all negative and petty. It's nothing."

"I don't think so. You're worried for good reason, and yes we're gay going to a catholic based orphanage but as we know not all catholics is against homosexuals, I mean look at your mother and my older sister. Sure my parents throw me outta the house when I was 18 and got the courage to tell them, and I failed army training after they figured out my father was forcing me to join and all that crap. Then of course your dad still refuses to accept me at part of the family after 3 years of marriage 5 years being together in a whole. But my sister let me, my wife, and son live with her for 2 years till I joined the army at choice, and that's where we met. And a lot of troop members were catholic not all of 'im said we were going to hell, of court there was James the bastard and Mike the alcoholic and a numerous amount of others I can list off, but then there was Ray and Blake and all of our crew which were a good precent being catholic or of some other religions that aren't very accepting, hell the only ones that weren't raised being told gay is an evil disease or homosexuality is god's punishment to men and all that crap was Jeffen and Gray. And just because it may be a spiral of those fearful negative thoughts in there, it doesn't mean you don't feel it. It doesn't make it not matter, sometimes it even makes it matter more. "

"Yeah I know... but it's like for every accepting person there's 3 people with pitchforks about to burn us at the stake, it scares me. And I wish I could just stop thinking about it but I can't and it's... its-"

"I know love, I know."

I walked to him and scooped him up and we both sat on the toilet. Both nearly falling off but we sat there together for a while. I held Shelby's hands that he had clenched in his lap now and wrapped one arm around him.

"We should get going if we want to make it, we're going to be offley late," Shelby whispered.

"We don't have to ya know, we can find another orphanage and meet the kids there, or we can hold off for a while too."

"No I want to go, I need to go."

He looked at me and I softly kissed him on the forehead, then we went out and started our car to go on our much dimmed merry way.