Impact (Completed!!)

Chapter One

                       ****ONE YEAR EARLIER****

"Just be yourself. This is college, Darlin'. It won't be the same as high school. You're gonna find friends, have good teachers....maybe find someone who--"

"Mom...." Nathan cut his mother off. She had been pontificating the whole way. And the trip from Rhode Island to UPenn was long. "Can we not discuss my love life, please? Or my social one for that matter? I just want to survive my college years and get my degree."

"Well, I'm sorry. You're my only child. I have butt-in rights, you know. Most Mommas do."

"I'm fine. I'm twenty; I'm smart. I've got this." Nate said, sliding his thin glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

"You know, you really should look into contacts, I mean--"

"Mother!" He turned and looked at her over the top of his lenses.

"Okay....okay. I'm sorry."

She was silent for the final twenty minutes of the drive, but would still look over at him occasionally. He knew she was worried about him. He had had more than a bumpy ride through high school. He was a nerd, through-and-through and never denied that fact. But his existence was wholly singular. He had a couple of friends, neither of which were attending his college, and he had only dated seriously a couple of times. It didn't help that he was gay; something else which brought on the bullies; an oddity to him in today's society. How bullying was still a thing he never understood.

At 5'6 and maybe 120 pounds, he certainly wasn't in much of a position to play a contact sport, not that he had much interest, anyway. Behind his black-rimmed glasses, which rested on a straight nose, he had eyes that were a beautifully mixed hazel; swirling with browns, yellows and greens. He kept his dark brown straight hair relatively short, mostly just letting it fall where it would after he showered.

In the quiet, he watched the multicolored leaves of the Autumn season rush by his window, and thought about his life up to this point. He knew when it came to a career, he would be fine. After graduation, there was no doubt he would find something that paid well and he enjoyed. He was smart, willing and confident in a working world. His personal life, however, had taken quite a beating throughout middle and high school. As he watched the Bob Ross colored perfection through the window, he remembered his father and a conversation they had shared after a run-in with some bullies when he was a high school freshman.

**********

Nate sat on his bed, sobbing, holding the ice pack to his eye. His mother had promised that his dad wouldn't be too angry, but every child feared that moment they disappointed or upset their father, not to mention the reason for the fight to begin with. If the rumors hadn't already started flying, they would be    now. He sat, rocking slightly, preparing an entire monologue for his dad. He hadn't thrown the first punch, which was good. But he didn't really win the fight, either, which felt like failure. He had defended himself, which was good. But he had defended something that he was still very desperate to keep secret, and now there was no doubt that it would go global, or so it felt, anyway. His mother had promised him that everything would be okay and sent him up to his room to take a breath and settle in with the ice pack.

His heart jumped when he heard the garage door open and his father's BMW, something that a good accountant had no problem affording, pulled inside. Then he heard indistinct voices as his father entered and started talking with his mother. There was silence for a bit and then the sound of his father's shoes on the stairs. He knew he wouldn't get physically punished, or yelled at or threatened; his dad was not that kind of father. What he feared was a look of disappointment and shame; disapproval. Not because of the fight, but the reason for it.