Young Loves Song

Prologue

His name was Jay. And now that I think about it, his name is so unoriginal. Could the parents have been any lazier; like they didn't have nine months to think of something more special and distinctive then "Jay"? But sadly it was just that which made him so much more enticing and exciting. Normality. I really liked that. He was a typical, public school sophomore, played sports, and was actually pretty good from what I had heard. I, a semi-new junior just starting to get a hold on this whole new phenomenon called High School tried being as normal as possible; never getting caught doing something "weird" or "different". All I know is I never really thought anything of him. Honestly, I didn't know much about him and nor did I care.

All I knew is that I was just a weird, heavily-medicated, Christian-School boy with problems just like the rest of us. My name is Derek. I have a fairly tall stature at 6"1',  profoundly psychotic cobalt eyes, that change from light to dark whenever they freaking feel like it, and fairly well off 'rents which I guess you can say is better than most.

And when I say I am "heavily-medicated" and that I visit the doctor frequently, it's because my step mother thought it was better to give me high ass prescription doses of Abilify, and Adderall, and other brain numbing pharmaceuticals then to actually deal with the dysfunctional piece of rubbish that was our family. Ever since my parents divorced and my Dad remarried, the battle with me and my step mom, Belinda, or Linda for short, have been sharp and destructive. We purposely hurt each other for no respectable or rational reason. There were points were she would be so ignorant and cold, that I literally would do anything to leave the house.

And many a times I'd grab the keys to the family Cadillac sports sedan, and just drive around our small town, maybe hit the local Circle K and fill up the tank, drive to the local coffee shop, Beans' & Cream. I would so often find myself wondering aimlessly around town, trying to blow off the latest argument, with no actual agenda in mind. A lot of the time I'd go to Wal-Mart, grab a sub at Subway, and read whatever novel I was on at the time. Just to get out of the house was like ecstasy in and of itself. Our small town was a great town to walk around at night, it was always endless adventure for me. Only other problem was once I was out of the house, a new hell started to rise out of the fields.

I am socially awkward, and people are always like "But Derek you are like so funny, and cute, what do you mean you take meds, you seem totally normal like all the time". I mean I guess from their perspective I seemed normal.  But my insides felt like box of extremely anxious kittens, being thrown off a 100 story building and never hitting the ground, 25 hours a day, 366 days a year. If there was an award for jumping to the worst imaginable, absolutely ridiculous, and saddest conclusions the fastest, I would win every time, no contest.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

The main hell of this story revolves slowly around my church. No amount of sarcasm can be read to affirm the amount of close-mindedness, fake, and emotionally scarring of a place this was.  The church we attended was filled with many other, well off individuals. And for six years, I never missed a single, not even one of those blatantly bigoted 312 Sundays or 100's of other Wednesday nights and special gatherings which was just an excuse to eat a lot of fattening foods and create small talk with other families. By the time of my junior year, I was one of the oldest attendees there.  Our church couldn't keep a pastor even if god himself took the podium; and as the result so many weak spirited people would take a divine leave of absence after each holy 'failure of the lord' would depart to other states, because, and I quote, god told them they would be better speaking prejudice somewhere else. So as a remarkable result my family and I were one of the only families who would stay from this ground shattering change in Christian leadership.

Partly I believe it's because my parents were so busy with work, finding a new church as luxurious as this one with a semi-stable staff would take a miracle on its own. This is why I'd grown so comfortable and knew the church like the back of my hand, so to speak. I could make it down the aisles blind amd bound.

So, with that being said, you could tell the church was pretty legit; it was a huge, office building like piece of property, with a huge lake in the back, filled to the prim with golden scales trout and blue gills. Two gyms and a jacked up youth group room, were the habitat for the Christians youth of their families. The youth group settled down every Sunday in the multipurpose room, which housed a giant stage for the "band" to "worship" to "new age contemporary Christian" "music". You don't understand how much those quotation marks are required.

With all the bells and whistles, like strobe lighting, huge ass amplifiers, and economy sized fog machines, the stage looked like it was ready for a horribly executed battle of the bands. They thought spewing gas all over the place created a better, *cough* worship environment. If I wanted to be in a room with other teens, screaming to loud music, and getting epileptic at the over use of strobe lighting, and choking over a shit ton of fog, I would go to a regular, Friday night, high school party like a normal jock. But this was a mandatory experience in my household, so I grudgingly accepted it every week.  The game room, which consisted of pool tables, ping pong, a Wii and a Xbox 360, was also a part of this Christian collection of teens.

In that room, with a paddle for ping pong, and a ball to toss, it started. I guess you could say the reason I'm writing this, the destruction of the construction of all I had known, is because I felt it was the time people knew that growing up gay sucks. It just does, but it does get better, it always does. I want you to know there are constantly people fighting for you, and even when it seems that everyone is undeniably against you, I and many others are here, fighting the same battle, getting a better hold, gaining a little bit more turf, in the fight that we today call equal rights.