Straight

The Break Up

"What?" Candace asked. "You want to break up?"

I nodded slowly. "Look, I'm sorry it's just..." I trailed off. "My family. I don't know how they'd take it."

Candace's sadness suddenly shifted into anger. "I must have been some sort of idiot to believe you'd change." She whispered. "You don't have to be like your family and you're an idiot to not know that."

"I am not an idiot Candace." I said bitterly. I might be a coward, but I am not an idiot. I knew what I was doing and I never imagined myself getting married to Candace. I had to break it off before it turned into something bigger. 

Candace stood up angrily, slamming her hands on the table and turning the eyes of the few people inside to us. "You never deserved me anyways." She hissed. "I'm way above your league. Gay bastard."

My eyes glared at her as I watched her turn and walk away. My phone started buzzing in my pocket. I took it out and briefly looked over all the messages from my moms. I rolled my eyes.

They weren't mad. They just thought discipline had to be enforced in a household to make it run properly. It was idiotic because I'm pretty sure that I've heard some of my siblings doing it before and they refuse to do anything about it. 

Probably because they knew we've heard their moaning before. Candace and I have always been careful. I stood up and hurried out of the ice cream place to avoid more people staring at me. 

I drove back home and slid into the house. Isla was sitting down on the stairs, texting away on her phone. "Hey, where have you been?"

"None of your business." I said, rolling my eyes. "I was just taking care of some business."

Isla raised an eyebrow. "Does it have anything to do with Candace?" She asked. 

I froze for a moment. How did she know. "No, of course not." I said. "Why?"

"I found her phone case in your room." She said. "And I don't know if you know this, but I guess she has some super secret crush on you."

I bit my lip. Candace would draw on the inside of her phone case when she got bored. She'd taken it off to show me that she'd drawn my face and put a whole bunch of hearts and my name around it. 

"Weird." I said. "I wonder if she knows I'm gay."

It sounded wrong as it came out of my mouth. Isla's eyes narrowed. "I think you saw this." She said. "And you were just out there talking about it? Or something?"

"What exactly would something be?" I asked. 

"A relationship, perhaps."

"Keep dreaming." I said. "I'm not straight, in case you can't remember. In fact, nobody in our family is."

Isla crossed her arms. "There's nothing wrong with being straight Colson." She said. "I'm bi, I've dated a guy before."

She had? I didn't know that. But I wasn't bi. I was definitely straight. I didn't exactly find men desirable. "If you want to know so badly, I just told her that I wasn't interested and that was the end of the conversation." I said. "Happy?"

"No." Isla said. "I think there's something you're hiding."

Was hiding.

"Well, good luck finding trying to find something that doesn't exist."