My brother is amazing

I absolutely love him. He's actually just my stepbrother, but for the past 10 years, he's been my brother, plain and simple. About a week or so ago, I spent about 2 hours on the phone talking to him. He's attending college and I'm hardly ever able to talk to him alone anymore. I started talking about things that been troubling me and the person I like, until halfway through, I sprouted out the fact that I was gay. He was quiet for a few seconds until he just nonchalantly said, "Well that changes things." Afterwards, he just spent the next hour listening to me on the whole issue, talking me through it, giving me advice, laughing, and just generally being pretty cool with the whole thing.*

There's more though. The other day, he decided to join the family while we were eating out. My dad, though never intentionally mean or spiteful, is slightly homophobic. He was casually making another "faggot" joke around the table. My brother noticed my obvious discomfort and straight up told my dad that he went way too far with that comment. It was the first time he seemed genuinely bothered by something our dad said.

For me, this was pretty big, since I have been utterly terrified to come out to any family member whatsoever and it felt great to have him defend me like that. Coming out to my brother was just really relieving, and it's nice to know that I have someone really close to me that I can trust. Since telling him, I just got into this pattern of telling more people, all of them accepting. I just love the guy and I'm glad to have is support. (*hug*)