During the school year my English teacher assigned my class an assignment where we had to write a personal quest story. We could write about anything we wanted to, with the overall goal of the assignment being that we would come to better understand ourselves. So I decided to write a story about me coming out becasue I had already come out to me teacher earlier in the year in another essay. So here it is, and I hope that you all will take the time to read it as I try to send a positive message by the end of it. Oh and by the way, my teacher loved it and I got an "A" on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I’ll meet you up at the tennis courts in about an hour,” Alex said to his friend, Austin, exhausted from the three mile run they had just finished. “Can you bring some tennis balls with you? I think the shed is locked.” Austin nodded and turned around to head back to his house, which was conveniently across the road from the tennis courts they would be playing on. The date was April 5th, 2011. Alex and Austin were both in the ninth grade at Saint James School, an Episcopal boarding school situated outside the suburbs of Hagerstown, Maryland. This was their second year at Saint James, and while they both enjoyed attending Saint James (more or less), they couldn’t wait for summer to start so they could get away from the strenuous hours of homework and the endless school drama. Alex was a tall, lanky fourteen year old teen who enjoyed running Cross Country and playing Tennis (even though he wasn’t very good at it). Alex was also a day student at Saint James and his parents were devout Christians. His dad was retired and stayed at home while his mother worked for the government as a national park superintendent. It was midafternoon when Austin arrived at the tennis courts with three tennis balls and a seemingly ancient tennis racket that his father had used in high school. Alex was already at the tennis courts, lost in thought about something that he had been meaning to talk about with someone. Alex and Austin played tennis while talking about the usual drama that was spreading around the school: the most recent break up or hook up; the shocking expulsion of a student; the list went on and on. Since they were still both exhausted from their earlier run, they decided to take a break after about an hour of tennis. While Austin was preoccupied with putting new grip tape on his racket, Alex decided that this would be a good time to talk to him about something that had been bugging him for weeks. “Hey, Austin, can I talk to you about something?” Alex asked, fidgeting uncomfortably with his racket. “It’s been kind of bugging me for a while and I feel like if I don’t talk to someone about it soon, then I just won’t know what to do about it. However if I do tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone about it?” “Sure, Alex, what’s it about?” Austin said, still occupied with his now tangled grip tape. “I’ve been thinking, ever since Luke came out on Facebook that he is bisexual a few weeks before school started, that maybe’s it my turn to come out as well.” Alex’s palms were sweating so much that he accidently dropped his racket on the hard concrete floor beneath them. “Wait so you mean that you’re like, bi, or gay?” Austin said, having given up on applying the grip tape to his racket. “I’m not entirely sure. I feel like I know for a fact that I am bi and maybe gay, but I just don’t know for sure. The reason that this has been bugging me for so long is because I’m starting to feel like I’m lying about who I really am. I feel as though I can’t truly express who I am when I’m around other people, mainly when I’m around the other guys in our grade.” “Well you know what happened to Luke after he came out, right?” Alex shook his head. “Other kids made fun of him behind his back; they said all of the typical homophobic stuff. But hey, it’s ok if you are. You know that I have a gay uncle, Kyle, right? Well he’s not technically my uncle; I just call him Uncle Kyle because he’s such a cool guy and I hang out with him all the time, and my mom dated him in college. Oh, and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about this. If you want me to than I can try and set up a time for you to meet Kyle if you need help or advice, ok? ” “Ok, thanks Austin. Well I’m going to go head back to the school, I expect my mom to come pick me up soon.” Alex left the tennis courts alone, playing Lady GaGa’s new song, “Born This Way” on his iPod. Days, then weeks, went by without any reference to the conversation Alex had with Austin on the tennis courts. However Alex soon found out that Austin had told Adam, his brother, about the conversation, and while this made Alex a little bit upset, he was kind of glad that Adam now knew about it since it would mean one less person to explain it to in the end. During those weeks after the conversation, Alex began to take note of what he enjoyed doing that was considered to be “manly” in today’s society while also taking note of what could be considered not “manly”. Alex was surprised when he looked at the list of things that are not considered “manly” in today’s society. For example, while most guys his age would be talking about the most recent sports victories in the NFL, Alex would instead be more interested in celebrity drama or the newest song that Lady GaGa or Rihanna had just released. He soon came to realize that he exhibited some of the most common LGBT stereotypes: always want to be the center of the attention, think sports are boring, love drama, etc. It was May 3rd when Adam, Austin’s brother, finally decided to talk to Alex about the possibility of him being gay and the “dangers” of it. During their brief conversation, Alex found out that there had been a few gay people at Saint James before, but because they were gay, they were “asked to leave” the school (although they were never told exactly why they were asked to leave). Because of this frightening discovery, Alex decided that it would be best to not talk about the possibility of him being gay at school. Before he knew it, it was June, and school was over. Alex had not talked to anyone, not even Austin or Adam, about the whole gay thing for weeks. Summer was slowly moving by as it did every year; since he lived far from the school Alex wasn’t able to see any of his friends from school; therefore his summers were normally filled with hours of watching TV and computer games. It was the middle of July when Alex finally decided to start thinking about the possibility of being gay, and in order to help himself with this, Alex joined an online forum made for people who need advice with self-exploration and how to come out. While he was searching through the members list, Alex made a surprising discovery: one of his friends who graduated from Saint James in 2010 was also bisexual. Alex immediately went on Facebook and messaged him about how he had found his profile and how he needed help with trying to figure out if he was bi or gay. Alex’s friend’s name was Chris, and although Alex didn’t talk to him very much during his time at school, he still knew that he was a very good actor and was very socially popular during his time at Saint James. Chris and Alex talked on Facebook quite a lot over the course of the next few days, and Alex slowly came to a realization that he really was bisexual, if not gay. Then suddenly, on August 1st, when he went on Facebook to check to see if he had notifications or messages, he saw that Chris had written a note titled “something I need to tell you guys”. The note was Chris’s way of coming out; in it he wrote about how he had known that he was bisexual for a long time and that he hoped that him being bi wouldn’t change anyone’s opinion of him. Alex knew that if Chris could come out on Facebook this way, then he should be able to as well. Alex congratulated Chris for coming out and told him his plans for coming out and how he planned on doing it. Alex decided that it would be best to come out on Facebook, but instead of telling everyone at once like Chris did, he would instead tell one person at a time, starting with the person whom he trusted the most and then working his way down to people who were still his friends, but may not be his most trustworthy friends. The main problem that Alex ran into was trying to figure out how to come out to his closest friend, Clarice, on Facebook. On August 6, Alex finally decided to tell Clarice. “Have you heard about Google Plus, the new social networking site that is supposed to kill Facebook?” Alex typed, already filled with anxiety and fear. “I don’t understand it!” Clarice responded. “I don't know anything about except for that Mark Zuckerburg uses it a lot.” Alex replied, knowing that it was almost time to get to the main reason for his conversation. A few moments went by and after Clarice responded “Ohh…that’s dumb.” Alex knew that it was time to start the most awkward conversation he had ever had with someone. “Off topic: you know that I’m gay right?” he typed, filled with the sound of his own heart beating in his head. He knew that Clarice had no idea that he was gay, but he didn’t know how else to tell her. “No..for real? You never told me” she replied. Alex knew that she was very confused. “Well that's because you haven’t been on Facebook for so long, and I didn’t feel like Twitter was the best place to tell you. I was going to tell you before I decided to post a status update about it.” “Don’t make that your status…bad idea…it will start nasty stuff…” “It won't start nasty stuff, Luke did it last year and nothing really bad happened.” “People make fun of him now behind his back…I’m just saying this because I’m a good friend.” Their conversation went on for about another hour; Clarice gave Alex advice on how he should come out and how Facebook was not the safest place to come out. Over the course of the next week Alex told about five people, one every night, and each time he typed “I’m gay”, he felt like his own heart was about to explode from anxiety. Thankfully after he told Clarice, it started to become easier for Alex to tell his other friends. The responses that Alex got were mixed, one of his friends, Carrie, thought he was joking about the whole thing and did not want to believe him at first, while another friend, Will, said that he saw it coming and that he kind of figured that he was gay. By the time preseason started, Alex had told about ten of his closest friends, with each friend being mostly supportive. Because he went to Saint James, Alex knew that the word would spread quickly around the school that he was gay. Sure enough when preseason started at the end of August, almost the entire school community had found out that Alex was gay thanks to one of his friends who had told another friend which caused the news to spread like a wildfire throughout the school (Saint James virtually lives off drama and gossip). Telling his closest friend, Clarice, that he was gay was the hardest thing that Alex had ever had to do in his life, and although he knew that people were saying mean things about him behind his back, Alex knew that coming out was the best choice that he could have ever made. It allowed Alex to make stronger friendships with people in his grade that he didn’t really know all that well in ninth grade. It also allowed him to become more aware of all of the LGBT discrimination that is happening throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Just because someone is gay, it doesn’t give people the right to bully, or in some cases, kill that person or make them commit suicide. Sadly this happened many times in the past six months; there was at least one news story every two weeks about how someone had committed suicide because they were bullied. Alex also realized that he could finally fully express who he was meant to be around his friends, something he couldn’t do in ninth grade. During cross country practice one day, while he was running on the towpath with some of his friends, Alex and two of his friends were arguing about the current political system within the United States. Then suddenly one of his friends said to Alex, “Well if you become a politician when you get older just make sure that you don’t tell anyone that you’re gay.” Alex laughed at this thought and continued the run.
That was a really nice story. Clearly very realistic, of course you have your heart in it. It might be dumb, but I have to clarify: is Alex you? It's just a little foreign to me to write about yourself in the third person. Good if you are going for a little distance from the story, though. I have some minor criticisms so far. Your grammar is not quite perfect. In the first sentence, you have "...Alex said to his friend, Austin, exhausted from the three mile run they had just finished." While not exactly WRONG, it is a tiny bit vague in who "they" are at first (the layout suggests it's only one of them). I would recommend replacing it with "the two of them" because it's just a tiny bit awkward to me. A minuscule nitpick I guess. One more example that stuck out at me was "the possibility of him being gay". I don't remember the technical terms for what's going on here (I think "being" is considered either a gerund or gerundive) but it's definitely incorrect. "Being gay" is functioning as a noun, so you need to use a possessive pronoun. Simply put, it should read "the possibility of his being gay". It may sound weird, but that's just how it goes. :S The flow is very natural though, and the dialogue is spot-on. These characters are thoroughly believable people. You also did a great job conveying the emotions connected to coming out; those feelings you evoke in the reader are absolutely real. I'm certain you'll get an A+ with just a couple fixes.
That was really nice man, really well done. The part were you mentioned; "filled with the sound of his own heart beating in his head" "each time he typed “I’m gay”, he felt like his own heart was about to explode from anxiety!" I think most people can relate to that when they're about to come out to someone, heck, I often felt like that when I was only 'considering' coming out to someone, the feeling intensifying when I said the two words. Was a great read man!
