testdog65 (testdog65) wrote in qaf_challenges, @ 2006-09-01 22:34:00 |
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Original poster: _alicesprings
Title: In My Room
Written By: vlredreign
Timeline: Season 1, Episode 118
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Summary: Sometimes, you gotta go for it. Justin's POV.
I like it in my head. It’s a pretty cool place, most of the time. I see in Technicolor, 3D and infrared. Every color, every line, every shape stands out in bas-relief. I wonder if other artists see things in this manner.
I am an artist. I realized this a few days ago. Well, I knew it, but I really, truly knew it, understood what it meant when I printed out the acceptance letter to Dartmouth. It’s not a hobby, it’s not something to amuse me while I’m on the phone, it’s what I am. I have to draw. Have to. It almost physically hurts not to. That’s what they don’t understand. What they can’t understand. I have to do this. You would think that, as a parent, the fact that your kid wants to go to college, any college, is a good idea, a cause to celebrate. Not my parents.
My father kicked me out for being queer. But that didn’t stop him from insisting that I apply to Dartmouth. All the Taylor men went to Dartmouth. Big deal. I don’t want to be a business major. I sure as hell don’t want to be like my dad. Some example he set.
As soon as he found out that I was gay, he lost it. I mean, truly lost it. First, he flips out all over me, telling me that it’s unnatural, that I can’t go anywhere, that I can’t see Brian…
Fuck that. Not an option. Try something else.
I think what surprised me was the extremes that he went to to try to straighten me out. First, he smacked me. That in and of itself was mind-blowing, considering that I was a child of the oh-so-PC 90’s, where people didn’t dole out corporal punishment to their children for fear of the child welfare police kicking in your front door. It didn’t hurt, physically, but emotionally it took the wind out of my sails and tarnished my “Dad Is Great” button, for sure.
The next thing he did was to ram Brian’s Jeep one night. I know it was him, because I saw the car the next day. He practically totaled it, and told my mother that some guy ran into him. Yeah, right, dad. To add insult to injury, he hid out in the alley next to Babylon, and sucker-punched Brian. He was out of control, and it scared me. As angry as I was, I was more afraid than anything. Because, what if I was next? There was no way in hell that I was going home with him. And so, I told him no. Never again. I was never going home. And, with the exception of the one afternoon that Brian took me there to try to work it out, which, by the way was a joke, I never did. Never again.
Since then, I’ve tried so hard. To get good grades, to stand up for myself, to get Brian to think of me as more than just an unfortunate circumstance, to be the best artist that I can be.
Brian called it being the best homosexual that I could be. I’m trying. God, I’m trying.
It was right after I found out that my parents were getting a divorce. It was my fault. I did this, I caused this. Nothing could change my mind. I was so fucking excited that day. I’d just gotten my acceptance letter to the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts. I was good enough. For once, I was good enough. I couldn’t wait to tell my mother. I went to her and told her, and the pride on her face was more than I could ever have hoped for. And then she told me that she didn’t think that my dad would pay for school. That he expected me to go to Dartmouth. Didn’t they get it? This was Dartmouth. My Dartmouth. And then, she promptly dropped the other bomb. Divorce. Wonderful.
Deb told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t have that power. Still, I can’t help but feel responsible. I thought that if I shut up and toed the line, went to Dartmouth like a good little boy, it would make things better, that they’d change their minds and work things out. Deb knocked that thought out of my head as well.
Still…maybe I ought to go to Dartmouth.