Chapter 63 Garrett
Garrett
I was standing in church on Sunday morning and, for a moment, I kind of forgot who was sitting next to me holding her rosary.
Which was impressive, considering my mother’s presence didn't go unnoticed.
Unlike what most people would probably assume, I actually liked church.
I liked the smell of the incense coming from that metal thing the priest always waved around like he was trying to smoke out demons from the ceiling. I liked the organ music too. It was dramatic as hell and always a little off, like me.
I liked the stained-glass windows. The way the light came through them and painted the pews in colors. I liked the golden altar, the statues, and the incredible paintings everywhere.
Granted, I never really understood why everyone in those paintings looked so miserable.
Even Jesus always looked so sad...
I figured those must’ve been hard times back then. No antibiotics, no Wi-Fi, and apparently everyone was getting sacrificed, or stoned, or betrayed by their best friend. I guess by the end of the story nobody was in a great mood.
Still, I liked the images of heaven. The angels. The idea that something good came after all the suffering.
I even liked listening to the readings.
Well… some of them.
Not the ones about punishment and doom and eternal damnation.
Those always felt like my mother had written them personally.
Unlike her, I didn’t think you could go to hell for breathing wrong.
But that was the shit she’d been taught growing up.
My mother had been raised by extremely strict parents and sent to a religious boarding school when she was young. The kind of place where joy was probably considered suspicious behavior.
She was actually about to become a nun.
A month before taking her vows, she went on a missionary trip and met my father.
They fell in love. Dramatic, forbidden, probably very romantic in a “ruin your entire life” kind of way.
She left the convent for him.
Her father didn’t take that well.
According to family legend—and by legend I mean something my mother repeated often enough that it basically became scripture—my grandfather told her my father had been sent by the devil to pull her away from God.
He said God would punish her for abandoning her vows.
That her life would be filled with misery.
But then my dad turned out to be a millionaire.
Funny how divine punishment gets a little confusing when money enters the chat.
Once my grandfather realized my father’s “sinful influence” also came with a private jet and the ability to help my mother build her own empire, he adjusted his theology slightly.
Apparently, the wrath of God had skipped their generation.
And would fall on the bloodline instead.
Which meant the cursed offspring.
Me.
My mother might actually have believed that.
Because from the moment I was born, she tried to turn me into the perfect child. A miracle from God, instead of the curse her father predicted.
The problem was… I wasn’t exactly miracle material.
I was hyper as hell. Couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes. Had zero interest in the family business. My brain bounced around like a pinball machine and reading anything longer than a cereal box felt like torture.
Turns out I had ADHD and dyslexia.
But back then my mother’s medical understanding of the situation was basically: beat it out of him.
Old-school parenting.
She tried to beat a lot of things out of me.
Attention disorder. Reading disability. Lack of musical talent—which apparently was also a personal insult to God during Sunday service.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.
I never told anyone about the beatings.
Not the teachers. Not the doctors. Not even Aitor.
I just grew up socially awkward, painfully insecure, and mostly alone.
Except for him. Aitor was my only real friend. And honestly, I didn’t need anyone else.
Then eventually I got my first crush.
We started hanging out more. Talking. Flirting. Experimenting a little.
Nothing dramatic.
Just two teenagers figuring shit out.
One night my mother came home earlier than expected. And walked in on us.
Half naked. In my room.
I still don’t know what horrified her more.
The fact that someone was sucking my dick out of wedlock… Or the fact that it was a guy.
James.
She lost her mind.
Like actually lost it.
She dragged him out of the house screaming like he was some kind of demon that had crawled out of my closet. Then she turned on me.
That night was the worst beating I’d ever taken.
Something in me snapped after that.
I ran.
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t even have shoes on. I just ran until my lungs burned and my head stopped making sense.
At some point, I ended up behind a closed bar near the harbor. One, Aitor and I used to sneak drinks behind sometimes.
There were broken bottles everywhere.
I picked one up.
And for a few minutes the idea seemed… logical.
The pain would stop.
The disappointment would stop.
My mother would finally be right.
I called Aitor first. Not for help.
Just to say goodbye.
I didn’t even tell him where I was, but somehow he figured it out, anyway.
The next thing I remember is his face.
His arms around me.
The panic in his voice while he tried to stop the bleeding.
He was crying.
Which was terrifying, because Aitor almost never cried.
He called the ambulance.
Then my parents.
Then probably half the emergency services in the state.
I survived.
Unfortunately for everyone involved.
After the hospital came the court order.
Apparently attempting to bleed out behind a bar counts as being a danger to yourself.
And punching every paramedic who tried to sedate you counts as being a danger to others.
So a judge signed some papers, and I got shipped off to that lovely little place in the Berkshires called Spring Creek Renewal Center.
Renewal.
Great branding.
They specialized in helping troubled youth overcome behavioral disorders. At least that’s what the brochure said.
The first few months there were… intense.
I tried to escape several times.
I lied to the therapists. Fought with the staff. Started more than one brawl with other kids.
I also kept trying to hurt myself. Which, according to them, really helped prove their diagnosis.
Eventually, the doctors there discovered the root of my problem.
Apparently, I was homosexual.
Also emotionally disturbed.
And a danger to society.
Especially to my mother.
So they did what institutions like that have been doing across the United States for decades.
They tried to fix me.
Conversion therapy.
A fancy name for psychological torture wrapped in Bible verses.
What I went through with maintenance the day before was a picnic at the park.
During my stay, I faced isolation. Shame sessions. Religious counseling. Punishments. Shock treatment. “Reconditioning exercises.” Hours of lectures about sin and purity and how my brain was diseased.
They called it therapy, but it was abuse.
And the worst part? Places like that still exist. Right now.
In modern America.
Kids still get sent there by parents who think love is something you can beat, pray, or threaten out of a person.
The funny thing is… for a while I told myself I was “cured.”
Obviously, I wasn't. They couldn't fix me.
Just like my mother couldn’t beat ADHD or dyslexia out of me, they couldn’t torture homosexuality out of me either.
Turns out none of those things are diseases.
They’re just parts of who I am.
What they did manage to do was teach me something else.
How to lie.
How to say exactly what people want to hear.
How to pretend you’re fixed.
And how to build walls so high no one ever gets close enough to hurt you again, and if they try, you just bully them away.
Which worked great.
Right up until Aslan Rivers walked into Crownwell Academy and decided ruining my entire emotional stability was apparently his life’s mission.
And now you’re all caught up.
There I was, standing in church, in front of God, and still thinking about him. Still hurting for him. Still wondering if there was a way. Any way at all, like he asked.
I missed him so much it physically hurt.
And strangely enough, God didn’t strike me dead for that.
Which told me He probably disagreed with my mother about a lot of things.