• At first I found myself worrying about if I had the courage to "come out". I now have a community that accepted me when I said “I am a lesbian; but my stepfather is the kind of guy whose judgment that I fear the most in that community, not my peers or my friends' judgment. You see, he's the traditional type of guy.

    Everything seemed fine when my common mood of fear and depression was cured by acceptance from my church. The exhilaration of relief was immense, I admit that. However, my shy personality keeps myself from directly telling Old Mark, my step-dad. It's his hot-headed arguments that make me want to cower in a corner of my room. Even though I am withdrawn, I never let anyone make me feel ashamed and say that I am straight. I will never feel bad for what I claim to be.

    A lesbian. I, before I came to this conclusion, had no problems with people being gay or bisexual or trans-gendered, as long as they didn’t fall for me. It was my only standard: until I found myself less and less attracted to men and drawn more to another girl who was the opposite of me; Charlotte.

    Charlotte was a strange person herself; she was indifferent to bullying of all sorts. Shortly after when she made it clear that she had no interest in being a lesbian or bisexual after I attempted to ask her out, my vision of her being a seraph with excellent morals vanished. I began to notice more and more flaws that she has now that I have my head out of the clouds. The ridicule; the very thought that I actually like her...

    I closed the metallic cover of my magnetic journal and turned to the computer screen. "Three e-mails," I muttered, moving the arrow over to the inbox to see what it was. When the window popped up, it was only e-mail to lure teenagers into looking into colleges."It's just junk," I concluded, sighing disappointedly as I shut down the terminal.

    "Emily!" I heard Old Mark shout from downstairs, making my body chill and hair stand on end.

    "Yeah...?" I called back, barely making my voice audible enough to reach him.
    "Come down, I need to talk to you about something."

    Tremors ran up and down my spine as I stood up and grabbed an old leather jacket to add to my Goodwill panache. I walked slowly, my heart fluttering vigorously like a butterfly trying to escape a bell jar, as I approached the man of my deepest fears. Before announcing- no, before I considered being a lesbian I never gave a care when he summoned me. Now his pending thoughts frighten me. Just being around him I feel so tense.

    When I arrived to the foot of the stairs, I automatically realized that his hand was wrapped around the front door handle. "We are going out for a bit, Isabelle! Don't wait for us!" he called out to my mother.

    "What about the storm that's supposed to be here before dark?" I asked, hoping that we wouldn't have to go to any kind of field trip that he may have planned.

    "Don't worry about it; we'll be back before that squall reaches us."

    The soft rasp of the door was made louder as the wind pushed it open, wider than Mark intended. He gestured me to cross the threshold, which I did with a child's tantrum without the wailing. When he came out after kissing my mom goodbye, he turned to find me with my arms crossed over my chest.

    "What do you want?" I asked begrudgingly.

    "Let's hike over to our secret place," he suggested first, dodging my questions as he began to walk on the half-tread switchback that was only traveled by us. We had discovered it when I was younger, maybe six. It led to a beautiful vista that overlooked an excellent view of the snow-capped peaks, the pristine, calm lake and the forest in its evergreen beauty.

    It's the one thing that makes me enjoy living in the mountains.

    I took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh that only disappeared into the blow of the wind. After shuddering from the sudden change in temperature, I quickly caught up with him. Another thing about Mark that irritated the heck out of me: his tempered personality is like an inhibition when it comes to my questions; he doesn't answer to anything unless he wants to, hence the disregarded question shortly before.

    After about fifteen minutes of silence and rugged trail hiking, we both made it to the vista. As always, since we first discovered it, I was breathless with awe as the winter wonderland memory in my mind was refreshed. When we both took a minute to take in the scenery, then I turned to Mark and asked him what's up.

    "I heard some things from the guys at the Super Bowl party the other day," he began.

    I groaned and placed some prudence into my thoughts when choosing my words to answer him. Last week was a Super Bowl party that a family in our church hosts every year. However, when planning my "coming out", I completely forgot about the party, and so what I said was on the minds of everyone there. How could I forget the slight possibility that one or two of them might mention my announcement to him even though I had yet to talk to Mom about it?
    "What about it?" I asked coyly.

    "Well, you know how Bill and I are..."

    "- the best two friends from middle school that could possibly exist, yes," I mumbled, finishing for him impatiently, "What about him?"

    "He said that Molly was at your announcement. When you said that you are now a... a lesbian, Emily." He was hesitant when he came to the word that disturbed him a lot. My body even flinched when he said it without any hatred or poison in it, like his emotional tone was trying to keep his thoughts from hurting me.

    "Yeah, Mark, you see-" I began, but my voice faltered as I turned to face him, afraid to glance into his eyes and see the pain of having his only daughter, lawfully related or not, the one thing that is completely the opposite of what he believed in.

    "What I want you to know, hun, is that I don';t care what you are, I just want you to know that I support you no matter what you claim to be. I don't even care if you become some Wiccan girl and start worshiping trees, I will still be behind you one hundred percent. The only thing that I don't want you to be is some stupid teenager and waste away. That is the only thing, so far, that I won't tolerate. I won't ask you your reasons or invade your privacy, but I want to ask you just this. You don't have to answer, remember that Emily." He turned to face me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "Have you fallen for a girl yet?"

    At this point, to be perfectly honest, I was downright comfortable with telling Mark the story of me and Charlotte. I have already faced the torture at school, and now that Old Mark accepts me, surprisingly with open arms, how much more damage can be caused?

    I sighed and nodded. "About three months ago, when I started to question my sexuality, my schedule changed. I was moved into calculus with Charlotte next to me. I don't know what it was but I was so... drawn to her. Like a moth to a flame, you know?

    "Anyway, about a month after daydreaming about her, I finally got up the nerves to ask her out. During my lunch and on the way to class, I noticed her socializing with her girlfriends a little too closely, like maybe she liked her best friend Elizabeth as much as I liked her. When I did ask her, she said yes, and we went out after school. It was when I told you that I was going to the library with Tony, remember?

    "She gazed at me warmly, and I was so absorbed. It was like you with Mom, only it was me and her, the girl I believed to be the love of my life. After the date, let's just say that she was completely different than I thought she was. The next day in calculus she turned to me before the bell rang and told me that she decided that she wasn't 'bi,'; but straight. Her smile looked so false, too much like a jeer for me to believe that she was originally sincere. I haven't 'told' the school about my sexuality, and when Charlotte told her little hellions, I was no more. Word got out, and I was ridiculed from the first bell to the last. The teachers, of course, didn't do a thing, but at least they didn't laugh at me like all the students. All in all, though intentional or not, their silence hurt as much as my peers' laughter."

    Mark was completely silent through my story, and so I concluded quickly, glancing at the sky overhead to find that the expected squall has practically arrived. "And now here I am, recovered from lovesickness and trying to seek acceptance from my stepfather. I guess that mission was a success."

    He nodded. "I am sorry that you couldn't confide in me because of what you are and because of what I believe in. We should go, huh? I think I just felt a raindrop."

    Sure enough, rain began to pour right after he finished his sentence.

    "I love you Mark," I yelled out to him through the downpour.

    "I love you too, lesbian or not." He took me into a tight embrace, and then we both treaded back to the house where Mom and supper were awaiting us. Life is now better than I thought it would be. I guess what I needed all along was the courage to stand up for myself.