19
Open House

“I can’t believe we actually got this planned and set up so quickly,” I said, excited for the open house.

“This all happened a lot faster than I expected it to,” Ryan said. “I thought it’d take a few months or so, but we got everything in just two weeks.”

“I hope people show up,” I said, holding one arm with the other. “It would be awkward if we did all this and nobody showed up.”

“I recruited as many people as I could. I’m sure we’ll have a decent amount of people popping up.”

“Yeah, I guess we’ll see in the next few minutes,” I said, looking at the entrance of the auditorium door. Ryan and I walked around the room, making sure everything was set up properly, and watched as some people slowly filtered in. I kept on checking the time, waiting to see what attendance would be by 3:30, the time when the event would start. I looked up from my phone when 3:25 hit, to see there were around 40 people in the room. “That’s quite a few people.”

“It is,” Ryan said, smiling. “I did a decent job at recruiting, right?”

“You did!” I said, happy with the turnout. I was scared nobody would show up, so I was excited that we had a decent amount of people showing up.

“Are you sure they didn’t just show up for food?” Alex said, laughing as they sat down next to us. “Some Little Caesars pizza certainly sweetened the deal quite a bit.”

“Hey,” I said, feigning offense. “I’m hoping people came for the event, and just thought of the food as a bonus.”

“I hope so too, but I’m sure at least one person showed up just for the pizza,” Alex said.

I looked to see some of the other GSA members were already handing the pizza out, along with a cup of pop, punch, juice, or water depending on preferences. “We should go get our slices too, before they’re all gone,” I said, pointing a thumb at the pizza line.

“We should, yeah,” Ryan said, standing up. We were in line when one of Ryan’s friends walked up. It was Chris, whose name I finally managed to remember this time.

“Hey, Ryan, I showed up,” he said, grinning. “Showed up for the pizza, to be honest. But I hope the rest of the event will be interesting too.”

“Told you,” Alex said, elbowing me slightly as they laughed.

“Hey, as long as you showed up, I’m happy, man,” Ryan said, giving Chris a fist bump. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course bro, anything for a friend,” he said.

We got our pizza and sat down to eat it. I was nibbling on it when I saw my mom walk into the room exactly at 3:30. I told her about it but she said she could be busy, so I wasn’t sure. I quickly ran up to her, happy to see her.

“Mom, you came!” I said, jumping up and down a little.

“Of course I would, sweetie,” she said, hugging me tightly. “I had some trouble finding the room, this school’s really quite big.”

“Yeah it is,” I said, giggling. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad too,” she said, smiling. “Look, I’ll be in the back and catch up with Ryan’s parents and watch the event, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” I said, looking at the back of the room to see Ryan’s mom and dad there. “Thanks for showing up.”

Mom nodded in response, walking to the back of the room to talk with them.

“Hey, I think Alex is about to steal your pizza if you don’t get back,” Ryan yelled out to me.

I rushed back, taking a bite of my pepperoni pizza so that Alex wouldn’t take it. “It’s mine, sorry,” I said in between bites.

“Darn, I was hungry,” Alex said, frowning. “Why did we have a two-piece limit? I want more. Are you sure you want that piece, Julie?”

“It’s mine,” I responded, giggling, taking a quick bite out of it to mark it as mine.

“Okay, the event is about to start,” Ryan said. “I need to go up front to introduce everything.”

“See you, Ryan,” I said, watching my boyfriend walk away. I smiled a little, happy to see how enthusiastic he was about this.

“Hello everyone,” Ryan said, walking up to the auditorium’s stage. “Thank you all for showing up today! I’m sure most of you know who I am, considering I’m the reason why a lot of you showed up, but I’m Ryan Morgan for anyone unacquainted with me. I’m the club leader of the GSA here, and I organized this open house to raise some awareness for LGBT people here at this school and the community.”

Some people clapped for Ryan, which made him laugh a little on stage.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Anyways, our guest for today comes from Washington’s very own largest LGBT organization. Please give her a round of applause.”

“Hello everyone,” the guest said as she adjusted the stage microphone. “Thank you for the warm welcome and applause, it is much appreciated. My name is Jessica Tennant and I’m the community outreach coordinator here at the Washington LGBT Help Center. Today I'll share with you some facts about the LGBTQ+ community as well as my personal story.”

Jessica continued on, giving a speech about the struggles she went through in her life as a trans woman and the importance of awareness and a proper support system for LGBT folks. I had to admit I felt emotional during it, as it reminded me how lucky I was to have the support system I did have. She stepped down after her speech, going to a table with Ms. Castillo and some other adults.

“Thank you for that speech, Ms. Tennant,” Ryan said, getting back up on stage. “As she said, it is important for everyone to know and support members of the queer community. It can protect people, make their lives better, and help lead more people to discover who they truly are. Next up, we’ll have a couple of activities celebrating the LGBT community, before we wrap things up.”

I stood up and stretched, looking as Ryan came back down from the stage. “What activity do you want to do?” I asked him, looking at some of the activities available.

“Let’s do some face paint,” he said, laughing. “We were too broke to afford a painter, so we have to do it ourselves.”

“Let’s go,” I said, smiling.

***

“Okay, you’re up first,” Ryan said, holding up some paint and a brush in his hand. “What flag do you want?”

“Give me a trans flag on my right cheek and a rainbow pride flag on my left,” I said, giggling.

“You sure that won’t out you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in concern.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, looking around the table. “Half of the people are probably cishet and getting pride flags, it’ll be fine.”

“Okay then,” he said, picking up tubes of pink, blue, and white paint. He quickly painted a trans flag on my cheek, and a rainbow one on the other. I blushed a little as I saw his focused face right in front of mine. He held up his phone to show me the result, and although the lines were a little shaky, it looked good.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. “That actually looks really cute.”

“Right?” he said, a lopsided grin appearing on his face. “Here, do some for me. Same configuration as yours, but with a bi flag instead, of course.”

“Sure,” I said, picking up a tube of purple paint. “Wait, how does the bisexual flag go again?”

“Wow, you forgot my flag,” Ryan said, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, I know the colors, but I don’t know how it’s organized,” I said, frowning.

“Here,” Ryan said, showing me the bi flag on his phone. “This help jog your memory?”

“Yeah, I got it now,” I said, smiling. I drew the three stripes on his right cheek and a pride flag on his left cheek. “There, we’re all done now.”

“Great,” Ryan said, standing up from his seat. “To the next activity, we go!”

***

“Let’s add something to the kindness wall,” I said, looking up at the wall that was already half-filled with Post-it notes. “What do some of the messages say?”

“This one is really sweet,” Ryan said, pulling one off the wall. I peeked over his shoulder to read the message. It read ‘I didn’t know much about the LGBT community, but I learned today how important it is to be knowledgeable about this sort of thing. I support all of you, love is love and you are who you are!’

“That’s cute,” I said, smiling at the message. I took it from his hand and placed it right back onto the board. “I’m glad this event has helped people.”

“That’s why we did it, right?” Ryan asked. “Okay, time for our own messages.”

I picked up a pen, thinking of what to write. An idea finally came to mind, and I clicked the pen to write. ‘Whoever reads this, know that you’re loved and supported!’

“What did you write, Ryan?” I asked, leaning over to him.

“Here,” Ryan said, picking up his paper. ”I wrote that everyone who sees this should know that there are people who support them.”

“That’s like, the same thing I wrote,” I said, frowning.

“Great minds think alike,” Ryan said, chuckling. “I don’t know if I’d call you a great mind, but you know what I mean.”

“Hey,” I said, offended. “I do all your homework for you, and I’m not a great mind?”

“You lack the subtle wit and dry humor I do,” Ryan said, smiling. “That proves my intelligence.”

“That makes no sense,” I responded, frowning.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, tousling my hair with his hand. “Come on, we have one last activity to complete.”

***

“Okay, last activity before we finish,” Ryan said. “We’re making our own pride flags.”

“How do we do that?” I asked, frowning.

“First, we wrap a piece of paper around a pencil and then tape it up to get the flagpole,” Ryan said, picking up a colored pencil. He did as he said, and ended up getting a decent-looking flagpole. He then stuck a piece of tape on it to make sure it wouldn’t unravel. “Here, you try.”

“There we go,” I said, happy with the result. “I got it!”

“Yes you did,” Ryan said, smiling at me. “Here, what flag are you going to make?”

“A trans flag, obviously,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What else would I make?”

“You could make a bisexual flag for me,” Ryan said, smirking.

“You know what, fine,” I said, picking up a blue colored pencil. “You make me a trans one then.”

“Sure, I can work with that,” Ryan said.

I gulped, realizing I had forgotten what the bisexual flag looked like again. I tried to look at Ryan’s cheek to remember what it looked like again.

“Are you looking at my face because you forgot what the flag looked like?” he asked, calling me out right away.

“You caught me?” I asked, sighing. “Fine, I did, I completely forgot.”

“You seriously forgot?” Ryan asked, sighing. He pointed at his cheek so I could see. “It’s pink, purple, then blue.”

“Got it,” I said, winking. “Sorry, bad memory.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he said, chuckling. He started coloring on a cut-up piece of paper with a pink colored pencil. After a few minutes, we each finished each other’s flag.

“There, just for you,” Ryan said, handing me a trans flag.

I held it up and smiled, happy with how today went. “Was today fun?” he asked, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Yeah, it was great,” I said. “Here, get in, let’s take a photo to commemorate the event.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Ryan said. He moved into my camera’s frame and we both smiled before I snapped the photo.

“Just wish I had makeup on though,” I complained, slightly dissatisfied with how I looked.

“You’re still adorable, don’t worry about it,” Ryan said. “Plus, you’re going to come out at school soon, right?”

“I will,” I said, looking up at him. “I just need to muster up the confidence to, which is pretty hard.”

“I can imagine,” he said. “Just know that the rest of the GSA and I will be there for you when you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” I responded, my mind already racing with plans to come out.

***

“Julie, I have to tell you some-” Mom said before I interrupted her by going on an excited ramble.

“Mom, today was so much fun,” I said, smiling brightly. “Everything went so well too. The speaker was really good and Ryan was really sweet and it was just so great.”

“I’m glad it was,” she said, hugging me. “I had a lovely time watching everyone celebrate pride and catching up with the Morgans.”

“Hey, Julie,” Alex said, walking up to me with a non-binary pride bracelet on their arm. “Oh, wait, does your mom not know? Crap, did I just out you? Shut up Alex, you’re making things worse.”

“Oh, you, you’re they,” my mom said, her brain working overtime to get Alex’s pronouns correct.

“I am they,” Alex said, laughing slightly at how Mom phrased that.

“I already know about Julie though, don’t worry,” my mom said, laughing.

“God, that’s a relief,” they said, nervously grabbing onto their arm. “Look, I’ll let you two talk, I think I just made things awkward.”

“They were pleasant, although a little nervous around me,” my mom said, chuckling. “I don’t think I’m that scary.”

“You’re not,” I said, happy at Mom using the correct pronouns for Alex. “Anyways, what did you have to tell me again?”

“Can we get to my car?” my mom asked, grabbing onto my hand. “I think now is time for me to tell you something.”

“What is it?” I asked nervously, my mind spinning with possibilities.

“Let’s get to the car, the event is over, right?” she asked.

“Umm, it is over I think,” I said.

“Okay, let’s get going then,” she said.

“What is it though?” I said, curious and nervous as to what her answer would be. I got into the passenger seat of Mom’s car, as she got into the front seat.

“Julie, it’s something rather important,” she said. She sighed, rubbing her temple, before speaking again. “Your dad and I, we’ve decided to separate.”

“What?” I said, surprised. My mouth hung open, as my brain tried to process what she just said.

“I waited to tell you until the end of the event so you could enjoy it, but yes,” she said, looking at me with a barren expression.

“I don’t know what to say,” I mumbled out, my eyes welling up with tears.

“Let’s go home for a little bit to talk,” my Mom said, gently holding me.

“Okay,” I replied, sniffling.