Table of Contents
Playing It Out Straight
Blurb
Copyright Acknowledgement
Dedication
Note
Before
Chapter One: The Story
Chapter Two: In My Own Eyes
Chapter Three: Have You Ever
Chapter Four: Looking Out
Chapter Five: Oh Dear
Chapter Six: Hiding My Heart
Chapter Seven: Shadow on the Wall
Chapter Eight: What Can I Say
Chapter Nine: Until I Die
Chapter Ten: Dreams
Chapter Eleven: Way to You
Chapter Twelve: Fall Apart Again
Chapter Thirteen: Us Again
Chapter Fourteen: If There Was No You
Chapter Fifteen: Wasted
Chapter Sixteen: Follow
Chapter Seventeen: Closer to You
Chapter Eighteen: Someday Never Comes
Chapter Nineteen: Touching the Ground
Chapter Twenty: Late Morning Lullaby
Sneak peek at Living it out Gay
After
Chapter one: Pride and Joy
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Playing It Out Straight
Andrew McQuinn
For the last two years, Kyle McKinley has been living a lie and going along with the charade he believed would make his father proud. Kyle thought he could continue playing it out straight and hide his secret. Until his family moved across country from a small coastal Maine town to Santa Monica, California.
Recently, Scotty Valentin gave up on all hopes of finding a boyfriend and decided to focus on his career. He’d been taught love came with a price and that price was his loss of trust.
By chance Kyle and Scotty met. For Scotty, he didn’t want to fall into the same trap he kept getting himself into, but there was something different about Kyle. For Kyle, he’s too afraid to admit Scotty may be the man who had all the answers he’s been both running from and searching for.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2020 by Andrew McQuinn
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Shannon Perrine
Formatting/Editing by Kris Jacen
Issued 2020
This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my family. To my mother who provided wisdom for the many naïve issues I experienced as a child. To my father who always finds the humor in a situation. And my sister, we may have had a rocky first few years on this planet, now you’re not just my sister but my best friend. Thank you for your unwavering support when I came out.
To all the young boys and girls out there, conflicted and divided by your emotions, you aren’t alone. Sexuality is hard to figure out and isn’t a definition found in a dictionary. There will be times when you think the world is against you, but there will always be a hand to take when you need it. Just hold out your hand.
Lastly, to Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth, and Tim Hanseroth. You and your bandmates music became the soundtrack to my coming out. This story was written while I was coming to terms with my own sexuality. All my worries, fears, and triumphs went into it. The entire time your music was there to guide me along and for that I thank you. As homage, your song titles have become my chapter headers, and influences of your music can be seen woven throughout this story.
Enjoy.
Thank you.
All coming out stories are told in two parts.
The Before and After.
In the Before, you’re still trying to figure yourself out. Questioning every decision, you make. Wondering if there are others like you. It’s the time when you have your first same-sex kiss, the first of many crushes, and you start your coming out process. Finally, the day comes when you’ve built the courage to tell your parents. This day is when you stop playing it out straight.
Then there’s the After. After you’ve come out to yourself. Told your friends and siblings. You’ve found your core support system. Some may have felt the first stings of rejection while others had their first boy/girlfriend. The After is poetically the aftermath. It’s the time when you stop living in fear of the unknown and start living it out gay.
Playing it out Straight is the Before.
Before
CHAPTER ONE: THE STORY
It started with a thought. An innocent, miniscule notion, I never believed would turn into this.
My journey began two years ago, three days into the start of high school. At the time I was just trying to live life. Puberty had already sunk its nasty fangs into me, slowly changing me from a boy to a man. Nevertheless, it was my hope freshman year would be a time for self-discovery. I was lost. Confused. You see high school’s when I first took notice of my attraction toward guys. This realization left me bewildered.
At a young age, I discovered my passion for art. Art became my therapy, speaking to my soul and a platform to confess my darkest secrets. Acrylics, oils, and water colors were nice, but charcoal, graphite, and pastels were my kryptonite. It’s so easy to write I think I’m gay, only to cover it with the peak of a mountain or the beak of a chickadee, never to be seen again unless you knew where to look.
Writers use a pencil to paint a picture, turning their suffering into stories that captivate an audience. Put a pencil in my hand however and I’ll reveal to you a young man, standing on the side-line. His shadow pitch black, dark enough to be its own being. Take a closer look at his shadow and hidden underneath you’ll see his real identity.
Growing up on a small island I always felt a little sheltered. I spent freshman year struggling with a thought. Why was I suddenly attracted to guys? I still found girls attractive, but my attention kept wandering to the guys in my class. It started when I first saw Kip Martin walking down the hall. Considering his status in the social hierarchy of high school, and the fact that he was the football captain and clearly straight, I never spoke to him. Still I admired him from afar. I chalked up my attraction to him as just that, attraction. He was a handsome man, and therefore nothing was wrong with admitting another guy was good looking.
Except a year later the feelings hadn’t gone away. I did my best to ignore them and spent my free time working on set pieces for the winter play and learning how to sew and mend costumes during the spring musical. Made a few friends, lost a few friends, was somehow rumored to be involved with fellow sophomore Katherine Hodgkins —to this day I still believe it was my brother who started the rumor— and reluctantly joined the indoor track team.
Freshman year may have been the start of my journey, but when sophomore year ended and I still didn’t have answers, I knew it had only just begun.
CHAPTER TWO: IN MY OWN EYES
Although Stephen and I are identical twins, we are nothing alike.
Stephen may be your stereotypical jock, but there’s more to my brother than sports. He excels in science, and though he’d never admit it to our father or the kids at school, he writes poetry. I’ve read some of the stuff he’s left lying around. It’s quite beautiful. I, on the other hand, thriv
e in math and art. I wouldn’t say I’m the most social person. In fact, I’m a bit of a wallflower. Finding solace with planting my roots and watching life pass by.
Growing up he loved to remind me he was a minute and a half older, and because of this he was taller. We’re the same height, five-foot-ten with sapphire eyes and dark brown hair. Puberty had long since blessed us with wonderfully changed bodies of similar builds. But really, the only thing we shared was our looks. We disagreed on almost everything else. Differences aside, I admire my brother. There were times, especially over the last few years where I wish I had his enthusiasm. His ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and in the end wound up as friends. I envied this gift and wondered if I wasn’t so afraid to be me, then maybe I wouldn’t be a seventeen-year-old questioning his sexuality.
Whether I liked it or not, girls were checking me out left and right. Sometimes I liked it, and other times I found myself admiring not just them, but the guys they hung out with. This thought never seemed to leave my mind. Constantly I wondered if the reason I found guys attractive was because I was gay, or bi? Perhaps these feelings wouldn’t mean anything when I graduated and went off to college. There were so many things a young adult had to worry about. Popularity, sexuality, identity, all of it an unknown and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe when the time was right, I’d get my answer. Until then I’d keep living vicariously through my drawings.
My thumbs were nearly black from smudging charcoal around on parchment, but after an hour I finished a portrait of my little sister, Amy. I started it yesterday afternoon while she read James and the Giant Peach. She was determined to finish reading it by the weekend, and I promised if she did, we’d watch the movie. Over the music playing in my ear buds I heard my name and looked from the drawing to my brother. He sat at the foot of his bed, waving at me like a lunatic trying to get my attention. I stared at him and slowly pulled out my ear buds.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Mom and Dad want to talk to us.”
“About what?”
He shrugged.
I sighed, set my artwork aside and followed Stephen downstairs. Mom and Dad were already waiting for us in the kitchen. Amy sat on one of the bar stools reading James and the Giant Peach while Mom braided her hair. Dad held a wooden spoon, spaghetti sauce staining the tip. My father’s jaw clenched with anticipation of the news my parents needed to share. He cleared his throat and the energy seemed to dissipate almost immediately. The clearing of his throat usually meant he was about to talk, and we were to shut our mouths.
My father loathed people who interrupted him.
“Your mother and I have some big news to share,” he paused, which was never a good sign. He continued, “I’ve been offered a job as partner in the firm I work under. This means I’ll make more money and be able to take more time off. The catch is the job is in California. Which means we’d be moving back to my hometown in Los Angeles.”
This got Amy’s attention as she put her book down and stared at my father.
“Wait, what?” Amy asked.
“We’ll live closer to Jen,” Mom said in a hopeful tone.
Jen being our older sister.
She was just finishing up her first year at UCLA where she was studying to be a nurse. Jen lived with her high school boyfriend, Rich, who had moved out to Los Angeles after he graduated high school two years before her. He was studying Sports Medicine with the hopes of one day becoming a personal trainer-nutritionist and open a gym all before the age of twenty-five. Rich was insanely smart and hard-working, taking summer courses for business to excel further.
Our father adored Rich.
“Rather than be an entire country away, she’ll be on the other side of the city!” he added, trying to sound hopeful.
“A very large city,” Stephen commented.
“Many times, larger than here,” I pointed out.
“And millions more people,” Stephen mumbled.
I could tell Stephen was upset. I was intrigued. The idea of moving to California seemed like it would be a nice change. A chance for a new beginning. Maine wasn’t offering me any answers. Especially on Mount Desert Island, in the sleepy village of Seal Harbor. Our town could best be described as quaint, aka small. Maybe the change of scenery was what I needed to find myself. The more I thought about it, the quicker I warmed up to the idea.
“Where would we live?” Stephen asked.
“Santa Monica area.”
“How big is the house?” I asked, eager to hear more than four bedrooms. When Jen moved out, Stephen and I debated who would get her old room, only to have our parents turn it into an at-home office, leaving Stephen and I stuck living together.
“Five-bedrooms, three baths,” he paused to gauge our reaction.
You had me at five bedrooms.
“And Rich offered to turn our bonus room into an at-home gym, equipment included. He said he needs to practice if he’s going to have his own space one day,” he added.
Dad let us ponder the idea.
I certainly didn’t need to hear much else. If I no longer had to share a room with Stephen I was sold. After all there wasn’t much keeping me here aside from the splendors of Acadia National Park and the rocky coastline. Stephen appeared to be favoring the idea more.
“I’ll never see my friends again.” Amy said.
Mom rubbed her shoulder. “We’ll visit from time to time, and you can always talk on the phone.”
“What do you think about this, Mom?”
“Well, it’s going to be an adjustment for all of us, but I think it’s for the best.”
“What about your clients?” Stephen asked Mom.
“I’ll transfer their files to the other counsellors on staff, until they hire my replacement.”
“And where will you work?” Amy asked.
“I’ve already got a job lined up working as an outreach counsellor.”
We stood in the kitchen for a moment in total silence, looking at each other. The clock in the living room chimed the new hour.
“I know it’s an adjustment, especially at your age. But I think you’ll see it will work out for the best,” Dad said.
“When are we moving?” I asked.
“June twenty-fourth,” he replied.
I headed up to our room. I sat on my bed and stared out the window, watching a woodpecker tap its beak into a birch. Would California really have the answer? Would I discover myself there? I pondered. I was tired. I wanted answers, damn it! Not to spend the next few years of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I was startled when the door swung open and slammed against the wall. Stephen walked in and slammed it hard.
“This is bullshit. We’ve made new friends and are halfway through high school and he pulls this. It’s just like him,” Stephen grumbled.
“Speak for yourself. I left sophomore year friendless. High school has a funny way of breaking up friendships. What are you worried about?”
“Nothing, it’s just. Nothing.”
“You’ll make friends if that’s what you’re worried about,” I reassured him.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. He picked up his high school yearbooks and began to fumble through them.
§ § § §
Three days before moving, our parents threw us a going away party. Stephen was expecting his crush Becca Mitchell to make an appearance. According to Stephen she was certifiably hot. I didn’t know looks came with a certificate. Meanwhile I secretly hoped my crush, Kip Martin, would make an appearance. If I could be so lucky. I sat on my bed watching my brother flip through our sophomore yearbook.
“Is Becca still coming?” I asked.
“Who knows, it was a joke asking her.”
“Hey, you never know,” I encouraged, sitting on my bed.
“Yeah, I guess. Did you end up asking Jessica if she wanted to come?”
I laughed. “Nope, never got around to it. Besides, I would have only invited her just to make
Dad happy.”
Stephen looked up at me. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way dude, but are you gay or something? Cuz’ you never seem interested in anyone.”
I gawked at my brother. “Ah no. I’m just not interested in Jessica.”
Stephen gave me a sceptical look. “Or Alisha, or Sara, or Stacy, or—”
“I get it.”
“Look, it’s not me you’d have to worry about if you were. I could care less who you love. Dad is a whole other story. You’ve heard the things Grandpa used to say. Imagine growing up with that.”
Our grandfather was a lot to handle up until the end. In the fourteen years I knew him, I learned he was hard-ass and clearly homophobic. We knew very little about our father’s childhood, but what we did know was growing up with Grandpa had been difficult. Our father had adopted his less than desirable traits, such as drinking and the insistent need to control our lives.
“I’ll remember that,” I responded, my voice thick with sarcasm.
“You okay?” Stephen asked.
“Huh, yeah I’m fine.” I looked at my brother. “So, who else is coming?”
I wanted to tell him how I felt but I was scared, scared to tell my own brother I’m not sure, I’m confused. Instead I offered a fake smile and ventured downstairs to help my father with the grill.
It was flattering to think my dad trusted me over Stephen to run the grill. It was moments like these when I truly enjoyed my father. However, the luxury always came with a price. Typically, when my guard was down, he asked me about one of two subjects— my dating life or sports. It’s like he knew nothing about me. I got a glass of water, guzzling the refreshing liquid. I watched my dad by the grill, beer in hand, and wondered if Stephen was right. Did I have to worry about Dad if I was questioning my sexuality?
As I approached my father, a small part of me wondered if he once shared the same feelings. Maybe I was handling it better than he did. I wished I could talk to him about anything, including the idea that maybe, just maybe I was… gay. Knowing my father, he would do everything he could to make me normal. All the questions held up inside me seemed ever flowing, with no end in sight. Maybe California would solve the mystery.
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