Free The Truth of Yesterday by Josh Aterovis Page A

she clarified.
     
          “Yeah.”
     
         “You go to Stinky?” she asked with surprise in her voice. Stinky was the affectionate nickname given to
Pemberton
University
due to its initials.
     
         “Yeah, I'm a freshman.”
     
         “Damn, I'm sorry. I thought you were like sixteen at the best and Noah was robbing the cradle or something.”
     
         I laughed. I was used to being mistaken for a lot younger than I was. Sixteen was actually an old estimate for me. Maybe I was finally starting to mature in my looks. “No, I'm eighteen,” I told her.
     
         “Still a baby,” she declared.
     
         “How old are you?”
     
          “Twenty-one.”
     
         “And you?” I asked Noah.
     
         “Twenty.”
     
         I looked to Peter.
     
         “Twenty-one,” he supplied.
     
         “Nineteen,” Everett volunteered.
     
         “Twenty,” Tony called from the floor, where he was now doing some sort of stretching exercise.
     
         “Oh, I guess I am the baby of the group then,” I conceded.
     
         “Just of us here now,” Peter amended. “I doubt you're the youngest in the whole group and I know there are other eighteen year olds.”
     
         “Besides,” Everett said, “You're probably more mature than most of us anyway.”
     
         “Speak for yourself ,” Val shot back quickly.
     
         “I have a question,” I said, “How many of the people that attend the meetings are gay? ”
     
         “Most of us,” Noah said. “There are maybe three or four straight girls; everybody else is at least bi .”
     
         “Most straight people are afraid to come because they think their friends are going to think they are gay too,” Peter explained.
     
         “And we all know how horrible that would be,” Val added sarcastically.
     
         “But that's one of the things we're trying to do,” Noah went on. “We're trying to change the way people look at being gay, so it's not such a negative thing.”
     
         “It's slow progress,” Val said.
     
         “But at least it's progress,” Everett pointed out. “Almost everybody knows I'm gay and the vast majority just don't give a shit.”
     
         “That's because you're a big ol ' white boy,” Tony said, unwinding his body from the pretzel in which he'd twisted himself. “They're afraid you'll bash their skulls in if they say anything.” Everett opened his mouth to protest but Tony wasn't finished. “Not that you would, and I'm not saying that everybody has a problem with it secretly, but there is definitely still a lot of prejudice and bigotry on this campus. Try being gay and black. That's two strikes against you. And it was even worse back home. In the black community, the women don't have any problem with somebody being gay, but the brothers? Damn. You just might as well be in the Klan.”
     
         “The Latino community is probably even worse,” Val said. “I grew up in a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood in Baltimore and I've seen lots of guys get the shit beat out of them just cuz they weren't macho enough. They get called names like faggot and cocksucker and most of the time they aren't even gay. Just think how the poor guys who really are gay feel. They gotta hide it or get out of there. I never let anyone know I liked girls until I got to college, not even my best friend. I dated guys all through school and just pretended I didn't put out cuz I was a really good little Catholic girl.” She shrugged. “I'm probably going to hell now. Think I should go to confession?”
     
         “Nah, you're too far gone for help now,” Peter teased.
     
         “What about you?” Val asked him. “You had any problems with people knowing you are gay?”
     
         “Outside of my family you mean? Not really. I'm not remarkable enough to draw much attention. No one cares which way I