Free The Cat That Went to Homecoming by Julie Otzelberger

chuckling, but did not push me
away. Instead, he jumped up and down with me! When I realized what
I was doing, I backed away from him and apologized. I was beet red
with embarrassment.
    “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said, “and
congratulations!”
    It was a very awkward few minutes of me not
knowing exactly what to do. Should I offer him a glass of lemonade?
Watch TV? I didn’t have a game system, like Xbox or Wii.
    “I’m going to put this stuff on my desk. I’ll
be right back.” I figured Brandon might think to make a quick
escape, and I wouldn’t blame him. But instead, he followed me.
    He was looking around my “office”, stopped at
a poster on the wall of Maroon Five, and then sat in my computer
chair.
    “This is pretty cool, you have your own
office,” he said. I laughed.
    “I guess you could say that,” I said.
    Hershey was at Brandon’s feet, smelling his
shoes and assessing him in his cat manner. “Hey, little dude,”
Brandon said as he bent down to pet Hershey’s head, “You got a job
before I did!” Hershey stood with his front paws on Brandon’s legs
and head butted his knees.
    “I think Hershey likes you,” I said.
    “I have two cats, so he can probably tell I’m
a cat person,” Brandon said.
    I sat on the floor and pet Hershey while
Brandon went on to tell me more about himself. The awkwardness I
felt earlier disappeared completely and I found myself at ease with
Brandon. He talked about his school, and I got the impression he
did not enjoy going there.
    “It has to better than my school,” I
said.
    “No, I seriously doubt that,” he said. “I’m
pretty sure it doesn’t matter where you go to school, when you’re
different, you’re not accepted anywhere.”
    I could not imagine Brandon being
“different”. Since he attended a Catholic school, I assumed the
kids would be nice and God-fearing? Weren’t they taught ‘Do unto
others as you would have done unto you?’
    “Brandon, I don’t mean to pry, but I’m
curious. Why do you think you are different?”
    “Do you know who my father is?” he asked
me.
    “No, should I?” I asked, kind of
surprised.
    “Do you remember when the police chief of our
county was caught with a male prostitute four years ago?” I did
recall that story, although four years ago I did not fully
understand what homosexuality or prostitution was.
    “That man is my father,” he said, searching
my face for a reaction I didn’t give him.
    “So? Why does that matter?” I asked, truly
meaning it. Why DID it matter?
    “Ellen,” he sighed and looked at the ground,
“everyone at every school I’ve attended since then thinks I’m gay.”
He looked up and watched me in complete silence for a minute while
I tried to find the words to say in response. I was speechless and
confused.
    “Okay, well ARE you gay?” I dared to ask.
    He just looked at me blankly, sadly. “Would
it matter if I were?” He asked in return.
    I gave him a soft smile, put my hand on his
knee, and said, “Absolutely not Brandon. Does it matter to you that
I’m overweight?”
    “First of all, Ellen, you’re not overweight,
and second of all, I like the person you are, not the size of the
person you are.”
    We spent the next two hours sharing our life
stories with one another. Brandon said his parents divorced after
the scandal broke, and his mom eventually remarried. His stepfather
was a real jerk. He insinuated at every opportunity that Brandon
was “like his father” and after Brandon had been expelled from
several schools for getting into fights, his stepfather convinced
his mom that sending him to a religious high school might put “the
fear of God” in him and change him, as if Brandon was the one who
needed changing.
    I opened up and told Brandon about my life,
telling him about all the cruel things kids at school said and did
to me. I told him about my life-long crush on John Peck, and all of
the ridiculous daydreams I would have about him. I told him