Apologies for the very long break in chapters, I've had a few mental health struggles again and lacked any motivation to write and even then this chapter was WEEKS in the making, I'm hopeful that things will be better and should be producing more soon. Appreciate the patience and all the support I get.
Back Home
The atmosphere around the house can only be described as weird because it’s obvious that Mum doesn’t know anything about the porn or how me and Tyson get along and is just excited to see me and thinks everything is ok after the fire.
My brother on the other hand knows just about everything going on but he doesn’t want to make a scene or say anything to make things okay even though it’s quite obvious that they aren’t ok well to at least him and a few around town.
The fact Tom had to make a pointed comment about how he disapproved of my move with how much it annoyed Mum tells of how weird things are in the situation because Tom is now putting in this over-the-top fakery of being nice and wondering how things are going before he heads up the driveway to his place.
Mum heads out to feed the Chickens and I decide to follow her out to help and get back into the groove of working on the farm as I change into some of the old farm clothes that Mum kept in my old wardrobe as I follow a bit behind her as I realise how much I hated the chickens and how messy they are.
“I definitely didn’t miss this” I say as Mum turns around surprised to see me there as not even Tom wants anything to do with cleaning up after the chickens.
“Scott! You didn’t need to come out here and do this with me you should just lay down and rest” she says as I shake my head because I told her that I want to help while I’m here.
I look at her as I’m picking up some of the eggs the hens have laid “I wanted to come out here and help because this is who I am just because I live in the city, it never changes my love for the farm even if the Chickens are a mess.”
Mum smiles and I can see how happy she is by the look on her face though if she knew everything I don’t think she would be anywhere close to being happy with me keeping everything a secret from her about doing porn and the money issues but I’m happy with what I did and the decision I made.
The chickens are fun to be around again even if I’m like a stranger to most of them wanting to peck at me when I try to help them and help Mum clean up. “I hope you didn’t think that you needed to come out here because of what your brother was ranting about and that you had to prove a point.”
I shake my head at Mum as she says that because what Tom had to say had nothing to do with me coming out to help because my aim when I’m here at home is to be as much help as I can.
“Do you think I care about what Tom or anyone else thinks about me or what I do?” I say even though I do and the reaction hurts especially after what Tom had to say to me down the phone the other morning when he wanted to tell me he knew about the porn.
Mum nods her head and being outside of her I think does a lot of good for the two of us but I see it as an opportunity to get a more accurate idea of what she thinks of Tyson and the idea of us two even though I haven’t even convinced myself of what the feelings are and whether they are genuine.
“So I know you only met him for a few minutes on the video chat that night but what do you think of Tyson? I only ask because I want to make sure you know that I’ve got a stable network around me when I get home because I know it’s something that probably worries you” I say when I don’t know if Mum has any suspicions when I ask the question but it’s just me asking about my best friend.
Mum looks across at me as what she is about to say could worry me “I didn’t get that long to talk to him but he seemed really nice and cared about you so that’s all a mother could ask for.” H
As she says that I can tell there is some underlying reservation in her voice that I want to push to know what is wrong but at the same time I know pushing the issue won’t give me anything good right now.
Finishing up with the chickens, we wander back to the house as Mum seems to be ok but I can tell after bringing up Tyson and her questions about life back in the city that something is wrong and it makes me worried that she senses or knows something else might be going on that she doesn’t want to mention.
“Is there something else Mum? You just seem a bit put off when I talk about living in the city out east and everything like that especially when I talk about Tyson.”
Mum is pretty quiet and gives me short answers which is when I know something is bothering her or has bothered her but she doesn’t want to talk about it. “Nope nothing” she says as I can really tell that something has bothered her as we head inside and starts cooking dinner because she insists that for my first night back we have to have a family dinner.
The idea of having a whole family dinner is annoying and they are never fun because Tom’s wife Ashley is a total bitch and always has been to me for as long as I’ve known her because I never let her get away with all the bullshit conspiracy nonsense that she sprouts which is probably why her and Tom get on so well.
Standing in my bedroom, I can hear the kids run down the driveway past my room before hearing Tom and Ashley coming down slowly talking as if he has to give her the instructions on how to behave tonight for dinner. “Mum doesn’t know anything so we’ve got to make sure that she doesn’t find out he’s a faggot”
I get annoyed as he says that loud enough to hear in the window clearly forgetting my bedroom is right next to where they have to walk past to get to the front door but I say quiet so I can try to hear them talk.
“Is having him here even a good idea? I mean it’s normal to start with but what happens when he’s around Noah and Jacob.” Ash is talking about me as if I’m some evil monster that is going to do some unspeakable things to the kids and push some agenda when really I can’t even convince myself of how to think about things.
I hear Tom raise the seriousness of his tone “Ash, don’t be so stupid, this is my little bro we’re talking about and I might hate that Scott’s a fag and what he does isn’t normal… but I still care about him a lot and Mum so DON’T make a scene tonight”
Listening to Tom makes me frustrated that he wants to defend me to Ashley away from my face even if he doesn’t like my choices and says that he cares about me but then to my face wants to be nasty about things when he tells me he doesn’t care.
I make sure they know I didn’t hear them and change back into the clothes I flew here in and wander out to the living room wondering what reaction I get as Noah and Jacob come through the door and see me with great excitement and rush to hug me.
“UNCLE SCOTT” they rush over as Ash walks in the door and glares at me but doesn’t say anything at least which is a positive as she walks into the kitchen and sees Mum to help her get dinner organised.
Tom walks in and smiles at seeing the boys talking to me which annoys me even more, especially after what he has said to me.
“Did you bring anything for us?” they ask as I shake my head. “Not really this time because I was in a rush to get here, unless you want my napkin from Denver,” I say as they screw their faces up at getting probably the worst souvenir possible.
The three of us sit down as I get to know what is going on in their lives but mostly at school trying to make sure that if Ash hears anything she can’t really complain and Tom knows that there isn’t anything going on even though he trusts me.
“Poppy Bobby got me a rifle and he’s teaching me to shoot” I roll my eyes as Noah says that as I hate the idea of anyone under 18 having a gun but let alone them being Under 10 and learning to shoot and taught that guns are the most important thing.
I bite my tongue as Ash comes back and sits with the boys really closely like I’m about to kidnap them despite them having been sitting and talking to me with Tom in the room.
The next 20 minutes is really awkward until Mum calls us all in for dinner and she has everything on the table like the old days when we would have a family dinner and the spot Dad would always sit is left empty and it feels weird.
“You didn’t need to do all this Mum” I say as Tom agrees but Mum is adamant that the first night I’m back had to be special with her meatloaf being the star attraction at dinner.
Things are pretty civil and calm like the old days until Ash’s two brain cells disconnect and opens her big mouth “So what is happening now that you’re not working at the bar Scott now that it closed” as I put my hand over my face knowing that I was hoping nobody would say anything and I can see the unimpressed look on Tom’s face as Ash says that and Mum puts her fork down.
“You told me that work has kept you busy and surviving out there, how are you paying for everything’ Mum is in a panic as I am too but more because I might have to say something about what I was doing despite trying to keep everything quiet for as long as possible.
I look at Mum “Well the thing actually is…” I stop before Tom jumps in. “Ash is just confused, I told her Scott was worried they were closing with some other places closing down, remember I told you that he was fine.”
Tom covers for me as Ash nods and acts dumb which isn’t a total act in all honesty but Mum still doesn’t look convinced as I reassure them that nothing has happened despite what Ash said being true about losing my job.
The rest of dinner goes out without any hitches though there is this weird sort of tension in the air as though I can see Tom’s face brimming with frustration as everything I’m saying is an outright lie and he knows it not wanting to create a scene.
Mum and Ash clean up as it’s the boys' job to help Grandma wash and dry up before they head back to their house with Ash as I head to my room and Tom follows me in and closes the door as this is going to be an awkward chat especially as I haven’t told him about the job.
“I wasn’t expecting you to cover for me like that” Tom puts his hand up to stop me talking as I say that.
I can see him trying to control his temper as he doesn’t want to raise his voice and attract attention from Mum. “I didn’t do it for you alright? Get it straight… wait you can’t be straight but right now this is about Mum and showing we’re a family and I don’t want to make this any harder on her right now even though I’m going to be in trouble once she finds out.”
I nod my head as Tom says that but he looks straight at me and points into my chest “This doesn’t need to go any further if you come back and tell Mum that you’re place is here on the farm and not over east, you want to be here with the family living our life not that shit you do.
Rolling my eyes at Tom was probably not the best idea as Tom grabs me and gets close to my face so that I can smell dinner on his breath “DON’T FUCKING ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME” he says as he holds me and I nod.
“You could’ve just stayed here but no you have to show that you are so special and better than everyone and could have made this situation so much easier than you have without these lies”.
I nod my head because Tom is actually partly right in that I should have been upfront about everything to Mum but I couldn’t put that worry back into her.
“As soon as the car issue happened, I rang Uncle Simon for advice and he helped me and I told Mum straight away and even though I didn’t tell her about how bad the apartment and where I lived was she knew about the fire as soon as I told her PLUS I made sure she knew Tyson was a good person and she felt comfortable because…”
Tom stops me from talking as he scoffs “Oh yeah, that gay porn star faggot is really a good person and someone you want to be around… guess that whole salon story is a load of shit”.
I groan as this has nothing to do with Tyson because these are my decisions not his “Tyson is a better person than you or I could ever be, if you knew what he has been through then you know how much of a decent guy he is and for the record, the salon is his 9-5 job which he’s good at.”
I don’t know if Tom is trying to deliberately not get it or he just doesn’t understand but I can see his thinking going overtime as the situation hits this eerie sense of calm as he stops and I hope for the moment that this at least defuses tensions.
Tom stands there awkwardly as we both hear footsteps coming down the hall and he hugs me and puts on this whole act of showing to Mum that we’re all good and he just wanted to make sure that I am alright as he walks out and tells her he’ll do everything around the farm in the morning so she can just take her time in the morning.
“Was everything ok in there?” Mum asks as I nod my head and try to reassure her that everything is ok between me and Tom which I don’t know if she fully believes but at the same time, she lets it go knowing that I’m tired as I make the excuse that I just need to have a shower and go to bed.
I do that and only spend a few minutes in the shower before saying good night to Mum who is just listening to one of her audiobooks and I head to bed pretty tired though want to at least video call Tyson after I told him that I would call him when I texted this afternoon.
Tyson: “Wow you look exhausted”
Me: “Oh wow, who’d have thought that after two long flights and a family reunion that was close enough to hell”
Tyson: “Ok fair enough… you do have an excuse but it’s nice to see you alive”
Me: “With the reception, I got from my cousin it’s a wonder, he wanted to shirt-grab me and tell me how disgusted he was with everything”
Tyson: “Oh fuck sake, it’s fucking sex… get the fuck over it”
Me: “This is a guy who thinks shooting something makes him one of the great achievers in life so you can’t expect much”
Tyson: “Well that’s North Dakota for you”
Me: “Hey… that’s not fair… despite being so right”
Me: “What are you up to tonight? Or do I want to know with that shirtless sweaty body”
Tyson: “I was down in the gym before that’s all”
Tyson lowers his camera to show that he’s in bed not doing anything suspicious though it's not exactly comforting because he can easily lose his pants once he’s in bed.
Me: “You aren’t really hiding that you don’t have Cam or anyone in the apartment with you”
Tyson: “Jeez don’t trust me”
Me: “More wishing I could just be there with you because I mean I love my family but somehow it doesn’t feel like home without having you around”
Tyson: “Or do you miss this?”
Tyson lifts up his pants and shows his cock to me as I can feel my own cock growing looking at it as I roll my eyes
Me: “Put that away alright? I’m already walking on thin ice as it is because my brother knows about the porn...”
Tyson: “How the hell does he know?”
Me: “Actually… that’s a good question, I should actually ask him tomorrow because it never actually came into my head to know how he found out”
Tyson: “Just try not to create more of a mess because sounds like that tempers and fuses are short”
Me: “Yeah, if I don’t think that situation is good enough I’m not going to take things too far and let hell break loose, especially this week”
Tyson: “Good boy, well as long as I see you back here next week ok, I won’t feel totally comfortable until I put my arms around you”
Me: “Naww that sounds like you miss me”
Tyson: “Of course I do, to have the empty apartment isn’t fun… that’s it”
Me: “Oh really, you only miss me because you have nobody to fill the apartment… well then I miss you because I don’t have the apartment’
I teasingly blow Tyson a kiss as I shut off the video call and realise that even though I only saw him this morning when I left, I realise how much I actually have come to rely on him like a brother or as some people would probably call it like a boyfriend if they saw how quickly we bonded together.
Falling asleep pretty quickly, any sort of worry and panic that I have completely dissipated because I’m just too tired even though by standards of being back at the apartment I’d never be close to going to bed but everyone is always up early to do everything around the farm.
It’s just after 7 am when I get woken up by the loud sound of Tom on the tractor carrying hay as I look out the window and see everybody already working even Jacob and Noah have to pitch in before they go to school as they are collecting eggs in the chickens as I get up and put on a pair of pants and t-shirt before heading outside.
“Look Uncle Scott” the boys are so proud of themselves and the love they show for me is one of the things that makes this whole situation even more difficult because I know that they care for me and hearing Tom saying that he did even though he won’t say it to my face.
Ash wanders over and grabs the boys “There’s some more stuff up here to do” she says glaring at me and before the boys can tell me about the eggs they found as I just roll my eyes as Mum comes down fussing over me telling me that I just need to go back inside and get myself breakfast and not worry about working on the farm.
I shake my head and tell her that I want to help but she’s insistent that I don’t do anything until I’ve had something to eat because in her words she doesn’t want me passing out from a lack of food but that’s nothing to worry about, especially in filming to make sure I’m not bloated or anything.
Heading inside, I walk around the house looking at all the old family pictures as it brings up so many different memories inside me about how good times were as a family when Dad was well and puts into perspective about life at the moment.
Sitting at the table we have for breakfast, I’m trying to figure out what is going in my head because I miss and love my family every day but at the same time since moving east there has been a whole new world that has opened up for me with so many opportunities. The opportunities after moving have been phenomenal and I have learnt so much about people, the world and just myself because I know having stayed here I’d have been so much worse off because I was always the one who wanted to explore and holidays that were 2 hours down the road weren’t that exciting.
I finish up breakfast as Tom walks through the door “Scott, can I use your help moving the feed” he says as I put on the boots and head out following him. The two of us are alone which gives me the perfect opportunity to ask him how he found out but at the same time, I don’t know if I can.
He doesn’t say two words to me as he walks with me I decide that I’m going to start the conversation but not with what I really want to ask “Can you ask Ash to stop treating me like I’m some sort of foreign alien please, the boys were talking to me and she just grabbed them mid-sentence and rushed them away from me.”
Tom looks at me and just nods his head “I’ll talk to her again but at the same point you have to know why she is like that.” I nod my head and think that this is probably a loose way of bringing up the conversation because he said it.
“Speaking of that issue… how did you even find out? Like are you into that?” Tom starts to shape up at me and I don’t know whether he wants to hit me but I realise that I struck a nerve so maybe Tom is hiding that he’s a closeted gay boy even though I know really it’s just a suggestion.
Tom drops the attitude “Tim showed me the picture and I don’t know how he got it but he recognised it was you straight away and showed me which is why I confronted you about it because…”
There is something weird about Tom now that I’m here because he was so confrontational on the phone and nasty and even though he’s making some comments to me here since I’m here he hasn’t been anything like I thought he would even if it is just as he said for Mum’s sake.
As we start moving the feed, Tom starts and stops trying to get his sentence out before I take control “Just say what you think, Mum isn’t around and I’m not a child because you don’t need to worry about me running off and complaining, I’m an adult and you’ve already said some pretty nasty shit to me on the phone.”
Tom sighs and nods his head almost regretful that he did that as I can’t get a sense of him acting so strange because he has gone from being hateful and telling me not to ever come back and so angry to being more just disappointed.
“Yeah because it was fucking embarrassing finding out about your brother down on his knees sucking on some faggots cock” Tom says as he is clearly trying to control himself and I can tell that there are some differing emotions in his head because he is angry but I can’t work him out.
The tension between us is one where Tom could just explode in anger at any second where I can feel him holding something deep in but at the same time, I feel that he could at the same time be close to just pulling me in to give me a hug so who knows what is going to happen.
The two of us work to move the feed into the storage shed for a while as Mum is heading off into town leaving Tom and I on my own as I decide to push him more to know what he really thinks about everything.
“Why did you have to get so damn nasty to me on the phone?” I say as Tom stops in his tracks and takes off his gloves and I can see him getting upset. “You really want to know? Because you’ve always been this fucking prince of this family better than anyone else and to sit there while people are spreading pictures of your little brother with some cock in his mouth like a little faggot living a whole different life like he’s ashamed of who he is… that’s what makes me so angry and then you come back here like nothing has happened.”
The two of us stand there almost like we’re about to come to blows here as what he says hurts because it wasn’t anything like that “I don’t know what the fuck you think about me ever thinking that I’ve been better than this family because I haven’t and I tell you every single time that I don’t think I’m better because everything I do is with the family in mind” I say sighing as this conversation feels like on repeat.
“The whole thing has been because I thought of the family, if Dad had a single doctor in town then he could have got help much quicker and the damage that happened didn’t need to if we had a Doctor, I know that sounds weird but it made me want to be a doctor and help people in the same way,” I say pleading and starting to cry.
Tom looks at me with no real reaction “Yeah, there was the opportunity to go east because there was nowhere near by and you helped me move there but where I stayed had Drug dealers and all sorts of stuff going on that I never told Mum about because it would cause more worries” I say as Tom folds his arms as he stands there and listens before gesturing we sit down on the old bench we have near the shed.
“It was just a spiral of things because I know that Mum was so proud of what I was doing and so was Dad because they wanted me to make a difference but when I lost the job at the bar, my car completely shit itself I couldn’t admit to anyone how much of a failure that I was and Mum would have sent me money or organised a new car when I know how much she is struggling that I got the porn job,” I say explaining the situation for the first time as Tom nods his head not giving me any reaction.
I take a deep breath before trying to continue the story “I was reluctant but my bank account was pretty much getting to zero and the porn wasn’t the ideal way but I didn’t have much choice and honestly it helped me actually learn more about myself and I got to learn a lot and when the fire happened, I actually had a friend who could help me and that’s what Tyson is.”
Tom doesn’t understand at all and I don’t expect him to which is fine but I just want him to realise that this doesn’t change me at all because I’m not ashamed of where I come from or my family and the fact is that’s what makes me who I am.
The two of us walk up to the house as I look at him “I don’t expect you to be celebrating what I do or even give me your total support but just to understand and maybe not be so hateful”
Tom nods his head “It just isn’t normal Scott… but I guess I can at the very least try” he says as he goes back up to his place as I have no idea whether he will actually do anything to think about it but at least the truce is in place for now and I know that I’m hardly going to win the whole argument with the town and everyone at home.
