They said the town was quiet, but it had a mouth.
 And once it opened, it didn’t stop talking.

It started the morning after I talked to Rylan behind the gym. We hadn’t even touched just words, shaky and half-formed but someone saw us. By lunch, whispers moved faster than wind: “Kai Blake was with him again.” “Didn’t his parents already warn him?” “Boys like that never learn.”

By evening, the rumor had grown its own wings, flown straight into my parents’ church meeting, and landed in their laps like a sin.

When I came home, the lights were already on. Too bright. Too clean. Too still. That kind of stillness that meant something was waiting to break.

My father stood near the doorway, his Bible open but untouched. My mother’s eyes were red, not from crying but from the kind of exhaustion that looks like faith being strangled.

“Sit,” my father said. It wasn’t a request.

The chair scraped the floor. The sound made my stomach twist.

My mother looked at me like she was seeing a ghost. “They told us,” she said softly. “That you were seen again  with him.”

I didn’t lie. I just said, “We were talking. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” My father’s voice cracked through the air. “That’s all it takes for people to start saying our son is diseased, that he’s…” He stopped himself, like even saying the word could damn the room.

I could feel my pulse in my throat. “We ended it,” I said. “We’re not…”

“Do you think anyone believes that?” my mother whispered. “Do you think the church will? Pastor Miller already called. He said we need to ‘cleanse our home.’ He said people are talking about taking us off the community board. Your father…” Her voice broke. “He could lose everything because of this.”

I stared at her. “Because I talked to someone?”

“Because you’re choosing sin!” my father shouted, his fist slamming against the table. “You’re destroying this family for a phase, Kai!”

I flinched. My hands trembled. “It’s not a phase,” I said quietly, my voice shaking. “It’s me.”

My mother rose so suddenly her chair toppled. She pressed her hands together like she was praying, but her prayer sounded like begging. “Please, Kai. Don’t do this. Don’t make us lose you. If you keep this up, we won’t survive it.”

Her words didn’t sound metaphorical. They sounded like threat and promise twisted together. My father turned away, muttering, “You’ll kill your mother.”

“Stop saying that,” I whispered.

She stepped closer, trembling. “I can’t face them, Kai. The people. The church. I’d rather die than have them know my son chose this life.”

And there it was.
 That sentence.
 Soft, trembling, but sharp enough to cut through every defense I had.

“You’d rather die than have me?” I asked, barely breathing.

She cried then, really cried, and it was worse than anger. It was guilt made flesh. “Don’t make me choose,” she whispered. “Promise me, Kai. Promise you’ll leave him. Promise you’ll end this, or I swear to God…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. I saw it in her eyes: the picture of a mother who would drive her car into the lake if the shame became too heavy.

I wanted to scream. To tell her she was the one killing me. But instead, I said the words that would hollow me out for years: “I promise.”

Her arms wrapped around me, shaking. “You’re a good boy,” she murmured. “You just got lost.”

When she let go, I felt smaller. I wasn’t Kai Blake anymore…I was someone else, someone folded into a story that didn’t belong to me.

That night, I drew. I drew Rylan’s eyes in pencil lines that refused to stay still. I drew the church bell, the one that rang every Sunday, hanging over the town like a warning. Then I drew it cracked in half. The paper tore where my pencil pressed too hard.

By morning, my parents had called his family.
 By noon, Rylan had stopped answering my messages.

I waited two days before breaking my promise. I told myself it was for closure, but really it was because my chest hurt too much not to see him. I walked to his house at dusk, the air thick with that smell before rain. The street was empty, but the windows glowed warm his house always looked safer than mine.

When I knocked, it wasn’t Rylan who answered. It was his mother. Her expression froze when she saw me. “You need to leave,” she said. Her voice was sharp and tight, like she’d practiced it. “Rylan isn’t here.”

“I just need to talk…”

She stepped out, blocking the doorway. “You’re confusing him. He’s with Kim now. He’s realizing what real love is. Do you understand? You’ve already hurt him enough.”

I felt the ground tilt. “That’s not true.”

Her eyes softened for a second, then hardened again. “We talked to your parents. We all agreed. You boys need to stay away from each other. You’re just… experimenting. You’ll ruin both your lives if you keep this up.”

I should’ve walked away. Instead, I ran around the side of the house, through the garden gate, just in time to see Rylan step out of his back door.

He wasn’t with Kim but there were other voices, laughter, and then a fight. Someone shoved someone else. I froze behind the fence, heart pounding.

Then I heard it:
 “Faggot!”

The word cracked through the night. Someone hit someone. I saw Rylan’s arm move he shoved the other boy, face twisted with anger. The light from the porch caught his profile, sharp and cold.

I couldn’t hear everything, but I saw enough. The Rylan who had once whispered my name like it mattered was gone. The one in front of me looked like someone I didn’t know.

Something in me shattered quietly. Not with noise, but like glass dropped into water.

I walked away before I could be seen. The rain started just as I reached the bus stop. My sketchbook got wet, ink bleeding into blur. I didn’t bother covering it. Let it ruin. Let it match me.

I told myself he never loved me. It was easier than believing the truth that maybe he did, but fear had broken him too.

As the bus pulled out of that small town, I looked out the window one last time. The church bell tower cut the skyline, a black cross against the grey. The sound followed me for miles, echoing in the hollow of my chest.

That was the night Kai Blake stopped belonging anywhere.
 And the night Rylan Aiden became the boy I couldn’t forget.