Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

might not come out at all. He said he would, but who knows if he will? If he doesn't, you don't have a problem. You don't have to choose."
    "I know," I said. I'd already thought about this. In fact, I put the odds of Kevin actually coming out at less than fifty-fifty.
    "But if he does?" Gunnar said. "What are you going to do? Who are you going to pick?"
    "Gunnar," I said, "if this were a book, I just might skip ahead to the end. Because right now, I have absolutely no idea."
     
    *   *   *
     
    That afternoon after school, I tried doing the sneak-in-the-back-door thing again, but my parents were waiting for me in the living room (again). My dad got home from work at sixty-forty every night. I had never known him to come home early, not even when our washing machine overflowed. So I knew this was a very big deal.
    Great, I thought. This was just what I needed.
    "What," I said. Notice there is no question mark.
    "Russel," my dad said. "We need to talk."
    They needed to talk? Well, I sure hoped they were going to start by apologizing for calling me disgusting! Even so, I wasn't going to sit down on the love seat across from them. For one thing, I felt no love whatsoever. So if they wanted to talk, I would do it standing up.
    "We want to understand," my dad said. "This is hard for us. It's a shock."
    I guess this made sense. I'd had my whole life to get used to the idea. They'd barely had twenty-four hours.
    I stared at my parents, trying to figure out what to say. I couldn't help but notice that there was dirt under my mom's fingernails. She'd probably been out back fiddling with her bonsai trees—her way to work out stress.
    "This is just who I am," I said at last. "I know it's upsetting to you. But most of what you hear about gay people, the stereotypes you see on television, that isn't true. Most of us are just normal people."
    "Homosexuality is a sin," my mom said.
    Oh, so now I was a sinner too? This was their idea of "talking," of trying to understand? By calling me a sinner?
    "Russel," my dad said, "we know that adolescence is a very confusing time."
    Yes, I thought to myself. And my dad had gone through a "gay" phase. We'd covered this yesterday.
    "I'm not confused," I said. "I'm really not. I know this is new for you, but it's not for me. I've thought about it a lot. I know what I feel. I've known for years." I'd said all this to them once before, but maybe they needed to hear it twice.
    "We still think you should talk to someone," my dad said.
    "What?" I said. "Why?"
    "Because homosexuality is a sin !" my mom shouted.
    "To help you sort out your feelings," my dad quickly interjected. "To help you make sense of it."
    Apparently when my parents said "talk," they meant they wanted to talk to me, but not listen to a single word I said in response. Did they really think that would work? If so, well, in a nutshell, they were nuts.
    "I told you before," I said. "My feelings don't need sorting out." Well, okay, maybe they did, but about Kevin and Otto, and how to deal with my parents not listening to me. But not about being gay.
    "Just talk to him," my dad said. "Is that too much to ask?"
    "Who?" I said.
    "Father Franklin."
    "Our priest?" My family was Catholic. We went to mass every Sunday. But to tell the truth, the whole "religion" thing had never really worked for me. I considered myself spiritual, and hopefully somewhat moral. But being moral because someone gives you a list of rules to follow (and warns you you'll be punished if you don't), well, that always seemed to me to kind of miss the point. And how can anyone honestly believe that their religion is the "right" one when 99 percent of people just adopt the religion of their parents? But I knew the Catholic thing was important to my parents, so I had always played along.
    Still, I wondered where this talk of sinning and religion was coming from all of a sudden. My parents hadn't mentioned any of this when they'd first found out about me. Then they'd just been