Gabe had passed out on the couch, but the sound of his phone ringing woke him up with a start. He half expected it to be Greg calling to torment him again. He had half a mind not to pick up, but looking at the caller ID, he saw that it was his agent, Robert Thorne. Grabbing at the phone, he answered as he sat up on the couch.
Robert didn't wait for a greeting and instead, just jumped right into the reason for his call.
“Gabriel, I don't know what the hell happened recently, but I came into the office with inquiries out the wazoo for you. I just wanted to give you a heads up because it looks like you might be a very busy man.”
Gabe was still half out of it, unsure if he'd heard the man right. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Robert laughed. “You should have several roles to consider in the coming weeks. Some pretty exciting ones at that.”
Gabe was glad that he was sitting down, otherwise he would have gone weak in the knees, and fallen to the floor of his studio. Was he dreaming? This couldn't be happening. All over one measly photo that had gone viral?
He'd been too scared to look into it further. He didn't want to see the reactions and the overreactions to it. Plus, he'd simply passed out from exhaustion and the hangover wasn't helping him any. But now might be a good time to see what the hell was going on here.
“Thanks for the heads up, Robert,” he croaked. “Do you need anything from me?”
“Just a time to see you in the next few days to discuss everything and to set up some auditions. I'm waiting to hear back from one director for a feature film, but I wasn't sure you'd be interested in it. It's another gay role, and I know you were hesitant to take this one as it was, but it never hurts to read over the script anyway.”
“No, it doesn't, for a feature film,” Gabe said after a slight pause. He’d just made his first film with a gay role. If that was going to be his thing then maybe it was time he accept it. Though Gabe had his fears that being typecast into the gay stereotype could harm his career, he realized that playing a gay man was not nearly as bad as he imagined it would be.
Of course, the reaction from his brother was enough to make him question doing another gay role right now. His parents hadn't called him yet, so either they hadn't heard or they were freaking out and were too ashamed to call their son.
Neither option sounded that great. He should probably call them and check in just to test the waters. But not right now. There was too much going on. Like the possibility of landing more roles.
“We'll be in touch,” Robert said.
They set a time to meet, and once more, Gabe was left alone in his apartment with just his thoughts and emotions.
It was happening. It was really, really happening. His career was beginning to take off, and going by what his agent had just said, he was headed straight for the stratosphere. He was giddy and excited. He wanted to talk to somebody about what he was thinking and feeling in that moment. But he looked around his empty apartment and felt sad. His life was taking a turn for the unbelievable and he had nobody to share that with.
He sighed. It was what it was. So he decided that he needed to do something to get that validation he was obviously craving. Should he Google himself and see the reaction? Did he want to see it? What if people were hating on him? Could he deal with it?
He hadn't checked his e-mail or logged into Facebook in a little while. And given the firestorm of publicity he, and the film, were generating, they were both things he was dreading. What if friends and family from back home had gotten wind of it and were firing off a million different emails, asking a million different questions? How could he answer them all? Tell them it was all for publicity? Because that was a lie.
The kiss, as Anthony had pointed out, wasn't faked. And he did kiss Anthony first. He wasn't sure what had gotten into him that night. And he couldn't blame it all on the alcohol either. It had just felt like the right thing to do in the moment.
Anthony had been there, looking great as usual. He'd always been there for Gabe, even when Gabe had been an absolute asshole to him. And after everything they'd been through, it had just felt right. Even sober he didn't regret it. Not really. He feared the backlash. He was worried about what others – most especially, his parents – thought of him. But he didn't regret doing it. It had been – nice. He couldn't say that he didn't enjoy it.
Gabe knew that he needed to reach out to Anthony. After all, he owed him an apology for being so cold to him this morning. It was just hard for him to process things like that, and after Greg had gone off on him, he just couldn't deal with all of the emotions swirling through his head like a tornado.
In the moment, he often couldn't understand what he was feeling, let alone process them. Even now, a little bit removed from it all, he still couldn't fully comprehend the emotions surging through his body and mind. The longing. The desire to do it all over again. He didn't understand it at all.
He needed more time. Time to process it all. He had to deal with his emotions before he reached out to Anthony, or he risked being a jackass all over again. With a sigh, Gabe pulled out his laptop and turned it on. His curiosity won out. He just had to see and know, so he set to work by Googling himself.
Of course, the original article from Rainbow Brigade came up, and the comments were mostly positive. A few trolls caught Gabe's attention, but they seemed more like they were into bashing anything and everything to do with being gay opposed to hating on Gabe or Anthony specifically. The usual talk of it being a sin, yadda yadda, yadda. More times than he could count, Gabe found himself rolling his eyes, remembering why he avoided the comments section on most articles like the plague.
The article itself was simple enough. It briefly touched on the film, mentioning that it was a gay love story. At the end, there was a passing hint that perhaps something more was going on between the two lead actors. And of course, the now infamous photo from that night was there, showing them kissing passionately in the dark booth.
Judging by the tone of the piece, the writer seemed at least somewhat hopeful that the rumors about him and Anthony were true, that they were a couple in real life – as did many of the commenters. In a way, it was sweet to see so many people caring about the two of them, especially considering the fact that they were unknowns.
Scores of men and women commented on their appearance, with most of the comments falling onto the side that they were both very attractive men. Some women openly bemoaned the fact that they were gay, with many more chiming in that it was an absolute shame. That made Gabe laugh out loud.
Everybody commenting on the article just assumed he was gay. Nobody stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, he was an actor playing a role. It was simply assumed that if he played a gay character then he had to be gay in real life.
And he found that amusing. Not insulting. Not shameful. But amusing.
He clicked around on the internet for a while, losing track of the time, and saw a ton of positive buzz about the two of them and the movie. It ventured out from gay circles and into the national media. Social justice websites the world over had nothing but positive things to say about the two of them.
It heartened and excited him to see so much positive buzz about the film and what it portrayed. And it made Gabe feel pretty good about humanity overall. But then, after reading so much positivity about the film, and his role in it, he found his first bit of hatred and vitriol hidden underneath it all.
It was on somebody's personal blog run by nobody he'd ever heard of. It was a blog that someone had obviously built themselves. The site was put together badly and had a distinctly amateurish feel to it. Sort of like one of those homemade, “I live in my parent's basement with black sheets over the windows so the government can't steal my thoughts and I just want to rage against the power” conspiracy theory sites.
This blog had a black background and hideous bright green typeface. It was incredibly hard to read. The aesthetics of it – or lack thereof – amused Gabe, but it was what was written that caught his attention.
It was such an ignorant, hate filled screen that touched on all of the buzz words the anti-gay crowd liked to throw around. It seemed obvious to Gabe that whoever had written this didn't personally know any gay people, and was just reciting from the conservative, anti-gay playbook.
Only a few people managed to comment on it, and there was of course, not a single voice of dissent among them. Nothing in that anti-gay diatribe surprised Gabe, nor did it shock him. He’d grown up with Greg, as vitriolic of a homophobe as you'll ever likely find, after all. He knew that people found gays disgusting and immoral. So the hatred in the tone of this blogger’s words, while ignorant, stupid, and wrong, weren't entirely surprising to Gabe. He'd heard it all before.
The one thing that did surprise him was how personally offended this person seemed to be. He didn't even know him or Anthony, hadn't seen the film, nor did any of this affect him or his life personally. Yet here he was calling for a boycott of any theater that dared show the film. He even threw out some veiled threats of vandalism against theaters that ran it. Only three others agreed with him, so it didn't seem likely the call for boycott would do much harm to anyone anyway.
Gabe tried not to let it get to him. After all, there were ten, maybe a hundred times more things being said that were positive than this one asshole. He was riding a high from all of the positive buzz that it would be a crime to let the few trolls bring him back down to earth. This one role was going to lead to other work. And it would potentially lead him to some huge roles in the future.
He decided then and there that the few negative comments weren't going to get to him. But that was before he checked his e-mail, of course. He saw that he had Facebook notifications out the butt, and several of the names that popped up caused him more than a little concern. Grave concern. Tyler Scott and Cody Parker, specifically.
Two of his brother's best friends.
Gabe had grown up with them, or rather had been bullied by the three of them his entire life. On a whim, he'd friended them as adults, hoping they'd all grown up and moved on. But from the looks of things, they hadn't grown up nearly enough and he was now regretting his decision to stay in touch with them at all.
They, along with Greg, flooded his Facebook wall with photos and comments, all of them derogatory in some way. They were phrased in a way that to a casual bystander, it might be hard to understand. Some might even think they were joking. The photo of he and Anthony had been shared on his wall a few times, along with a few links to more negative blogs about the whole ordeal.
Gabe was sick to his stomach, and while the hangover probably wasn't helping matters, it was more nerves than anything else. His jaw was involuntarily clenched tight and he wasn't sure if he should keep looking at his Facebook at all. Perhaps he should delete the whole thing. Shut down his account. It wasn't like he used it much these days anyway.
Damn it. All the good comments and positivity, from legit news sources even, had him feeling great, and looking forward to where his life was going. And he was letting a few ignorant, mean spirited comments threaten to ruin his whole outlook.
He knew it was wrong, but he kept focusing on his brother. He vividly remembered his brother's face when he'd walked into the room and found Gabe with Charlie. Tyler and Cody weren't too far behind him. They beat both of them bloody, and had done things to their bodies that Gabe had never spoken of. To anybody. Ever.
He'd tried to block it out and forget about it entirely. But sitting there, seeing the comments from them, sent all of those memories flooding back into his head again. It was all too much. And he found himself curled up in a fetal position on the couch, crying. Not just for himself, but for Charlie as well.