Chapter Thirty-One: Finding Home

Home has always been a complicated concept for me. For some, it’s a fixed point—a house, a town, a place where memories gather like dust motes in a sunlit room. It’s where they feel safe and seen, free to show up in any form: happy or sad, tired or lost, certain or searching.

For me, home has never been that simple. Growing up gay in the South, in a large family full of both love and friction, I learned early that home was something more fluid. Sometimes it was my childhood bedroom—my sanctuary where I could read, dream, and imagine a different life. Sometimes it was my grandparents’ house, where warmth felt unconditional and steady. But often, home felt like something I could never quite hold. Even when the walls stayed the same, the feeling inside them changed.

My mom grew up in a deeply religious home. She didn’t follow it as rigidly as her parents did, but to honor her father—my grandfather, a pastor—she took us to church with gentle regularity. That meant I grew up with a clear image of who God supposedly wanted me to be. And who I was didn’t fit that picture.

From an early age, I knew I was different. At first, it was small things: being a nerd, having red hair, preferring books to sports. My dad signed me up for every sport imaginable—baseball, basketball, soccer—as if one might magically reveal the son he hoped for. I excelled at sitting on the bench. Less so at anything involving a ball. Over time, we both accepted that I wasn’t going to be the athlete he imagined. The gap between who I was and who he wanted widened, and while we loved each other, we struggled to connect.

But the other difference—the one I couldn’t say out loud—was harder. By my teens, I knew I was gay. And I also knew I couldn’t tell anyone. Being gay in the South then meant living with a constant hum of fear. I spent years wondering what was wrong with me, years hiding not only from others but from myself. I watched boys around me talk about crushes and girlfriends, swapping stories of first kisses, and I felt like an alien studying a world I’d never belong to. Most of my friends were girls. Male friendship felt like a foreign language I hadn’t been taught.

And then I met First Crush. He appeared by accident—a mutual friend on an online role-playing forum, if I remember right. We clicked instantly. First Crush didn’t go to my school, but we started hanging out often. I’d go to his house after classes; we’d play video games, talk for hours, or just sit in easy silence. For the first time, I felt completely at ease with another guy. First Crush was kind, funny, and unpretentious. He didn’t make me feel strange or wrong. In a time when I was quietly wrestling with who I was, that simple acceptance felt like a miracle.

Eventually, I realized my feelings weren’t purely platonic. I was in love with him. I didn’t know if he was gay—I suspected he wasn’t—and I was terrified of losing him. But the need to be known won out. When I told him, he reacted better than I expected—at first. He said he was proud of me for trusting him. I clung to that kindness like a life raft. But something shifted. Maybe it was peer pressure. Maybe fear. Whatever it was, the friendship began to fray.

The final blow came suddenly: a mutual friend shouted “faggot” across the quad, outing me to everyone in earshot. I froze. Then I yelled back “So what?” pretending it didn’t hurt, even as my world collapsed inside. By then I had already lost First Crush. And now this. It was my second heartbreak that year. Another friend—someone I’d grown up playing make-believe with—told me he couldn’t be friends anymore because of his religion. He was genuinely sad. I could see it. But he felt bound by rules I couldn’t change. Two of the people I trusted most were gone. I felt gutted. Alone.

That same year, my parents’ marriage imploded. Their split was messy and bitter. One night, my dad hit me so hard it left both a physical injury and a lasting fear for my safety. My mom and grandparents did what they could, but even their love couldn’t make the house feel safe again. Home stopped feeling like home. Sometimes it felt like a battleground.

By summer, I was raw and adrift—a teenager desperate to escape. That’s when I found a program called RISE. It was held at a small college in Due West, South Carolina—a town so tiny the name felt like a joke. Due west of what, exactly? I remember thinking. A whole lot of nothing. But the program promised something miraculous: a summer immersed in science and technology—robotics, coding, electronics—everything I loved but never had access to. Even better, it was residential. For the first time, I’d live in a dorm with people who shared my passions.

I applied on a whim, asking for a scholarship because my family couldn’t afford it. When the acceptance letter arrived—full scholarship included—something inside me reignited. For the first time in years, life opened a door just for me.

Still, I was nervous when I arrived. I’d never shared a room with another boy. I worried he’d somehow know. When I finally told my roommate, a guy from Boston, his response floored me: he smiled and said, “That must have been hard to say. But don’t worry. I don’t care at all.” His warmth dissolved my fear instantly. For the first time, I felt safe being myself.

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Something magical happened that summer. I’d always been the awkward nerd—the quiet one, the outlier. But at RISE, surrounded by other curious, bright, passionate kids, I was suddenly seen. People wanted to sit with me at meals. They laughed at my jokes. They asked my opinion. For the first time, my presence wasn’t just tolerated—it was valued.

We played a game called Assassin, sneaking around campus with laughter and mock drama. My peers teamed with me, strategizing, cheering, pulling me into the center of the fun. And I realized something profound: I wasn’t on the outside anymore. Even the guys—the kind who’d ignored or bullied me back home—treated me as one of their own. One of them became a lifelong friend.

During the days, we built small wonders: tiny robots scuttling across tables, circuits glowing at our touch. I even wrote a program that detected antimatter particles through voltmeter readings—something that felt like pure sorcery to my teenage mind. It was the most creatively alive I’d ever felt. At night, we’d stay up late talking about ideas, dreams, and what our futures might hold. The bonds we formed felt indestructible. For the first time, I felt fully alive—inspired, supported, and free.

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When summer ended, leaving was bittersweet. I didn’t want to return to the fractured world waiting back home. But I carried something precious with me—a truth I’d felt down to my bones: home isn’t a place. It isn’t four walls or a permanent address. It’s a feeling—created through connection, shared purpose, and belonging.

At RISE, surrounded by people who saw and valued me, I realized I could carry that feeling anywhere. I didn’t have to wait for someone else to build it for me. I could create it—with the right people, in the right moment, anywhere in the world.

Sometimes life conspires to remind you of that—to place you exactly where you need to be, with exactly who you need to be with. That summer, I didn’t just find home. I found myself. And I finally understood that home was never elsewhere. It was always all around me. I just needed to learn how to see it.

—and to bring that home forward, I needed one more conversation: not with the world, but with the child who’d been waiting for me to notice him.