When I was eight years old, my mother came out to me.

My mother married my father in 1993, when I was seven years old. I don’t know whether they just got married at that time or they had a make-up wedding at that time. In short, I was not a member of their wedding, more like a guest, watching the two uncles and aunts, receiving blessings from a group of relatives and friends.

A year later, in 1994, my mother drove me to school one morning. At that time, I was probably the only student in the school who was driven to and from get out of class by an imported car. When I was a child, I didn’t understand why my mother drove me to and from class. If I had to be picked up and dropped off every day, I could just take the bus like other children. Later I learned that maybe the nearly ten minutes in the bus was a rare time for the two of us to be alone.

That is, one morning in 1994, she told me that she was gay. It's strange to say that at the age of eight, I was already very familiar with that word for some reason. It was as if it had been a word that had appeared in my life for a long time, and I didn't feel unfamiliar or surprised at all. I didn’t even have any special reaction and continued to chat with my mother about studying.

However, my mother was very anxious. She didn’t know whether I was scared or because I didn’t understand what homosexuality was and didn’t understand what she said. In fact, I understand. From the day she and her father got married, I have been accustomed to their strange relationship, but I don't understand why they do that.

Not long after my mother told me that she was gay, she told me that an aunt would move into our house. I had no objection, as if it had nothing to do with me. After she came, my father and I lived on the second floor, and my mother and aunt lived on the first floor. Except for two aunts who cooked and cleaned, we were now a family of four. I remember one day, when I went back to my room, I saw my father cutting out the wedding photos of her and my mother. He cut out all the aunt’s heads and shattered them on the floor.

I thought they would get divorced, but they didn’t. In fact, until now, more than 20 years later, they have not divorced. I have never told anyone about this matter. Since I was seven years old, I have become accustomed to many things. I am like a bystander of this family, a complete bystander, and it seems that the story between them It has nothing to do with me at all, I have never asked or even wanted to ask.

However, I didn’t hate that aunt very much. In fact, she gave me a desire to get to know her later on. That was when I was in high school. My mother sent me to a private international school, hoping that after I graduate from there, I would go to the United States to study. In 2000, when I was 14 years old, I entered this high school. Before that, I never told anyone about my family situation, and I never made friends because I was very special. These specialties may be reflected in economic conditions. This is reflected in the attentiveness of the head teacher and principal to me, so no one in elementary school or junior high school is willing to approach me. They think I am an alien. I am used to being an alien. I don’t care about making any friends. Anyway, I don’t want to Others know about my family affairs.

However, this high school is different. Most of their family environments are similar to mine. Many of their parents are even my mother’s business friends. Soon, everyone knew about our family. They all said that I lived in a perverted family, with two wealthy mothers and a low-income father.

At first, I didn’t care about anyone’s comments behind my back. I naturally seemed to have a protective shell with the world. In other words, I created a protective layer for myself to protect myself from being criticized by others. How hurt is the look, the words of others. But, that time, my protective layer was shattered.

It was Mother’s Day, and the foreign teacher asked each of us to go on stage and give an impromptu English speech about ourselves and our mother’s story. My mind was blank and I didn't want to say anything, so I wanted to walk out of the classroom through the back door, but as soon as I stood up, the people sitting on my left started to boo.

"Look, the guy who lives in the circus is gone..."

"A family of perverts."

"Hey, I guess you should do two ”

The whole class laughed. They looked straight at me, smiling arrogantly. I could clearly see the teeth exposed by each of them, as if they were smiling. It can eat me up in one second. That kind of laughter is like a lead, exploding everything I have hidden in my heart since I was seven years old.

That was the first time I knew what it felt like to be angry. I liked that feeling very much. I was in a pool of stagnant water, and suddenly I could hear my own blood rushing.

I picked up a table, raised it above my head, and smashed it towards them. They screamed and everyone started to run out, one table, two tables, three tables, until I was exhausted. After all, they all fled the classroom. I stood in the classroom and wanted to laugh. It was like the nirvana of adolescence. It made me understand that being silent or wanting to stay out of the situation was not something I could do at that age. , I should cry, I should make trouble, I should be crazy, I should laugh, I should have everything I should have in my youth, instead of being like a monk, watching everyone come and go in my life.

At that time, my mother was on a business trip abroad and my father was walking in Tibet. Only my aunt came to deal with these matters for me. It was then that I noticed that she was a very smart person, a person who was both rational and emotional. To the school and the parents of the student who took the lead, she was able to say many things with reasonable justification. I knew that I was also wrong, but in her words, I became a complete victim. The principal even apologized to me. Expressed regret for the bullying I received at school.

But she was as warm as the spring breeze to me. From that day on, I felt that I had never wanted to get to know them. We have lived in the same house for so many years, but I always try hard to stay out of it. I never asked my father why, nor my mother why, nor did I know the causes and consequences of my aunt's move. It turned out that I, like those classmates who laughed at me, thought I lived in a perverted family.

Actually, I thought that if I didn’t ask, everything would seem to be a story that happened in one place. I thought that if I didn’t ask, everything would seem to be just a painting. Now I understand that my choice is not because I am mature, but because I am escaping. Whether it is facing my mother being gay or facing our family, I am escaping.

In 2017, I am 31 years old. I have been married for five years and live very happily with my wife. I have a three-year-old son and I love him very much. In my own marriage, I slowly began to understand my parents’ marriage and the lives of my mother and aunt. Maybe it was helplessness, maybe it was a compromise. I had my own answer in my heart, but I still didn't ask the three of them. I began to learn to love them. Maybe one day I love them deeply enough, and they will tell me.

Uncle Qiang said, thank you readers for sharing your stories. In this world, many things are not blue, red, soapy, or white. They are so clear and clear. The more you try to figure them out, the more unclear they become. Chu. Participants and bystanders, we all live in the stories of others and ourselves.