Every single time they go out to a restaurant or a store or even that hike that one time, some busybody with way to much blush on and choking hairspray ambles up to them.
“Oh aren’t you the cutest things. You know my cousin’s dog walker’s hair dresser’s niece is gay and raising a kid with her partner and well, it’s so brave that y’all–”
It’s about this time that Jim turns a shade of purple that the Crayola box would call “flamingo pink” and her daddy starts stumbling over excuses that are too big for his mouth.
But the woman is usually too full of her own hot air and walks away feeling proud enough that she might tell the story over Sunday roast, happy that the gays are settling into their little Atlanta suburb.
Joanna has wanted to make handmade signs for Jim and her dad that say We’re Just Best Friends but she thinks that would cut away at the free pie, ice cream, candy or whatever else they get.
What bugs her most is that her daddy loves Jim. She knows this, has always known this, even when her parents were still together. And Jim loves her daddy–she can see it in every eye-wink he gives her when she catches him staring after her dad, or the quick way he always tries to make every brush of skin against skin seem casual like he wasn’t fixing to do it in the first place, or the way he says “Bones” in that happy, affectionate way.
Every time some busybody comes up to them assuming that they’re one big gay happy family she thinks it’s just the universe’s way of trying to get Jim and her dad together.
So when the man in the trucker hat MAKE AMERICA READ AGAIN offers to pay for their lunch, she jumps on the opportunity. “My daddies and I would love that, thank you sir!”
He chuckles, a deep belly laugh. “My partner Beau and I were always as anxious as a pig at a county fair to be seen together, thought everyone in state lines could tell how we felt. Turns out we were just too dumb and stupid to let the other know.” He slaps his knee and chuckles again and Jo grins down into her milkshake while trying not to notice how her dad and Jim are trying not to look each other and doing a crappy job of it.
She tracks down the man a year later and sends him a nice thank you note along with the holiday card–the one she insisted they put together–with daddy and Jim grinning like the married fools they are and always should have been.
Ships aren’t food, they’re not exercise, they’re not even a nonfiction book or a classic novel. A steady diet of LGBT+ ships with no age or power gap won’t make you emotionally or mentally any healthier. It won’t teach you about how actual relationships work and it won’t prevent you from getting into an unhealthy relationship.
Unhealthy ships won’t ruin you. They won’t corrupt you, they won’t destroy your understanding of actual healthy relationships or erode your morality.
Your fictional diet isn’t your actual diet. There’s no organic vegan gluten-free ship that will fix a single goddamn thing.
Relax. Enjoy yourself. Read whatever fiction fascinates you, tantalizes you, engages you. The content doesn’t matter much for your health, but the joy it brings you might.
shealwaysreads 