Michael's Awakening Read online

  Michael’s Awakening

  By

  Jaclyn Osborn

  Published by Encompass Ink

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Copyright Jaclyn Osborn

  Cover by Rue Volley

  Edited by Karmin Dahl

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Michael

  Who could ever love a beast like me? No, not a beast with fangs or claws…my darkness runs much deeper. I’m a condemned man who spends my days burning in my own personal hell, with no hope for salvation.

  At first glance, I seem just like everyone else; I work my ass off and try to get by in this roller coaster called life. Being a prosecuting attorney, most people find me slightly intimidating. But that’s only because I’m damn good at my job and it’s reflected in every move I make in the courtroom. If they knew the real me, they would see the beast within.

  No one knows the secrets I hide.

  No one can hear the screams that reside within my mind, or see the nightmares that continuously plague me. This darkness that’s inside of me is relentless… and cold. It claws just beneath the surface of my skin, turning me into an emotionless and callous shell of a person. A beast.

  The horrors of my past refuse to leave me alone. And I’m afraid they never will. It is a past consumed with pain and such atrocious nightmares that most people can’t even begin to fathom the torments I’ve suffered. My scars run deep, both inside my mind and beneath my clothes, hidden from the world.

  But the mirror hides nothing.

  It exposes me for what I really am and reveals my every flaw.

  No, no one could ever learn to love a beast like me. There is no beautiful soul that will awaken me from this darkness that I’m prisoner within and show me the way to the light.

  Chapter One

  Gabriel

  Being gay in a southern state was hard. However, being an androgynous gay man living in a southern state was a damn nightmare. Everywhere I went, people gawked, stared, and glared daggers my way. Don’t get me wrong, I loved attention. But intolerance? Not so much.

  I’m from a small town in Arkansas called Mulberry. Yes, I was raised in the country with tractors, cows, chickens, and all other things that screamed farm life and I was still fabulous. My high school was packed full of country folk that lived and breathed chewing tobacco, going mudding in their trucks, and shouting country music from the top of their lungs. They also lived to make my life hell.

  Needless to say, I didn’t fit in.

  No one understood my passion for all things fashion and style. Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, and Manolo Blahnik? Forget about it. I might as well have had a third eye and an alien antenna sticking out of my head by the way everyone looked at me.

  My family was all I had. But, they loved me and taught me to rise above any intolerance thrown my way. I would have rather been true to myself and had no friends than to have lived a lie just in order to please everyone else. So, although I had very few friends, I was happy.

  Before this goes too far, I need to make one thing clear. Labels are for clothes and food, not for people. I do not define myself by any label. I am simply me: Gabriel Greyson.

  And I was damn fabulous.

  I knew I was different at a very young age. Instead of playing with toy guns and pretending I was a cowboy like every other six-year-old boy, I would play ‘beauty shop’ where I would dress-up my stuffed animals. I imagined my very own beauty salon and I felt the most comfortable there. As the imaginary salon grew–and my flair of creativity along with it–-I’d use my mother's fingernail polish to sloppily paint my nails, and eventually I’d paint my toys with it as well.

  I made the mistake of painting on one of my older brother’s Batman action figures once and I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast in my life. I told him that Batman looked better with a hot pink cape instead of black, so I was just doing my civil duty by helping him out. He chased me all around our backyard, threatening to shave my head bald. Even back then, I cared about my hair and how it looked, so his threat didn’t go to deaf ears. My mother and father told me that my beauty obsession was just a phase that some boys went through and would eventually pass.

  It never did.

  Once I discovered my mom’s makeup drawer, I felt like I had just discovered a chest full of treasure. One day, while my mom was preoccupied with cooking dinner and my dad was watching a football game on TV, I opened the drawer and began decorating my face. I didn’t really know what went where, but I had a blast trying to figure it out. Satisfied and proud of how I looked, I pranced into the dining room where my mom and dad were setting the table for dinner, anxious to show them what I had thought to be a masterpiece. My father almost had a heart attack the first time he saw me.

  “You tryin’ to practice for clown school, Gabe?” he said to me jokingly after the initial shock wore off.

  I remember my mother slightly furrowed her brow, but then smiled at me when she first saw what I had done. After playfully slapping my father on the arm for the comment he made about clown school, she had knelt down in front of me and lightly pinched my cheek. Her hazel eyes held traces of sadness in them, but at that time I had no idea why.

  “You mad at me, Momma?” I asked in a whisper and then looked down toward my feet, thinking I was in trouble.

  “My angel,” she said to me with love in her voice and then gently tilted my head back up to look at her. “You look beautiful.”

  I was eight years old at that time. Being that young, a child doesn’t think of the societal norms of right and wrong and what is normal behavior. I just wanted to be myself. Later on, I understood the sadness that was in my mother’s eyes that day. She knew the hardships that I would face in life for being the way I was.

  She loved me anyway. Her and my father both.

  Around the age of eleven, I really began noticing my attraction for boys and it scared the hell out of me. At that time, I knew that my love of fashion and makeup wasn’t considered normal for boys, so I hadn’t fully embraced myself or let my freak flag fly yet. I was already bullied for being more feminine than the average boy and I was terrified of what people would say.

  That was back to when I actually cared what other people thought about me and I was still struggling with who I was. Over time, all of those worries disappeared and I now know how fabulous I was.

  Screw what anyone else thinks, I don’t live my life to please anyone but myself.

  But anyway, my older brother Zach, who was fifteen at the time, was heavy into sports and people always compared me to him. “Why don’t you join the football team like your brother?” Or my personal favorite. “Playing sports like Zach may help make a better man out of you.”

  As if a man could only be defined by the size of his muscles, instead of the strength of his heart or the intelligence of his mind.

  Even though I had never come out and said it, my parents knew I was gay before I even told them. Or they at least had their suspicions. The day I actually came out and told them would be a day I’d never forget. My palms were warm and sweaty and I remember how my heart was rapidly beating in my chest like a tiny army was banging away on their war
drums directly inside my chest cavity.

  Sweat lightly dampened my brow and my knees shook as I walked to tell them my news. My mother was sitting on the sofa with her dainty legs folded beneath her as she sipped on a warm cup of tea and worked on a crossword puzzle, while my father sat beside her in his recliner flipping through the channels on the television.

  Peeking around the corner, I took a deep breath and then walked into the living room. “Mom? Dad?” My voice was a higher pitch than normal, so I cleared my throat trying to remain as calm as I could. They both looked up at me and my heart stopped beating, as if the tiny army of rapid drum-bangers suddenly decided that this war was lost and it would be a good time to retreat. Shaking my head at the weird thought, I blurted out, “I like boys,” before they could say anything.

  Those few seconds before they responded felt like an eternity. I was too nervous to look at my father—I didn’t want to see the disappointment that I thought would be reflected in his blue eyes.

  It was my mother who spoke first. “Honey, we have already suspected that and discussed it on several occasions.” She looked at my father, as he nodded his head. Looking back at me, she continued, “It’s really not that shocking to have it finally confirmed. Now, take a breath, sweetie, because you look kind of blue.”

  I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.

  Looking up with shock, I saw that my mother was smiling and looked perfectly at ease. “What? You aren't mad or upset?” I looked over at my father and noticed he had put down the remote control and was intently staring at me, his expression unreadable.

  “Son,” my father finally spoke with his voice calm and his expression soft, “we're gonna love you no matter what. That's what families do.”

  And that was the end of that.

  Dad went back to watching television and my mother started sipping her tea again. Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I nodded and exited the room, feeling as though I had just faced down a firing squad only to have them pardon me at the last minute. Hell, I felt like the luckiest boy in the world. I had heard horror stories of other boys coming out as gay to their families and not all were as fortunate as me.

  Earlier on in the school year, rumors had circulated about a boy who was a few years older than me named Jackson. Supposedly, he had told his parents he was gay and they had kicked him out of their house with nowhere else to go. No one ever knew what happened to him after that. His parents didn’t stay in town much longer after the rumors started. Some people said that they were too embarrassed to face everyone, knowing that they had ‘raised a sinner’, so they fled town the first chance they got.

  I only hoped that wherever Jackson was now, he was finally happy.

  So, yes, I was beyond relieved that my parents accepted me. Deep down, I think I knew they would, but it still felt amazing to have them finally know the truth. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders that day. They loved me just the way I was, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  Chapter Two

  Gabriel

  Freshly out of the shower, I pulled the towel around my lean hips and used my hand to wipe the steam from the mirror. Looking at my reflection, I gently stroked the stubble along my chin. I hadn't shaved for a few days, giving me a more rugged, manly appearance.

  Sometimes, I was unrecognizable to people. Having two very different sides to yourself would do that, I suppose. One day, I could be wearing a cheetah print dress and stiletto shoes with a glamorous face of makeup and the next day, I could have a stubbled chin wearing a beanie hat, faded jeans, and a rock T-shirt.

  Cocking my head to the side, I ran a hand through my short, platinum blond hair and sighed. My darker blond roots were starting to grow on top and become more pronounced. A trip to the salon was definitely long overdue.

  I blow dried the top of my hair and ran my hands through the short strands, attempting to calm the slight frizziness that had annoyingly decided to occur. You’ve got to be kidding me. My bangs weren’t hanging right, so I dragged out my hair straightener and switched it on, tapping my acrylic nails against the counter as I waited for it to heat.

  While I was waiting, I decided I might as well shave. Getting together my shaving cream, razor, and after-shave exfoliates, I started the process to rid myself of the manly stubble. After that was done, I turned my head from side-to-side as I examined my face. No cuts and my skin was silky smooth. Perfect.

  The straightener was finally hot enough, so I took it and began working on the mess that was my hair. Once my bangs were tame and I was satisfied, I squirted some moose into my hand and rubbed my hands together before running them through the back of my hair, causing my ends to stand up. The sides of my hair were cut shorter than the top, so not much work had to be done there. Along with being shorter, the sides were also darker than the platinum blond top, giving me an awesome two-toned look. My hair was very versatile. Just like my style. I could mohawk it, or let the back lay flat and just style my bangs by swooping them to the side. Both ways looked fantastic.

  Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I looked at my pale blue eyes. Sometimes, they were so light that they looked gray instead of blue. Since I had been tanning the past month, the paleness of my eyes against the tan of my skin made for an intriguing contrast.

  I loved it.

  It was something that made me even more unique. And gods knew I was definitely unique. And fabulous. With a smile, I left the steam of the bathroom and walked over to my huge closet.

  My apartment was a little small, but for one person, it was a perfect fit. It was fairly priced at a whopping three-hundred-and-fifty dollars a month and was only a short drive to my job. Another plus of my apartment was that my closet was big and able to hold my large assortment of clothing, shoes, and handbags.

  So, that was freaking fantastic in my opinion.

  I worked at a store called Beauty Central that was located in a shopping pavilion, right between a women’s clothing store and a shoe store. I was a beautician, with my specialty in makeup, and I loved it. Our store sold a large variety of beauty products; everything from makeup, facial cleansers, and bath soaps to hair styling products and perfume. All of my favorite things in one area! Well, almost all of my favorite things. Throw in some sexy, shirtless men with nice abs and then I’d be totally set.

  The chances of finding a sexy gay man in Fort Smith, Arkansas, though, were depressingly slim. Well, an open, sexy, gay man. I had no issues finding a casual sex partner whenever I wanted. But the hard fact of living here in the south was that although people were usually friendly, there were still those deep-rooted beliefs that most people held that homosexuals weren’t normal. Some people even went as far to say that gays are all abominations of God.

  I’d really like to stick my stiletto-heeled foot up those people’s asses.

  Opening up my closet, I searched through my wardrobe for a shirt to wear to work. Since the store manager was easy-going, she allowed the employees to wear basically whatever they wanted as long as it wasn't too revealing or offensive. In my case, I seemed to offend quite a few people just by walking into the room. My flamboyance and androgynous appearance caused heads to turn and derogatory slurs to be thrown in my direction.

  Just one of the many perks of living in the south.

  Thankfully, the manager at the store, who was also a fantastic friend of mine, didn't mind my choice of clothing, even though she had received numerous complaints by customers that I just “wasn't right” and was “repulsive” and should be fired. Fired for being myself... I scoffed and rolled my eyes. It wasn't like I showed up to work wearing assless jeans or anything.

  Whatever.

  Shrugging my shoulders at that thought, I settled for a simple black V-neck top, hot pink skinny jeans, and my heeled ankle boots. I would play up the simplicity of the shirt with one of my decorative scarfs and tack on a few bedazzled bracelets for that extra pop of glam. After I was dressed, I walked over to my vanity and sat down, popped th
e lid on the moisturizer and squirted a few pumps into my palm before applying it to my face.

  I loved the process of applying makeup. It allowed me to express myself as I saw fit and damn anyone who objected. I decided to go with a light pink eye shadow for my eyelids, highlighted with a smoky gray to achieve the sexy smoky-eye look that caused my blue eyes to smolder and pop. Tilting my head from side to side, I admired my work and finished my look off with a soft pink gloss on my full lips.

  All of a sudden, the chorus of Katy Perry’s Firework went off, almost giving me a damn heart attack. Grabbing my phone from the nightstand beside my bed, I saw that it was my brother Zach calling so I answered it. “You damn near almost killed me. I need to change your ringtone.”

  “Well, hello to you, too. The amount of love in your voice is truly endearing.” I could hear the smile behind his sarcastic words.

  “You’ll really feel my love when I stick my fabulous foot up your ass,” I sneered.

  Zach and I had always picked on each other like this, ever since we were little. When he found out I was gay, he didn’t take it as well as my mom and dad did. I remember when I told him, he had roughly pushed me away from him and stormed out of the room, muttering under his breath about how he wished I could just be a normal little brother for once. His reaction had stung me deeply and all I wanted to do was crawl into a shell and hide from the world.

  Later that night, I was laying in my bed and crying into my pillow when I heard a light tap on my bedroom door. Trying to hurriedly wipe away my tears, I cleared my throat and watched as the light from the hallway slowly illuminated my dark room as my door creaked opened.

  It was Zach.

  He had come to apologize and to tell me that although he didn’t really understand why I was gay or why I dressed so feminine all the time, he would always have my back. No matter what. We had grown closer after that, and he had stayed true to his word. Anytime a kid at school tried to give me a hard time, Zach was always there to tower over them and send them running for the hills. I still had vulgarity tossed my way from people, but, thanks to Zach, no one ever laid a hand on me.