The Truth 3

Michael would struggle with school but excel in hockey as George began the journey of discovering more about the cruelty of children. He would continue to be harassed even as he began his first sexual relationship. A combination of confusion, sexual greed and petty mind games would begin at this point and would shape his expectations of romantic relationships. Told he was fat, yet obviously attractive enough for sex, humiliated by his lover in public, yet kissed in private, this would be his training ground of the heart.

Even as George discovered the first pangs of love, his parents’ divorce became final and the terms were set. The boys would stay with their father in the house on Cross St., mostly because of puberty and school, and their mother would move two towns over. And though the divorce was over, the wars were not and became so bad that the young mother would find a new job in a small seismology company.

But Jeff would continue to play a part in her life as the two began a romantic relationship. And even though she would see her sons every weekend, the toll began on Michael and George. Michael would feel close to the only father he remembered and continued to excel in hockey while George would feel deserted by the only constant in his life—his mother.

And to this mix the taunts and terrors of high school as the class fag as well as a brother who found it easier to join in the teasing than defending his brother as well as the abrupt end to his romantic relationship, it is of little wonder that George’s thoughts turned suicidal. Unable to continue in his current situation, George would beg to live with his mother.

This, of course, was the worst plan he could made. His mother and Jeff had just moved in together and she realized that there was no way to have two children in the mix—Jeff was slightly immature and she also realized that she could not take one son and not the other. This choice also fueled the war being at Cross St., with Michael becoming more the son that Leo was proud of as George continued to show the traits of his still despised ex-wife.

Thus left to his own devices, George would make a serious of life choices. One was accepting his homosexuality as well as realizing that he would never be able to please Leo or Michael. Instead, he made his own plan of action; to succeed at school, go to a far away college and begin the rest of his life away from his family as much as he could.

Even this simplest of plans would come back to haunt him—Michael would begin to fall even more behind in school, even as he would play on the Junior Olympic team, disappointing Leo while George would disappoint his father by becoming more like his mother in defiance and theology. This would come to a head in a fight that would become about Michael lying about grades, George accidentally point this out and the brothers’ fighting each other physically and result in George head through a glass window. In the aftermath, Leo and George would then fight about the responsibility for the situation and would climax with Leo shouting, ”You are so much your mother that I can’t even look at you.”