Feral Sephrian

Joshy grew up watching his Bible-thumping dad and his ballet-loving brother Leon argue and shout at each other for years, but never really knew why. When new neighbors move in down the street, suddenly Leon spends time with their son, Kalil. Once again, Joshy is completely in the dark about his brother’s actions and is taken by surprise when both Leon and Kalil run away together. The rest of his childhood and adolescence are spent wondering what became of the pair, until one day ...<br><br>Leon was different from day one, and even though it caused friction with his dad’s narrow-minded views, he never gave up on what he truly was. Exploring his sexuality generates little more than confusion and frustration, until he meets Kalil. They find out they have more in common than people expect, and Leon helps Kalil come to terms with that. Both yearning for freedom from the oppression of their parents, they hatch a plan to escape to New York, where a new life and new opportunities await.

Lost and Found

The sun was going down by the time I left. Kalil’s mother said I seemed like a wonderful young man and she was glad her son was making friends so quickly. That got me worried about what would happen when he met the other boys in our class. Would they tell him how I got in trouble? Would Blake warn him to stay away from me? I was torn between my happiness at meeting someone like Kalil and my fear of losing him.


Of course, the first thing that happened when I got home was Dad barking at me for not answering my phone. Then he spouted more racist idiocy no matter how much I tried to explain the truth to him. 


I told Joshy he was invited to play with the El-Sayed girls. He responded by glancing anxiously at Dad and mumbling, “Um, yeah, maybe.”


Dad was already getting to him. It broke my heart. I narrowed my eyes. “You know, Dad, you ought to be nicer to the new neighbors.”


Chapter 15