Welcome to the Pride Parade

The first chapter, introducing the minds of our darling superheroes.

Chloe and Andrew were normal teenagers. Haha, no, I’m totally just kidding. They were totally crazy, both of them. In their world of insanity, their folie a deux, they were superheroes.

Drew, the super gay superhero, with the power of fabulousness! Anything that was less than ultra-fab, he could transform in a matter of moments. He himself was the embodiment of all things fabulous�"from his Gucci shades, fashionable scarf, designer-brand black shirt, and boot cut jeans, paired with Prada shoes. His hair was a field of brown-ness. His eyes were oceans, if oceans were brown. His voice was that of the stereotypical gay man.

Chloe was uncharictaristically gorgeous. Always boys were trailing after her like dogs that smelled some rotting ham somewhere in the breeze. She was half-Hispanic, with black hair that draped to her lower shoulders. Her breasts were fantastic�"I mean, she had a wonderful personality. She had dark brown eyes, mocha colored skin over a round face, her small little nose peeking out of it. She often woresoft hues of lipstick to accentuate her lovely lips. She only had a good sense of fashion because Drew imposed it upon her. Her power was the power of sarcasm and fixing cars. No matter what words came out of your mouth, she could turn them around to sting you. And she could take apart any car, clean it, and put it back together�"all in a matter of seconds. She drove a 1967 Volkswagen bug, cherry red. She was also a notorious brain. She was in all AP classes and had straight A’s.  

They were both juniors in their high school, John Adams High. She was fifteen, having skipped a grade; he was sixteen, with a birthday in January.

They lived in the sleepy town of Ivanhoe, Virginia. It could have been pretty, had it not been riddled with the same Flintstone-esque scenery of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Starbucks and overpriced gas stations. Oh, and all the stupid people at John Adams and just generally around the community kind of pissed Chloe and Drew off. Especially Chloe, a brilliant, beautiful girl who liked girls and was an intense feminist. Often she’d come home to her mother complaining loudly. Her mother was the Hispanic side of her, and had been a supermodel before marrying Chloe’s father, deciding that the world of fashion was leading girls to anorexia and other horrible fates. Needless to say, she was still utterly stunning. Her name was Adriana and using the funds left over from her supermodeling and her husband’s inheritance from his father, they bought the huge Victorian house, painted a crème-and-blue combo, and settled into the community happily. Adriana became very involved with the church, while also becoming an elementary school teacher. She was incredibly happy, especially after her beautiful daughter was born.

But, two years later, tragedy struck. Her husband, Kyle, had been in the Marines. He was killed, blown up, during one of the several unwinnable wars in the middle East. Adriana mourned incessantly, praying endlessly to a God that never heard her desperate pleas.

Two years after, both the woman and the daughter emerged back into society, with Chloe in kindergarten. Adriana went to teaching highschool�"always a favorite teacher, particularly with the male students, though well liked by all for her generally gentle, sweet and intelligent demeanor�"but she never dated again. She also pulled away from the church that she had once been so involved in. Now she and her daughter only went on Christmas and Easter.

For all her mourning, she was a wonderful mother. Chloe and Adriana had a bond deeper than that of the average mother-daughter pairing, so when Chloe came out to her at the end of freshman year at only age thirteen, they were merely closer than ever.

Drew’s relationship with his parents was somewhat different.

He lived in the “traditional” family setting: Two parents of opposite gender, with children and siblings.

His father was nothing like Drew at all, particularly in his body composition. While Drew was slightly chubby, he was 250 pounds of pure, unadaulturated muscle. He worked for the FBI and was a pretty formidable guy. His mother was more petite and delicate. She was 5’ 2”, with brown hair dyed blonde, gentle brown eyes, a soft smile on her lips, and a quiet voice she never used to admonish. Her hands were as soft as a kitten’s fur.

He had two siblings, Alice and Kate. Twins. Identical. They looked like their father, minus the muscle mass. They had straight, dark hair, black eyes dancing with mirth and mischief, pale skin, and stubby fingers. They got into arguments on an hourly basis.

Gina and Cole, Drew’s parents, had met twenty years prior at a strip club in Vegas. Gina was desperate for money and Cole was desperate for action. Unfortunately, Gina was not very good at her job, and when Cole called her over for a “special” dance, she kicked his drink all over her chest. Apologizing profusely, she tried to dab the stain off, almost in tears. Laughing, smiling, he took her hands in his. The tears melted from her eyes, and she laughed too. They exchanged names and numbers, and after a year and a half of dating, Gina was in her real estate job, and they were engaged to be married.

Of course, the official story of their love was that he met her when she was waiting tables in Vegas, and that was when the drink incident happened. They were both nineteen when they met. They got married, both went off to college, got pregnant, moved, had the baby, got settled, had dirty filthy uproariously loud kinky sex in a public bathroom and fell pregnant with Kate and Alice.

Of course, no one told the twins of their conception, either.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Carlton had their secrets, they were both shocked when Drew came out to them. Cole, despite his excess muscle, had never lain a malicious hand upon his children, even the rebel-rousing twins. But that night, he slapped him hard across the face, knocking Drew out cold.

For the first time ever, Gina raised her voice to her husband. They had a very loving marriage and rarely fought; and when they did they didn’t shout or hit each other. But she yelled at him, her eyes glinting with hard fury.

Cole was so shocked he couldn’t even speak. He just turned on his heel and marched out the door while Gina bent over her son, who was beginning to come to. He had escaped the yelling, looking instead into his mother’s gentle eyes, accompanied by words of love and reassurance.

So after his father’s explosion, he left for about three months. Gina never let on that she was hurting, but late at night, she’d look over at the made-up side of the bed next to her, and burst into tears. All of his clothes were still in his closets, too.

When he came home in the dead of night, she didn’t say a word. She merely opened her arms to him, as he apologized, crying into his hard chest.

During his father’s absence, Drew and Chloe had struck up a friendship. Maybe it was their homosexuality, maybe it was that both their fathers were missing, maybe it was because they were so different on the outside, yet the same on the inside. Whatever reason, the two of them became inseparable.

These are their stories of fighting crime, making fabulousness, and generally just being awesome.