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Jared could put up with his grandmother hugging him way too tightly so that her chunky jewellery left red marks on his skin.
Jared could put up with the stiff wooden chairs surrounding the rotting oak dinner table with the hand-sewn pillows that were coated in cat fur.
Jared could put up with his loud aunties cupping his face and running their shaky hands through his hair and frowning. They smelled of smoke.
He could put up with their snide comments. He could put up with the food that was always either too cold, too mushy or completely charred. He could tolerate it. He could get over it. He could go home in a few hours, flop onto his bed, cover his ears with his pillows and text Evan. He could completely avoid Evan's questions of concern about his sudden bad mood and lack of penis jokes. He could listen to him talk about trees until he felt like a functioning human again. He could lock his door so his parents couldn't barge in and look at him with their hands on their hips silently until they left and he could cry. He could do it. He could get through this godawful dinner. He could do it.
"I just don't know why you would even bother, honey. You were such a pretty girl."
Jared lowered his fork and slumped down in his seat. Why was he always the topic of conversation? Why was he so amusing to them?
"Oh, yes, your hair was so pretty!"
He batted a disembodied hand away. Tears stung his eyes.
"Don't get snappy. We're allowed to have opinions about... This." No, you're not. You're not.
"We're just saying that it's a shame!" Stop. Stop it.
"It affects us too. We're your family!" You aren't- surely you aren't.
The scraping of Jared's chair on the wooden floor shut them up. He left the room, face screwed up and glasses foggy. He ignored the amused yells from the dining room. He slipped away into the hall, sitting down on the stairs with a sigh, finally free of all the noise. The stairs were hard and uncomfortable and Jared had nothing to do with his hands apart from fiddle with his watch that was a little too tight for his wrist (he never thought to get a new one). The room was spinning and doubling so Jared shut his eyes tightly, forcing back the tears that were slithering forward with a meek fist shake and the threat of a strongly worded e-mail. He breathed, and breathed, and breathed again, so focused on breathing that he didn't hear the sound of someone walking down the hall, muttering something as they caught Jared sulking on the stairs and cursing as they slid next to Jared with a heavy sigh. Jared felt a light nudge on his arm, and upon opening his eyes, he had to refrain from letting out the fattest eye roll of the century. It wasn't Evan, who had magically materialised to take Jared's jokes too seriously and laugh at things that weren't meant to be funny. It was his uncle Rich, complete with off putting patterned button-down, graphic t-shirt, worn out jeans, muddy converse and taped together glasses that looked like they'd crumble into dust if someone sneezed too hard.
"Hey, kid," He began. Jared let out a small sigh and turned back to the wall he was leaning against and staring at longingly. Richie laughed. Jared looked.
"What? Did they send you to drag me back in there?" Richie's eyes wavered.
"No, no. Jared, right?"
Jared nodded, huffing. Back in year 6, this guy was his claim to fame. His famous uncle that he totally talked to all the time. Now, he had to pretend like he never said all that shit, skilfully dodging all the questions back in 2016, the year Richie magically disappeared for a while and then came out as gay a month later. What? That gay comedian Richie Tozier? Nope. Don't know him. That guy's crazy, right? Haha.
Secretly, Jared thought his new material was way funnier.
"So... You've grown up, huh?" Richie exclaimed, trying to elicit a smile, even if it was an awkward polite one. Jared stared at him with those judgemental teenager eyes that would make any man crumble and weep. Richie didn't. Richie had experience with looks like that.
"Listen..." Richie sighed, taking his hands from his pockets to fiddle with them on his lap, dropping the cool-uncle-persona. He took a breath, thinking about his next words, which was hard considering that wasn't something he'd ever done before. "I..."
"Oh, God, this is painful to watch. Please stop," Jared whined, earning a short chuckle from the other.
"Right. Yeah. I'm not good with, y'know... Teen stuff."
"I wouldn't expect you to be."
"Hey! I was a teen once! I was really bad at it but at least I gave it a shot."
"Oh, I bet you were."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
Jared smiled and fixed his glasses, shaking his head. Success! Richie tried not to look too relieved.
"I just don't want you to think that there isn't anyone on your side," Richie said, sobering up the tone. Jared looked back at him without saying a word. "Because I know how that feels."
Jared felt a weird sense of relief. He was grateful he wasn't being told the same shit he always was by Evan and his school counsellor, the routine 'You're just unique. The world will never have another you!' schtick. Unique was code for alone.
"I..." Jared waited for the interruption to come, and when it didn't, he was acutely aware that, to his surprise, he was being listened to. "I just don't know what to do."
"Listen, I won't lie to you and say that it all gets better if you stay strong. I'm, what, 46 years in? I still haven't got the hang of it. There's no book to tell you what to do, no informational video, no rulebook. All of us got the short end of the stick. What I will tell you is that, after a while, you stop caring what other people have to say about you, and from then, it just gets... Easier. It's never not hard, but you won't always feel this shitty."
Jared listened, eyebrows furrowed, vision blurry, and with a frog in his throat. He listened as Richie stumbled over his words, took pauses to breathe and swallow. He listened until Richie stopped, no words left to say.
"Yeah. I mean... Thanks," Jared mumbled, nodding. Richie nodded back.
"No problem," Richie mumbled back, giving Jared a firm shoulder pat, which was received with gratitude. And as they returned to the dining room, and sat down opposite each other, and gave each other looks whenever either of them received thinly veiled judgemental comments from someone else at the table, Jared was comforted knowing that if he had no one else, he would always have a dishevelled 40 year old gay uncle wearing a headache-inducing Hawaiian shirt on his side.