“There’s something a bit off about Sam.”

Those words infest my brain, termites crawling through my thoughts. I know what Grandma meant: I’m a fairy, a fruit, a certain other word beginning with F. And, sure, she’s right, I’m as gay as they come. I’m not ashamed of that. But her voice, dripping with disdain, sears into my memory like acid, making a wound out of something I should celebrate, something that brings me infinite amounts of joy.

Mom and I have this argument all the time. “She’s just set in her ways, she’s old fashioned, it was a different time.” The same meaningless phrases to excuse Grandma’s lack of growth as a person. If I’m being honest, I don’t care if she has a sudden explosion of self-improvement, marches in parades, bursts into a cathedral to scream at priests for their hateful sermons. All I want is for her to shut up.

And now Pride Month is here. The worst thirty days of the year. Companies hang rainbow banners and tout slogans of acceptance while trying to eliminate the public’s memory of the harm they continually cause in the other eleven months. People I never talk to, social media “friends” and distant relatives alike, pop into my inbox to spout aphorisms about being myself and staying true to who I am, what an inspiration I’ve been in their lives, how happy they are to know me. I’m an object, a figurehead, my personhood irrelevant.

Yet even with all the kindness, cloying as it may be, Grandma’s toxic judgments linger in my mind. Weaponized like slurs, they occupy my every thought as I move through my days. Each “I’m proud to know you” and “I’m so glad you’re living your authentic life” message brings me back to that moment, just outside the kitchen doorway, eavesdropping as she says that to some cousin or aunt or family friend, praying that she’d choke on her words.

The more I’m told that I’m loved and that I’m perfect the way I am, the more fury builds up inside me. My hate and her hate make an echo chamber, bouncing around each other, growing into a deafening roar of one thought and one thought alone:

Grandma needs to hurt like I do.

I can’t do it, of course. That would be too obvious. Everyone knows that I’m pissed at her, I’d be suspect number one. But it’s hard not to hear the whispers about angry queers just itching to get even with a bigot, any bigot.

So that’s why I’m reaching out. A friend of a friend of somebody I met in passing mentioned that you might be interested in a collaboration of sorts. You exorcize your rage, get it out of your system. I’ll pay you whatever you want, of course. Hell, I’ll even provide the alibi. Whatever it takes for my grandma to finally stop spewing hatred once and for all.

I mean, she doesn’t really need vocal cords, does she?