Maybe I’m just jaded, but I’ve earned the right. Because the following week shattered my faith in wisdom and all of life’s easy answers.

Fallacy #1: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Bad advice. Because what might look like a gift could come with complicated strings and snares, and, as the people of Troy found out, a garrison of Greek soldiers.

On Sunday night, the national news spot dropped, and my interview was broadcast into millions of homes. And by Monday morning, a fresh wave of calls was rolling in. More interview requests. Invitations to public speaking engagements. There were even companies wanting me to sponsor their products. I didn’t think my life could feel any more surreal, but there it was.

I already felt like a fraud, so I just wanted my fifteen stupid minutes of fame to be done. Since most of the calls came to my parents, I told them to turn down everything.

“Everything?” my father asked. “Aren’t there at least some of them you might want to consider?”

That just blew my already overloaded mind to smithereens. My father, who, just a few days ago, wanted me to lie about who I was, was now ready to sell me to the highest bidder.

“All I’m saying is that this situation might have a silver lining for you. An unexpected gift—and I don’t just mean money, I mean prestige.”

“You’re the famous one, Dad,” I reminded him. But on the other hand, I never remembered him being in the spotlight when he played for the NFL. Through all that time, he was on the line, like me. All guts, no glory. Which meant that in one week, I had become more famous than him.

“If you play this right, you could probably get yourself some scholarships,” he told me.

“There are gay football scholarships?”

“Not per se,” he admitted, “but for a forward-thinking school, you’d be a feather in their cap.”

“I don’t want to be anyone’s feather.”

“You’re missing the point, Ash.”

He might have been right about this, but his motives troubled me. Was it my notoriety he wanted to advance, or his own? Was I now to be a feather in his cap? Was it suddenly okay with him that I was gay, because he had found a way to use it?

“You have opportunities here, Ash. Don’t squander them.”

And I realized this was also an opportunity for him. A chance to really connect with me. Would he take that opportunity, or squander it? I needed to find out.

“So is Paul welcome in our house?” I asked.

He seemed taken aback by the question.

“We agreed Thanksgiving. Now you want to move up the time schedule?”

“There’s no ‘time schedule,’” I told him. “There’s just being decent and not being decent.”