I was taken aback by his openness, but not by his kindness. “Thanks, man. But what’s with the sudden outpouring of support?”
He angled his head back to the house where our father surely sat, waiting and drunk, to rip into us about what we had done wrong, rather than congratulate us on what we had done well. “I just know he won’t tell you any of that, and you deserve to hear it today.”
I walked around the back of the car, a huge smile plastered to my face. Draping an arm over his shoulder, I put him in a fake chokehold and scrubbed my knuckles back and forth over his head. “I’m proud of you, too.”
“Noogies? What the fuck? Are we five?” he joked, straightening out the hair that now flopped down into his eyes.
We both shut up as we approached the front door, knowing better than to sound like we were actually having fun. I heard Mom and Dad talking inside, but they weren’t yelling.
Sadly, this struck me as odd.
Reid and I dropped our bags in the front mudroom and carefully peeked into the family room where our parents were sitting across from each other. Their conversation stopped and with sad and defeated eyes; Mom looked up at us.
“Oh, hi boys. I didn’t hear you come in.” She stood and walked over to us, wiping subtly at her face. With her shoulders slumped and her face drawn, she did everything she could not to look at us. As she stopped in front of us, though, I could see the unshed tears in her eyes. Rather than letting them fall, she blinked them back and lifted her arms to pull us both into a tight hug. “I heard you boys won. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there. Your father told me the game was a close one.” She stepped back from the hug and scanned our faces – for what, I’m not sure, but her own sadness was so clear on her own. “I’ll make you both something to eat,” she said softly as she broke away from us, stepping toward the kitchen.
“That’s okay, Mom. We’ll grab something in a bit.” She looked so tired, so beaten down, I couldn’t fathom asking her to take care of us when we were more than capable of doing it ourselves – when the thing she really needed was for someone to take care of her.
With a subtle nod of her head and a crooked, but warm smile, she walked upstairs. After we heard her bedroom door click closed, Dad angled his head to the sofa. Knowing the drill, Reid and I sat down, awaited our verbal lashing for being complete and utter failures even though we won the county championships.
It was like being in the same room as Medusa – you never wanted to look right at him because you’d turn to stone and crack under the pressure. He shocked the shit out of us when he grunted, “Good game today.” His words were barely audible and if Reid’s face hadn’t reflected the same look of shocked disbelief that I was sure was on my own face, I would never have believed that he’d even spoken them.
He looked toward the stairs, seemingly distracted by whatever had passed between him and Mom before we walked in. “It’s not States or anything, but it’s a start.” His insult should have hurt more than it did, but maybe that was why he lead with the “good game” comment. But, to be honest, something seemed off, like his demeanor shifted or something like that.
Knowing better than to question why he was going easy on us, after all, I did let up two hits and Reid struck out once, we just nodded in silent agreement and watched as he followed behind Mom up into his room.
“That was fucking weird,” I muttered when I heard the bedroom door close.
Reid stood from the couch. “Whatever. He’s a fucking asshole. Let’s go. I want to get to the party.”
We thought about telling Mom and Dad where we were going, but once we heard their voices filtering out into the hallway, we decided against it and just got our stuff ready to leave for the night. A note on the counter would have to do. Besides, by the time we got home the next day, whatever they were arguing over would have passed and they wouldn’t have even missed us.
We both changed quickly and raced back out the door before we were told not to. By the time we got to Nick’s, the party was in full swing. Most of the guys hadn’t even bothered to stop home after the game, their parents satisfied with a quick call or text. That would never pass with our dad, so we didn’t even bother it.
It wasn’t worth the black eye.
Nick came up to us, two cans of beer in his hands. “Here you go, boys.” He tossed the beer and Reid popped his open, not worrying about the foamy spray that hit his shirt.
In my two years of Varsity baseball parties, I’d learned better than to protest when anyone handed me a drink. I just nodded my thanks, cracked open the beer and carried it around with me, never taking a sip from it.
I was too afraid to let my guard down. Too afraid to numb the pain. Because if the pain was numbed, then what else would I have.
“Hey!” Dylan called out to us from the beer pong table where he’d just successfully landed another shot. We walked over to him, bumped fists, and when his teammate sank the last shot, his game was ended.
“I’m up next,” Reid moved into Dylan’s spot as Dylan stepped to the side.
After tossing his empty water bottle in an open garbage bag in the corner, he walked away from me without saying a word. I could tell something was wrong simply by the way he stalked away from me. I watched him slink out the sliding glass door, into the backyard where he could be alone.
I scanned the room, took stock of everyone else, and came to one conclusion: they were all fucked up. Aside from Reid, who had only just gotten here, everyone else had a solid hour-and-a-half head start. Most of them would be throwing up in another hour. It never ceased to amaze me how shitfaced a bunch of high school athletes would get just because they didn’t have practice the next morning.
Fairly certain that no one would see me if I followed him, I slid out the same door and walked across the backyard where I found Dylan sitting under a large weeping willow tree.
I sank down next to him and cringed a little when I saw him shift away from me. “What’s your problem?” I asked, genuinely not knowing.
“Seriously?” He nearly yelled as he squeezed his hands together, draping them in between his bent knees. “You haven’t spoken to me in fucking months,” he seethed. “You cut me out of your life. We’ve made it through the majority of the season and you haven’t said two fucking words to me since you…” The words he wanted to say vanished into thin air as he checked over his shoulder to make sure no one else had followed me outside.
“Found out you were gay.” Quietly, I finished his sentence for him, letting the words I had feared so much actually tumble from my mouth.
“Yeah,” he sighed and hung his head in his hands.
