“You spoke to my brother?” they’d said, without even a ‘hello.’ “Why did you talk to my brother? What possessed you to talk to my insanely protective brother, who is also your coach?”
Curtis had been in his car, listening to MF Doom and feeling lower than dirt. Again, if he’d been smart, he would have waited and gotten his thoughts together. Instead, he just went for it. “Sorry. I thought maybe it would help.”
“Withwhat?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I dunno. I’m kinda drowning here, babe.”
“I get that, but holy fuck, Byron’s giving birth to a zillion cows right now. He thinks you’re gonna, like, ruin my life. My sister-in-law had to put him on the back porch with a six pack and a box of Ibuprofen Rapid.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, she says he keeps mumbling ‘the disrespect’ over and over.”
“Fuck.”
“Why, Curtis?Why?”
“I just wanted to try to move things forward. Show you there’s nothing to worry about?”
“By freaking my brother’s nut and getting benched forever?”
Despite his stress, Curtis had snorted. “He can’t bench me, babe. He can’t make that call.”
“Yeah, focus on that, why don’t you? He can still fuck with you,” they snarled. “He hates that we’ve been going out. Why couldn’t you let this thing go at my pace?”
“Because it’s been ages, and you won’t let me tell anyone we’re going out, even though all the boys already know I’m seeing someone.”
“How?”
“Because I don’t…” He scratched his hairline. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sal laughed. “Because you don’t smash mad puss after away games anymore? Lucky me.”
Curtis couldn’t remember a conversation ever going worse. “Babe, I swear I don’t want to fuck this up. I want you. I don’t want anyone else. I’m just worried you’re never gonna come around on us.”
He waited for Sal to say he was wrong. Instead, they said nothing at all.
“Shit,” he repeated. “You are gonna come around, right? You’re into what we’re doing?”
There’d been another long silence, and unlike the ones that had happened when he’d been with Byron, Curtis didn’t think Sal was thinking about ways to kill him and get away with it. “Babe?”
“Sorry,” Sal said, and he realised they were crying. “I hate that this is so complicated. I hate that I can’t figure any of this out.”
“Byron’ll come around.”
“It’s not that,” they said, their voice thick with tears. “I just don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Fuck.” He’d rubbed a hand over his eyes, suddenly fighting back his own tears. “Are you… Is it over?”
“I don’t want it to be. I… Why does this have to be so hard?”
“I don’t know. I’ve told you I don’t care that you’re non-binary.” There was a short silence, and he knew he’d screwed up yet again. “Sorry, I mean?—”
“I wish youdidcare, Curtis.I care.”
The line had disconnected, leaving him alone in his car with his thoughts. He’d been spinning out ever since, knowing there was something he wasn’t seeing with Sal, something he couldn’t get right. The answer felt stupidly close but a thousand miles away. He stayed up half the night, searching for shit online, but the information on queer identities overlapped and got so confusing that he had no idea what anything meant. Around midnight, he’d realised he needed a guide. Someone to walk him through this stuff. Only he didn’t know anyone else who was non-binary or even gay. Then he remembered Klaus. Sal had said they were still friends, and he’d been really helpful when they were first coming out as non-binary. After a bunch of umming and ahhing, Curtis had found the guy on Instagram and asked if he could chat with him about Sal. He’d expected to get ghosted, but minutes after he'd sent Klaus the DM, he’d agreed and invited Curtis to drop in at the tattoo studio around 3pm, which had brought Curtis to the Rust Tattoo Collective.
Knowing his luck, the guy was probably going to tell him to fuck off, but it was worth a shot. If it didn’t work with Sal, Curtis wasn’t sure he’d ever feel this way about anyone again. He’d had crushes before, but nothing like this. Just the thought of Sal’s big green eyes made him all stupid in the head. Yesterday, Damien Mills had kicked a footy square into his face, and he’d barely noticed, he was so out of it.
