“No, no, no, don’t diminish your skills. That wasn’t about you. I fucked up. I got weird over the booze, that’s all. Fucker should share.” Goddamn, I was making the night about me when it was Asher’s night.What’s the matter with me?I almost ruined the night for Asher, who deserved to celebrate.
“Do you wanna head out?” Asher asked. “We can go back to our dorm and chill—”
That was the last thing I wanted. Asher deserved to have fun.Start acting like a normal person, Theo.“Nah, let’s party. Everyone here wants to sing your praises, and you deserve it.”
I could see Asher was about to protest, so I stopped him with an announcement. “Hey sluts! Get your glasses! A toast to my best friend who fucking crushed it tonight.”
The whole place erupted, the entire team cheering for Asher. Someone else toasted Johnson, and before long, both he and Asher were being dragged over to the keg for keg stands.
Asher
I breathed in the crisp December air as my eyes scanned the snow-covered ground shimmering in the moonlight. I played my first NCAA game and was the toast of a party hosted by theBobcats’ starting line. I should have felt amazing.
But I didn’t.
What’s wrong with me? Why won’t this feeling go away?
When I left home, I thought I’d finally feel free. I’d spent most of my life dreaming of escaping my mom and her terrible boyfriends, and I did it. I worked my ass off and got into college with enough scholarship money that I didn’t have to ask that woman for a single cent. Not only that, but I was excelling in school and crushed it on the ice during my first college game. I’d accomplished everything I set out to do.
So why did I still feel like a piece of shit?
Back home, I was in a constant state of survival mode. When I wasn’t dodging punches from the abusive assholes Mom kept around, I was trying to shield my heart from the venom she spewed at me day after day. Brief moments of relief would flicker during the in-between times—between beatings and cruel words—but then an emptiness would settle in. That hollow, aching feeling would consume me.
I thought leaving would make it go away, but it didn’t. It lingered. The longer I stayed away from the demons at home, the more I realized that emptiness inside me was a demon, too. It had a personality of its own, and its mission was to tell me that everything I did was garbage. No matter how well I did in college, that cruel, empty feeling persisted—trying to sabotage all the good things that came my way.
I walked around the party feeling like an imposter because I knew the secret. Would these guys pat me on the back and share their booze if they knew I was gay? Or would they beat me into the ice and watch me bleed?
I thought I was better than this. Intellectually, I knew that it didn’t matter what people thought of me. It was 2024, and ifpeople had a problem with me, that was none of my business.
It shouldn’t matter if I’m gay. But it does.
Every time I worked up the nerve to talk about it, flashes of my life back home would bombard me. My throat would close, my eyes would water, and I’d chicken out.
I thought I was better than this.
I went from living in a prison at home to living in a prison of secrecy.
And the love that I felt for the man with his arm wrapped around my shoulder, because he was too drunk to walk straight, was eating me alive.
It hurt. I wanted to tell Theo so bad, but I just couldn’t. I loved him, and I hated myself for loving him. Nothing could come from it, so why was I torturing myself by loving a straight guy? Not just any straight guy, my best friend. My roommate.
The love of my life.
I tried the apps—the down-low dating. That’s cool in high school, but most college guys weren’t into that. They could sense my shame the minute they met me. I knew it.
Besides, it felt so wrong meeting people because they weren’thim.I never saw someone more than once in college. The little fling I had with Ross in high school was just that, a fling. It helped me forget how much I hated my life, but that’s about it.
I never opened up to Ross—never talked about anything real. I just needed an escape.
Once we’d finished hooking up, I’d wanna leave because he wasn’t Theo. The moment intimacy began, I closed up and ran away.
And it’s only gotten worse.
We finally arrived at our dorm, and I led Theo to his bed. Hefell on top of the mattress, his big body causing the thing to dip. Despite our dorm being for athletes, I was positive Theo would break the bed with his big ass body at some point.
“Alright, Big Boy. Let’s get these clodhoppers off.”
Theo hummed in agreement as I pulled off his sneakers. “Asher…” he slurred.
