“Alright,” I said, making an executive decision to gloss over whether Zach really considered that the height of friendship. “Ted’s on my side. So what? He’s one guy,” I argued. Not everyone had a gay cousin. Unless they did? No idea.
“Sounds like you just want an excuse to give up.” Kind of. Maybe? He didn’t have to say it out loud. Wait, he was Zach. He loved calling people on shit.
“I’m just tired of it.” That was more true, and he didn’t understand anyway. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy for you to brush off their feelings if they actually remembered you were gay.”
Wasn’t his fault, so I glared at a spot next to his head instead of at him. There were some dance posters and a board with announcements and things.
Zach rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I love when everyone treats me normal.” He made an exaggerated face of realization. “Except then Greg sees me at the movies with a dude he doesn’t know, who is related to me, and he and the rest of his outfielder buddies won’t respond to any of my texts for a week. But hey, that one might not be homophobic,” he said with faux cheer. “Could just be racist.”
“Okay—" That sucked.
“Or when the sophomore whose name I’m physically incapable of remembering—"
Not that this was the point but, “Blake,” I said. That was the sophomore’s name.
The reason they all had nicknames was Ryan, but I knew who everyone was even without our systems. No, in addition, because the several nicknames we made up actually made it harder to keep track of who everyone was and I still did. Zach needed to remember. They were his teammates.
Wait, not my problem anymore.
“Already forgot it,” he said, waving a hand goodbye to Blake’s name. “And that? Me calling him a different name every week, that his own teammate thinks he’s completely unmemorable? Doesn’t bother him at all.” Zach laughed dryly. “He saw me give a guy my number at a party before that one week he actually played and flinched every time I threw the ball to him, but no worries,” he smiled wryly. “It’s not like a shortstop throws to third very often.”
Again, so not the point, but it was kinda, I don’t wanna say nice... It really seemed like Zach avoided all the crap I faced sometimes. The nice part, or a different word, was that we were in it together. The not nice part was there no way to win. For some people, there was no “acceptable” way to be gay.
And it was worse Zach went through that because he normally never told me about it. So I couldn’t even be there to help. Not experiencing hardships wasn’t the same as never admitting to hardships, though it was close enough in his book.
Zach switched tactics. “I’m on the team and I’m not homophobic. Why am I being punished? And Joey—” He paused for a moment. “Well, he might be homophobic, I’m not sure.” He tilted his head in thought, then shook it off. “Regardless, he’s still your friend and mine.”
Huh. I wasn’t sure either. Ryan and him don’t like each other but they willingly hang out with only around three complaints these days. That’s between them, meaning Ryan gets 2 complaints, Joey gets .5, and Ryan also gets the other .5.
“What if you play in college?” Zach challenged next. Oh god, this wasn’t a subtle nudge in the right direction. It was full force. Zach could be pretty forceful. “You think everyone’s just going to accept you there?”
“Not even sure I wanna think about playing in college. I can’t even get these guys, who’ve known me for years, on my side.” What hope did I have of convincing strangers it wasn’t weird to play ball with the gay guy?
I mean, it wasn’t weird. It shouldn’t be. I’m a regular guy. It wasn’t easy to convince people of that sometimes.
Zach acted like it was easy to ignore anyone who didn’t like him, he acted like bad things never happened to him. But they did obviously and he remembered them. He just never showed the strain of it. That seemed exhausting.
Zach and Ryan messed with would be bullies sometimes, but I wasn’t as quick witted as them. Seemed tiring, always having to be “on,” ready to deflect and return any negative comments. Or I could just ignore all the bad stuff and keep going, I guess. Other people act like assholes and I’m just supposed to put up with it, keep going. I mean, is that what life is for me now? That seemed exhausting too.
“Okay,” Zach said, clapping his hands once and cutting into my thoughts. “You’ve had enough time to put at least a few ideas together.”
I rolled my eyes. He smirked.
“You act like you deserve to be captain just because you earned it last year—”
I glared at him and opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a hand.
“The reason you deserve it is because you do what’s best the for the team,” he continued. “That’s why you earned it. Yeah, this is a really tough challenge. But it’s not about them.” He seemed so wise and unflappable. I could tell him his jacket was scuffed, then his calm, Zen attitude would turn into panic. “Are you gonna give up because other people are saying dumb things? You’re better than that.”
“Laying it on thick,” I told him.
“What’s good about you is that you don’t normally give up.” Zach smirked. “No matter how spectacularly wrong you are at first.”
“Thanks.” That’s what I said with words. My tone said, not thanks at all, you jerk.
“What other people think shouldn’t hold you back,” he continued earnestly. “I keep thinking that’s a lesson you’re finally gonna learn one day.” He smiled. “You do have your boyfriend and my excellent examples to follow.”
I gave him a tight smile. “Think by now you’d get used to me letting you down.”
