What if I didn’t get a baseball scholarship? How would I afford college? Thinking about this made my brain want to hyperventilate. And that’s with this stuff, the non-Ryan stuff.
Yes, this all had to be considered eventually. There just wasn’t much point to considering it now. Not too much. I needed more information first, something to go off of. I’d started looking at colleges and stuff and that was a lot. I was proud of me for doing that much.
I couldn’t think about the Ryan stuff yet. Or the baseball stuff yet. Those were two big parts of who I was and what if I didn’t have them soon? Then who would I be?
This serves as evidence for why I like staying in the present. Focusing on what I can do.
That was no guarantee it would be any more fun but at least I could accomplish stuff.
I had a plan for Ryan but right now at school, I had to worry about baseball.
Me and the baseball team were eating lunch in Coach’s classroom, so we could talk and bond and whatever. We needed to come together and put our differences aside and play ball. We hadn’t been doing a good job of being a team. Maybe even me.
This town wasn’t very big. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay here forever. Yet even if I left, that didn’t mean no one would ever have problems with me. Maybe for good reasons, maybe for bullshit reasons, but it would happen. And I’d still be expected to play or do my work or whatever.
I didn’t like people having a problem with this part of myself. I’m not sure getting used to it was the right answer, but. It’s not like I could magically fix intolerance. All I could do was focus on me, find opportunities to connect when they arose, like with Kevin, and not let it distract me otherwise.
Ryan offered to make snacks, but I told him not to bother. None of us deserved desserts.
Still, I could really go for a brownie right now.
“Are we having another queer meeting?” Sentient Elbow Macaroni, I mean Greg, asked me with a sneer.
“I guess if you wanna call it that,” I replied. “But that’s on you not me.” Off to a great start.
His sneer sneered more as he responded with, “You’re the one calling the meeting and you’re a—"
“For the time being, I’m still captain,” I spoke firmly. “There’s an issue, so anyone can say what they wanna say about it, and then we’re moving on.” Seemed more than fair to me.
Sam took issue first, saying, “You can’t order us to be okay with it.”
“I’m not,” I snapped, then took a breath and tried again. “Personally? This isn’t fun for me either. Thought my team had my back. But I’m not looking for that now,” I added when it looked like someone was gonna respond. “It’s not about me. Or anyone else. We’re back in school again, we’re a team. We’re all just gonna have to deal with it or forget about it because we’ve got more important things to do.” No one objected immediately, so I gave them the floor. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Some of them seemed to hesitate.
“The door’s closed,” I continued. “Throw the word fag around, I don’t care. Say what you want and then we’re gonna get on track and focus on winning the title this year. We’re not gonna waste any more time on this shit.”
Expecting the complaints to begin, it took me by surprise when Ted spoke first. “Yeah, it’s weird we have two queers on the team.” Oh, he was going to complain too? Just great. “Can’t say I love it or ever will—"
“You mean these feelings only go one way?” Zach interrupted to ask. “You’re just soirresistiblewith that highlighter hair.”
“Not helping,” Ted responded. Was Ted helping? “The only thing worse than having them on the team is being the guys whoneededqueers on the team and didn’t have them, so not only did we lose and we’re wrong, we’re even bigger laughing stocks for not letting the gays help us.”
“Since when was us not being on the team being considered?” I asked. Look at that, a whole other thing to worry about.
“But with them on the team—” Sam tried, addressing Ted.
“We get to be smug winners and anyone who makes a comment is just butthurt they’re not us.” He stopped what he was saying to give Zach a stern look. “I swear to god, Ahmad,don’tcomment.”
Zach mimed zipping his lip.
“We could win without them,” Jesse offered. Was it possible to be nice and a homophobe? Life is complicated.
“Again,” I tried. “I wasn’t aware—"
“I would love that,” Ted spoke to Jesse. “I’m just not exactly ready to bet we can beat everyone else without our two best players.” He sat up a little more in his chair. “I can’t do it all alone.” Arguably, he was the next best after us. He gave the guys a smart look. “If any of you pussies got better at playing, maybe.”
“It’s not even that,” Sam responded. “They can be on the team but Luke leading? Kinda humiliating.”
