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“It’s fine,” Violet said with a nervous smile. “I can come back if—”
“No, come in. Please.”
“Hello, darling,” Mom said warmly as we joined her bedside.
“Hi, Mrs. Whitmore.”
“Nancy, please. Remember?”
“Right. Okay.”
Mom loves Violet. We can make her happy. What else matters?
I took Violet’s hand that was so small and fragile in mine. “Violet and I are going to the Homecoming dance together after the game on Friday.”
“Is that so? How lovely.”
Violet gave a little laugh. “He’s the King and there was a glitch in the matrix, so I ended up as Queen. I think he’s contractually obligated.”
“Ha, no. I’m happy to,” I said. My palms were getting sweaty. I dropped her hand and quickly lunged for my backpack where I’d left it on the floor. “I gotta get to practice.” I kissed Mom on her silk scarf. “Bye, Mom.”
“Be safe, dear.”
I remembered to spare a glance for my Homecoming Queen. “Call you later?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Great.” I pecked her on the cheek and hurried out.
In my room, I dumped my backpack on the floor and flopped onto my bed.
“So that was awkward,” I muttered to the ceiling. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
Who else knows you’re gay? a voice whispered back.
“Fuck.”
I’d kept Holden’s question out of my thoughts for the entire sleepless weekend. But as my eyes drifted closed for the few minutes of rest I had between school and practice, it snuck in and burrowed down deep, demanding an answer.
He said it as a joke. To mess with the footballer who was stuck in a closet with a guy. It didn’t mean anything.
Except when the words landed, they struck hard. I’d felt it. He’d seen it.
I spat another curse and tore off the bed to get ready for practice. Holden didn’t know what he was asking. There were no openly gay players in the NFL and hardly any at the college level. It just didn’t happen and yet my entire life was geared to one thing and one thing only—go pro.
It wasn’t solid or exact, but that was the only answer I had.
Chapter Six
“You are here,” Coach Braun says, “because your parents want what’s best for you. They want to save you from the mistakes you’ve been making and the false ideas you have about what is natural and what is not. They want to save you from yourself.”
His black eyes find me, and he nods once. “Him.”
Rough hands grab me by the shoulders and drag me across the rocky expanse between the campfire and the lake. Pain scrapes my bare feet and is numbed by the water, an icy ache that crawls up my naked skin and sinks into my bones. Its cold climbs higher, up to my waist, my chest—I can’t breathe—and then I’m dunked under.
I come up sputtering, jaw quivering. Strong hands—like iron claws in my shoulders—drag me back to shore. I kick and scream, thrashing with numb limbs that won’t cooperate.
“Let me go!” I cry out hoarsely, lips hardly forming the words. “Let me go! Let me go…”
