AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I missed things I should have noticed. I cried on national TV giving ammunition to people like the team’s owner to use in exit interviews and contract negotiations.
As I felt the tears threatening again, I did everything I could to hold them back. I couldn’t cry. Not now. Not here. I had to make it through this like a man. I had to be the son my father wanted me to be.
So, as the owner berated my sexuality, and my intelligence, doing everything he could to make me quit, I bit my lip. I wiggled my toes. I did everything I could to distract myself from the thought that sat in the back of my mind, ‘what he said about me was right. I didn’t belong here’.
‘Don’t cry, Merri. You won’t cry!’ I told myself desperately willing it to be true.
I could do this. I could get through this. And when I did, I’d prove that I belonged here. I’d show my father and everyone else that I wasn’t a screw up. I wasn’t an embarrassment.
I’ll show them that I’m a person who belongs in football as much as anyone else. And as the wet streaks slowly rolled down my cheeks and broke my heart, I knew exactly how I’d do it.
Chapter 2
Claude
As early morning sunlight fanned over the mountains whitening the clouds, a mist filled the air. Stretching out my hamstrings one last time, I took a deep breath and began my run. Falling into rhythm in both breathing and pace, my mind settled. This morning was it. I had thought about doing it for so long and today was the day.
Rounding the mountain roads and entering the neighborhood, I went over my plan again. This was where Cage began his run. Casually bumping into him, I would invite him to join me and then do it.
There was no question that something in my life had to change. When I had first come back home, I had enjoyed the isolation. I had needed time to think. But two years of it have been too much.
Yes, I had my Facetimes with Titus and Cali, but they weren’t enough. If anything, getting to know my new brothers had been what was awakening this. I wanted to be more social. I was beginning to need it.
Why had I chosen to approach Cage?
It was because we were at a similar stage in life. Since graduating from university two years earlier, we had made similar choices. Out of everyone in this small town, he was the one I could most easily see as a friend.
Besides, he and his boyfriend were the center of my brothers’ friend group. Cage and Quin hosted a lot of game nights. When Cage had first moved to town, he had invited me. But after turning down one too many, the invitations had stopped.
Step one, bump into Cage. Step two, invite him to join me on my run. Step three, casually bring up game night and express an interest in joining them. It seemed so simple. Yet, it was only now, weeks after coming up with the plan, that I had mustered the courage to try.
Perhaps this was what finding yourself at the end of your rope looked like, an early morning jog meant to ask for something you desperately missed, human connection and a friend.
Doing my best not to over think this, I picked up my pace and rounded the neighborhood streets. With my heart thumping, Cage’s house came into view. I had timed it correctly, I could see Cage stretching on the driveway.
As I stared, my chest hurt. Caught under an avalanche of panic, I struggled to breathe.
I couldn’t do this. Not now. Not today. And just as Cage looked up noticing me jogging up his street, I turned around. Changing direction as if it had always been my plan, I jogged in the opposite direction.
I was a coward. There was no doubt about it. But worse than that, I was alone and would continue to be alone. Why couldn’t I get out of this? What was wrong with me?
Returning home and heading upstairs into the shower, I stood naked with the water pooling in my curly hair. How had I become this person? University had been so different. I had had friends and a life. Now, back home in small town Tennessee, I was…
“Come down stairs when you’re done,” my mother said knocking on the bathroom door. “I have a surprise for you.”
Snapped back to the here and now, I looked up. My mother had a surprise for me? What did she mean by that?
Shutting off the water and getting dressed, I opened the bathroom door. Immediately the smell of roasting Arabica beans hit me. God was it good. But I hadn’t set it to brew.
“Surprise!” my mother said after I headed downstairs and entered the kitchen.
In one of her hands was a coffee mug. In the other was a muffin with a lit candle stuck in it.
“What’s this?”
“We’re celebrating,” my mother said enthusiastically, with her brown skin aglow from the candlelight.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked wondering if I had forgotten a birthday.
