Chapter 1 - Einar
It’s finally here. The day I’ve been dreading since I found out there would be a swimming class in high school. It’s going to be so hard to look in a safe direction and protect my secret. Both secrets.
To make it less stressful and easier to look in a safe direction, I took one of the first lockers when you walk in. This way, no one would be between me and the wall. I can look away and not be caught looking at anyone. Surprisingly, the vast majority of others took lockers in the same row, even though there are three others.
Of the fifteen or more boys, it looked like only two went into the second row and zero in the others. I thought about changing to one of the empty rows, but boys were already harassing others for being too chicken to get naked. What would they say if they saw me moving my locker?
I heard more verbal harassment going around from the popular, or more confident boys directed at the ones who pulled off their shorts or pants to show they already had their suits on under them. I heard laughing and couldn’t help but look back. There’s always one, I huffed to myself.
What is it with straight guys that start by demanding no one look at them and then start jumping around and windmilling their privates to make people look? Even in hockey, there was always one guy like that. Straight guys sure like to trick other straight guys into looking. But Heaven forbid they find out you’re gay and wanted to see it.
It’s only fun for them if they think they are forcing you to see it. If I had to guess, they are probably also the guys when they grow up, their friends pretend they never thought it possible they would attack a girl, or guy for that matter.
Once I caught myself staring too much, I turned back and changed. I didn’t wear my suit under my shorts. Instead, I pulled my suit on over my boxer shorts.
Ready, I walked around the outer walls so I wouldn’t be tempted to look and therefore get caught. As I walked past the center aisle, instead of looking towards the boys, I looked the opposite direction to see the open showers with three spouts sticking out three of the walls. I most certainly will not be using them.
And yet, seeing it, I knew already I would dream about the showers and fantasizing about the hijinks we could all get up to in them. If only everyone were gay.
I continued past and could look forward again. On the right were large stalls with individual showers for those wanting more privacy. I wouldn’t use them either. Why does it seem so much easier for the straight guys to look at each other and comment on each other’s bodies? But being gay, I needed to avoid ever looking at another boy or they would discover me.
Exiting the locker room, the smell of chlorine was thick in the air. I stood by the water, feeling the heat rise off it as I waited for everyone else. Looking all around, I saw girls were exiting from their locker room at the other end.
More boys came out and were commenting on them. Remembering the need to hide, I made myself look and pretend to look as well. It made me feel dirty. Not because girls weren’t beautiful too, but because I never enjoyed objectifying them.
Maybe that’s odd, since I love to stare at the boys when I think they aren’t looking. If only it was acceptable to drool over the same gender like the straights drooling over the opposite. Of course, I knew that was as bad as the boys staring at the girls, but what I cared about most was how unfair it was.
Either all can stare at who they want and drool, or none can. But that will never happen. So, instead I pray to God three times a day to fix me. Or to smite me right now because Im tired of being gay. I’m tired of hating myself for who I’m attracted to.
He never answers. I’ve prayed to Him over ten thousand times, but I’m still me. I’m still going to hell according to the Catholic Church.
Class began and our teacher instructed us to jump in and swim a few laps. He wanted to see where each of our ability levels were. While I know the different strokes, I went right to my favorite.
I’ve always preferred the backstroke. When I’m face down, I panic. My nose doesn’t work as well as it should. On my back, I can breathe all I want.
I swam upside down in the third lane down and back. The entire time I felt so free just floating there feeling like the water is accepting me, holding me, cuddling me. If Heaven exists, it must feel like this.
Reaching the wall, I spun and pushed off the wall and swam back to the start. Waves of water rolled over my face a few times, but I spit out the water and kept going.
“Einar,” the teacher called, “have you had lessons before?”
I stood up in the water, looked at him. Shaking my head, “No, sir.”
“Einar, I said you can call me Mr. Thomas.”
“Sorry, sir.” Mr. Thomas gave me a look. “I’ll try.”
“Well, you have good form with your backstroke.”
“Thanks, sir. I mean, thanks, Mr. Thomas.”
Mr. Thomas ended class fifteen minutes early, so everyone had time to change and shower if they chose. Dripping water back to my locker, I pulled my towel out and dried myself as best I could in so short a time. I heard a few boys go into the open showers. I faced the wall so I couldn’t see anyone, even though that’s exactly what I wanted. Why is it so hard to pretend I’m straight?
I heard some of the more popular boys pointing out and laughing at other boys for trying to change with their towels around them. It was making me emotional. Why can’t they just leave us all alone? Sometimes it seemed like the most openly straight guys were the ones desperate to check others out.
I didn’t want to stay around longer than I needed. Knowing it might be a bad idea, I pulled my khaki shorts over my damp boxer shorts and rushed out with my backpack and to English class. Sitting down in the back of the first row, I could feel the water leaching into my shorts and making me uncomfortable.
“I’m going to need to figure out something better,” I said to myself.
“What’s that?” the boy next to me asked.
Shoot! I’m such an idiot. “Sorry. Just muttering to myself about our English project due soon. I don’t know what to write yet for the poem.”
He rolled his eyes in agreement. “Yeah, me neither.”
I sighed in relief as he started talking to his best friend on the other side of him. Both were nice, but I have a hard enough time already keeping all the lies straight with Noah and my twin. Not that he and I talk all that much anymore.
David and Brian were nice, but there was just something about them that made me believe it would be harder to stay in the closet. Neither were they openly gay, but I and others wondered. Both were in the theater club and did all the musicals and plays the school did.
Regardless of how I wish the world was, especially high school, the fact was you are who you hang out with. If your friend is gay, so must you be according to the bullies in school. I wish I was strong enough to not care, but it was too dangerous for me to draw attention or be accused. In fact, it could get me killed.
Mrs. Harrison called the class to attention and asked for our homework. I handed mine up while she also passed back our assignment from last Friday. I looked at my grade and saw the letter D circled at the top.
My heart sank. I love writing and want to write a book someday, but I can’t ever even get a C on anything in this class. My ADHD medication helps me with math, science, and accounting. But it does nothing for me in English and history.
This is my worst class and nothing I do makes it better. I even let mom help me before. She basically wrote it herself and I still failed it. Mom aced English in high school and college.
Maybe Mrs. Harrison hates me. But why would she? She’s mom’s best friend and her son is Eirik’s best friend.
The day progressed after that and finally made it to math class where I get to be with my best friend. Walking in, I sat in my seat and looked at my friend. I smiled, seeing his beautiful freckles.
If only I could win his heart and make him mine, I could be happy forever. The life I created for us in my mind was perfect. He could take over his father’s construction company and I would join first the marines, like his father, then join the FBI and save kids like me.
I love him. Adults say I’m too young to know. Or they say it’s just infatuation. But with adults getting divorced all the time, who are they to say what love is or isn’t? Just because they like to cheat or leave people doesn’t mean I will.
“What’s up, Noah? How’s it going?” I asked when he finally looked at me.
His smile was infectious. “Hi there.” I wanted to kiss him right here. “I’m well. How about yourself?”
Losing control of my facial muscles, my mouth turned into a wide grin. “I’m wonderful.”
It wasn’t long ago when he still wasn’t talking to anyone. I met Noah back when we were defensive partners on the same team in middle school. We talked all the time back then.
When his mother passed away three years ago, he stopped talking to anyone. Mom told me it was called selective mutism. He stopped speaking to his sister and father as well. After some time, I wondered if he had forgotten how to speak.
He continued playing hockey, and I kept talking to him, but he never responded. After that year, we became distant. I missed him, and he never invited me to come over to his house anymore. He became a shut-in. He came to school, silently handing in his homework and earning good grades.
I’m not sure how his family handled it, but I was distraught. He was my only friend. Then he was gone.
Last year, we were in a couple classes together. I sat next to him and started talking to him. We were also on the same team again and were defensive partners on the junior varsity hockey team my dad coached. I got his cell phone number, and he started texting me. It was the only way I found to communicate with him.
“Ok, class, pay attention,” the teacher said abruptly, jerking me out of my daze.
After math class, the halls filled with the sound of students excitedly chatting as they headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Noah and I grabbed a seat at a table in front of the concession lines, the smell of fried food wafting from the counters. The table was nearly empty, with only a few people occupying it.
We ate and talked about the upcoming weekend and my sixteenth birthday. Eirik and I both were eager because we would be the last in our grade, who could finally apply for our intermediate driver’s licenses. We also wondered if mom and dad would buy us cars. Students with their level 2 license can get a school parking permit and drive to school.
I stood up, and someone bumped into me.
“Out of the way, fag,” Ezra said.
He was in the year above me, a junior, and was an asshole. I don’t know how we ever used to be friends. But that seemed like a distant memory now. When we were around nine or ten and his dad was the coach of our hockey team. I have trouble remembering much from those years.
Well, like father, like son. His dad’s a monster, too. He kept going, and Noah and I went on with our routines.
