Chapter 1
The sun beat down on Northside High’s football field, but it barely registered. All that registered was the weight, the suffocating pressure of being me.
George Miller. The golden boy.
Dad’s voice was a constant echo in my head, a low hum of expectations, about legacy, about being perfect. Every tackle, every sprint, every damn move on this field felt like another brick in the wall of his expectations.
It was never enough.
I just needed more time, always more time, to keep this mask glued on. To be the George everyone saw, not the one that felt like a tangled mess inside. The real me.
And then there was Arty.
God, Arty. Just the thought of him, or sometimes just seeing that flash of brown hair across the hall, sent this... weird jolt through me. My chest would tighten, and my palms would sweat. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch; a song stuck in my head I couldn’t turn off. Frustrating. Annoying. Why did he bother me so much?
I asked myself that nearly every day. And all I could do to try and shake these feelings was piss him off. Bother him. Get under his skin. Because that's what he was doing to me just by existing.
I was heading to the field for some extra practice, desperate for the solitude. My mind was already running plays, trying to outrun the thoughts about Dad. Then it happened.
I heard a familiar voice. It was Arty’s voice. My gut clenched, and my heart decided to double its beat, just like it always did when he was around. I could tell his voice was coming from under the bleachers, a low murmur. But he wasn't alone.
Without thinking, I just stopped. I pulled back into the shadows near the equipment shed, breathing shallow. Listening.
It was Arty and his friend Will. I could hear Arty clearly, a nervous energy in his tone. It sounded like he was gushing about someone.
I listen closer.
He was gushing about... A boy. A boy in his class.
Wait... What?
My world just... tilted. My heart wasn’t just pounding now; it felt like a drum solo in my ribs. My eyes went wide as emotions slammed into me, one after another, like a series of punches to my chest.
First, a cold shock. Arty liked boys? Boys? My breath hitched. And then a colder, sharper shock: my heart rate wasn’t just picking up because he was near; it was because of what he said. Because he. liked. boys. Because Arty liked boys, and maybe... maybe I liked that? That thought alone sent a tremor through me.
Then came a wave of confusion. Why was I relieved? Why did I feel this weird sense of... possibility? It was a mess inside my head; a tangle of feelings and thoughts I couldn’t unknot. Why was my heart betraying me like this?
Then, a cold realization hit me, hard and fast, like stepping into icy water. This. This was it. This was why Arty tormented my thoughts every time I had a moment’s peace. This was why my chest tightened, and these strange feelings bubbled up whenever I saw him, whenever I heard his voice. This was why I got that sharp, bitter feeling, that frustration, whenever I saw him talking to someone else. It was because I had… feelings for him. Real feelings.
And lastly, fear. Raw, gut-wrenching fear. Fear of what this meant. For him. For me. This was taboo. Wrong. It's Illegal. My dad... the thought was a lead weight in my stomach. What if he found out? What if anyone found out? And Arty. Fear for Arty. Getting into trouble, being hurt because of this. Because of me. And then the worst fear of all: losing him. I may have already been losing Arty to this random boy he was gushing about with Will.
I acted without thinking. Just did the only thing I knew how to do, the only way I knew how to keep Arty’s attention solely on me. I stepped out from behind the shed.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” I drawled, walking up behind them, a sneer already on my face, a shield against the chaos inside my mind and body.
They spun around. Arty’s wide, brown eyes were already filled with shock and fear. I started in on him, teasing him about the boy in his class.
"Did I hear you right Arty? You like a boy? Gee, I wonder what your peers would think if they found out about this" I shook my head, a feigned look of disappointment on my face. He didn’t respond, his eyes still wide but locked onto me.
Every word tasted like ash, like poison. I hated it. Hated seeing that fear in his eyes, hated the words coming out of my mouth, but it was the only way I knew to keep him looking at me, reacting to me.
“George, please,” Arty’s voice cracked, a desperate whisper. His eyes darted between me and Will, his face pale. “Don’t. You can’t… don’t tell anyone. Please. I’m begging you. You don’t know what… what they’d do.”
I felt sick. He was pleading with me, and all I could think was how I was putting that look on his face. My desperation to keep his attention was hurting him, and I couldn’t seem to stop. Didn't even know how.
“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll tell them you’re my boyfriend!” Arty snapped back, his voice shaky, but there was fire in his eyes.
He was threatening me because he thought I would tell someone about this. Well, considering what I'd just said I wasn't surprised. But really I just wanted to keep his attention on me. Only me.
Then I realized what he'd just said.
Boyfriend...
The word hung in the air, a strange mix of threat and... something else. Having feelings for him was one thing, but being his boyfriend? I didn’t know how I felt about that, about the idea.
My chest ached as I watched his face. Fear, definitely. Frustration, too. But mostly, there was a pure, hot anger. It was a weak threat, I knew it, but I didn’t know how to react. Didn’t know how to stop. So, I just kept going, kept teasing, kept pushing him.
"Is he a pretty boy? You gonna kiss him? You gonna marry him?" I said in a teasing tone and making a kissy face at him. A bitter taste settled over my tongue as the words came out.
His anger finally broke. A flurry of fists came towards me. He was hitting me, anywhere he could reach. I put my arms up, instinctively defending myself, more from his anger thn his punches. They hurt a little, he is a young man after all, same as me, but it's not like he was doing any damage. He just kept coming.
I huffed out a breath as I tried to grab his wrists, not to hurt him in any way of course but to stop him.
“Arty, c'mon, just leave it. Let's go!” Will shouted, trying to get between us. But Arty didn’t listen. He just kept throwing his fists.
Then, I felt a punch connect with my face, a sharp crack. Frustration flared, hot and sudden, overriding everything else. I shoved him back, intending to just create space between us. But I must’ve hit him. Hard. He stumbled back, clutching his hands to his face. I gasped.
“Arty...” The word escaped my lips before I could stop it. A weak, pathetic sound.
He looked up, his eyes narrowed into a death stare that froze me to the bone. I swallowed hard.
“Arthur Davis!” A voice boomed. Mr. Lawson, the Phys Ed teacher. He was yelling, pointing at Arty. “I saw everything, Davis! You started this fight! You’re coming with me!”
He grabbed Arty’s arm. My mind went blank. A sharp pain shot through me and twisted in my gut. I had hurt him. Really hurt him. In more ways than one.
I wanted to stop him. Tell the teacher it wasn't his fault. It was mine! I had started all this. But the words wouldn't come out. The teacher was still yelling at him. Arty didn’t even look back at me. I just stood there, my body and mind utterly numb, watching Mr. Lawson drag Arty away, Will in tow, leaving me alone on the field, the weight of everything crashing down.
The rest of the day passed in a haze, a blurry, muted film where nothing felt quite real. Every face I saw, every sound I heard, it was all just background noise. My mind was stuck on a loop, flashing images of Arty: his wide eyes under the bleachers, the fear when I first showed up, the anger as his fists flew, and then the stark, sickening image of his face after I hit him.
That moment, him clutching his hands to his face, that furious, hurt stare he shot me – it seared itself into my brain. The look on his face when Mr. Lawson dragged him away.
That pain, physical and emotional, kept flashing in my mind, a continuous, tormenting slideshow.
I went through the motions, football practice feeling like a bad dream. The hits, the runs, the shouts from Coach – they usually grounded me, but today they just felt hollow. Like I was watching myself from far away. I avoided my teammates, avoided everyone.
I just needed to disappear.
Finally, the day was over. I made it home, managed to eat dinner without Dad noticing how quiet I was, how tense. The second I could, I escaped to my room, closing the door behind me with a click that felt final, like a lock on my own prison. I changed, got into bed, and pulled the covers up, but the darkness didn’t bring peace.
The dam broke. The emotions I’d been fighting all day, the ones I’d stuffed down deep under the mask, they surged. My chest tightened, and a sharp sting started behind my eyes. Tears.
I couldn't remember the last time I cried.
They threatened to fall, hot and relentless, at the memory of hurting Arty. Not just physically, but that flicker of genuine fear I saw in his eyes when I started in on him. I’d done that. I’d put that look on his face.
Then the other thoughts swarmed in. What did this mean? Liking a boy. Liking Arty. The confusing feelings I had felt, whenever he was near or talking to someone, it wasn’t confusion anymore. It was certainty. And with that certainty came an even deeper, more suffocating fear. This was… everything that people had talked about. Taboo. A secret that could shatter my life, destroy my family, ruin everything Dad had planned.
What if someone learned what I’d been feeling all this time? Now that I finally knew what these feelings actually meant, what if I'm not able to hide it? The thought made my stomach churn.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my thumb and forefinger firmly against my eyelids, trying to clear the swirling chaos from my mind. I took a deep, shuddering breath, holding it, letting it out slowly.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I whispered into the darkness, a desperate plea to no one but myself. “It’s gonna be okay.” I repeated it, over and over, until the words blurred, until the darkness behind my eyelids slowly gave way to the heavy blanket of sleep, dragging me down into an uneasy oblivion.
