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Kevin Price was sixteen when he started dreading the locker room.
It wasn’t the pungent odor of stale sweat and Axe body spray or the fowl language that turned him away, though he could certainly have done without either of those. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable with his body, either. He never really gave much thought to his physicality in general. He appreciated that his body was healthy and strong enough to help him break the school record last year in the 100-meter dash, and well enough to help his elderly neighbor Dorothy with her yard work in the summer and keep her driveway clear in the winter. Other than that, his outward appearance wasn’t something he really stressed about. He supposed he was lucky in that sense.
But his days of comfortability were over the day he heard the first slur shouted across the locker room.
He remembered the way he had frozen up at the harsh word, half bent over as he pulled his leg through his gym shorts. The way his heart pounded in his chest as he thought, for a paralyzing moment, that it was being directed at him. It had taken all his willpower to force his head up to the source of the noise, and was ashamed to admit the first thing he felt was relief. The cruel, mocking eyes were pointed at someone else.
His name was Greg Sakaitus, and he had transferred here halfway through the term. Kevin didn’t know much about the new kid, except the one thing that everyone knew: He was gay. To most everyone’s knowledge, he was the only gay kid in their school. To most everyone’s knowledge, except Kevin’s.
Greg was brave. It had taken Kevin a little bit of time to come around to that conclusion. At first, it was Greg was bold, and in his lowest moments, Greg was downright stupid. He had to have been to be so forward about his sexuality in small-town Indiana. In hindsight, these thoughts probably stemmed from something that looked a whole lot like envy, buried deep underneath years of repression and denial.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you.” It was Jeremy who had yelled it, which didn’t really surprise Kevin. He was on the track team with him, part of his small circle of what he guessed he could consider friends, and had a real knack for making his opinions public. “I saw you looking at me.”
Kevin remembered the way his own cheeks burned witnessing the outburst, but now, looking back, he feels like maybe he was mostly embarrassed by the fact that he hadn’t done something more. Hadn’t stood up for him. It was what his church and his family would have expected of him, what his siblings could have looked up to, but most importantly, Kevin knew it was simply the right thing to do. The kind thing to do. Still, he was silent.
The fear that led him to stand down was a selfish one. One that he didn’t fully allow himself to examine at the time, but one that had become harder to avoid as time went on. Coming to the aid of the singular out-and-proud gay kid in the locker room, while realistically void of any ulterior motives, would have made a statement. It would have felt, somehow, like shining a spotlight on the darkest corners of his own mind, as if everyone would suddenly be able to see into him and know the sinful, impure thoughts he had been hiding in shadows all these years.
Two years later, at age eighteen and with only a few months left in his senior year, Kevin had a new reason to dread the locker room.
No, he backtracked quickly, a sharp stab of guilt in his chest at the thought. It wasn’t something that should evoke dread. He shouldn’t be ashamed of it.
After all, it was incredibly rare to be endowed by the church while you were still in high school, and was a privilege to even be considered for recommendation so young. Kevin recognized this, fully, and did feel privileged for the opportunity. He had been talking to his bishop about the process of going through the temple for almost two years. He knew that he wouldn’t actually be allowed until he was a legal adult and of mature enough mind to commit to such a sacred covenant, but he figured there was no harm in planting the seed early.
And it had worked. His bishop had surprised him with his official recommendation a couple weeks ago on his eighteenth birthday, and over the weekend was his official ceremony.
He remembered the proud glint in his father’s eyes as he had taken him shopping for his first pair of temple garments. In the moment, it felt like something beautiful, something powerful that he had been waiting nearly his whole life for. He had been so consumed by the warmth of his father’s pride and the feeling of accomplishment that he hadn’t given much thought to how he might feel down the line, in another setting.
For instance, sandwiched between two rows of metal lockers, surrounded by his teammates with his hands nervously fidgeting over his belt buckle.
No one was paying enough attention to him to notice the hesitance as they stripped out of their school clothes and into their shorts, but the coach wanted them on the line and stretching in five minutes, so he couldn’t wait forever. For what was not the first time, Kevin sort of resented his parents’ choice to move their family to Indiana when he was just a kid. He was born in Utah, just outside of Salt Lake, but they had relocated for his father to take a position at the Indianapolis Temple. It was a good job, an important one, but Kevin couldn’t help but feel like he might have had a better time growing up there. In Utah, especially Salt Lake, he wouldn’t have been the only Mormon kid in his high school. In Utah, a pair of long, white temple garments in the locker room probably wouldn’t have drawn any extra attention.
But he wasn’t in Utah anymore. He was in Carmel, Indiana, at a small STEM academy that his parents had insisted he attended for his “giftedness,” even if it separated him from his siblings, and he felt quite sure this wouldn’t go off without a hitch.
Of course, he was right.
“What the fuck are those?” It was Jeremy who spoke up, because of course it was.
Instantly, Kevin’s face burned hot, but he held his head high as he stepped out of his pants, focusing all his attention on folding them neatly on the locker shelf. As natural as drawing breath, the words he’d read a hundred times over rose to meet him, like a soothing cadence behind the burn of tears that threatened. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2. It didn’t matter what Jeremy thought, or , what anyone thought. This was something he shouldn’t be ashamed of.
Which was why the steady trickle of humiliation only served him with a bolt of guilt through his core. Even in his attempt to stand up for his faith, he was letting God down in his humanly failure. Kevin swallowed hard, turning fully toward his locker to escape the burning gazes of his teammates, which only grew in numbers at Jeremy’s continued outburst.
“Hey, Price. I asked you a question.”
“They’re garments.” He tried for nonchalance, but the slight waver in his voice gave him away. He cringed at the bark of laughter from behind him.
“Garments?” His words dripped with pure vitriol. “What the fuck, is this the sixteen-hundreds?”
Unable to stall any longer in his locker, Kevin took in a deep breath and turned around to face them. Briefly, he caught the eyes of one of his closer teammates, Tyler, sending him what he hoped came off as a silent plea to step in and take his side. But just as Kevin had done all those times when Greg was being bullied, Tyler looked away. Kevin supposed, perhaps, it was what he deserved. Karma working its magic and all that.
“It’s an LDS thing.” Kevin shrugged, keeping his voice light. He grabbed a pair of his regular boxer-briefs from his duffel, balling them into his fist. As discussed with his bishop, he was allowed to swap the temple garments out for regular underwear during sporting events like track, but there was no way he could change into them right here in front of everybody now that Jeremy had drawn the eyes of his other teammates. “Excuse me.” He ducked his head as he made a move to go around Jeremy, stopping when he threw up an arm against the opposite locker, blocking his route toward the bathroom. Kevin flinched back at the sudden movement.
“So, what, you have to wear those like… all the time?” Jeremy asked, a cruel glint reflecting in his eyes.
“I, um…” Kevin swallowed, feeling immensely uncomfortable talking about this with anyone, let alone with a crowd. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Kevin made another move to get around, but Jeremy side-stepped with him, mirroring him to block his exit. At his sides, Kevin’s fists clenched and unclenched, trying to soften the sharp jolt of panic building in his chest.
“Leave him alone, Jer,” Tyler finally offered his feeble means of defense, but Jeremy didn’t even look away from Kevin.
“I’m just trying to ask a question,” Jeremy deflected. “Aren’t you guys, like, supposed to love telling other people about your religious shit?”
“Why the hell do you care so much about another guy’s underwear, Jeremy?” All heads turned at the voice of Greg Sakaitus, appearing at the end of the row of lockers, his arms folded over his chest. “That’s… kinda gay, dude.”
Jeremy’s arm dropped from the locker as he turned his glare on Greg, but Kevin made no move to step around him, instead staring open-mouthed at his rescuer. The guilt that had cut through him earlier was nothing compared to what he felt now, but all of that was buried beneath the heavier weight of admiration. His latest conclusion about Greg had, in fact, been the right one: he was brave. Far braver than Kevin had ever been. And now, he was stepping up to do the thing Kevin hadn’t been strong enough to do himself.
The reverent moment was cut short by a flicker of anger in Jeremy’s eyes, followed by the sharp rattle of Greg’s back hitting the locker. The use of the same horrible word he had backed down from two years ago was enough to jolt him into action. Kevin reacted without thought, lunging forward and ripping Jeremy away from him by the shoulder. He would admit, it wasn’t a terribly well-thought-out plan, because when he turned on him, a fist reared back and ready to aim for his face, Kevin became all-too aware of the fact that he didn’t know how to fight.
And luckily, that wouldn’t be the day he found out.
The coach’s whistle split through the locker room, halting the action of the scene before Jeremy’s fist could come down on him. “Boys! On the field. You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Kevin slowly lowered the hands he had brought up in feeble defense as Tyler tugged Jeremy toward the exit by the elbow. “Come on, dude,” he muttered, and after a couple of pulls, Jeremy allowed himself to be moved.
Before he rounded the corner, though, he shot one more dirty look between Greg and Kevin, a snarl curling at his lip. “Let’s give the boyfriends some privacy.”
He couldn’t tell who the muffled round of snickering came from as the rest of the team headed for the doors, but at that moment, he didn’t really care. Kevin turned to Greg, who was rubbing the shoulder that had taken the brunt of Jeremy’s shove against the metal.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Greg looked over at him like he was kind of surprised Kevin was speaking to him at all, which did nothing to alleviate the build-up of guilt. “Fine.” He shrugged, then added after a moment, “Are you?”
Kevin nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “For stepping in. You didn’t have to do that.”
The boy flipped a loose tendril of blonde hair out of his eyes, shifting almost uneasily under Kevin’s gaze. He offered another shrug. “Well, I did it anyway.”
He blinked. It really was that easy, wasn’t it? There were a hundred things Kevin wanted to say to him all at once: how sorry he was that he hadn’t stood up for Greg two years ago, how sorry he was that he continued to ignore it every time since. How brave he thought he was. How much Kevin wished he could be as brave as him. How… how pretty his eyes were, now that they were finally standing close enough to see them properly.
Kevin shook his head at the last one, trying to figure out how to speak again, when Greg started to walk toward the field.
“Wait!” Kevin stopped him, and Greg turned back to him. Kevin swallowed, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he was standing in only his garments. He met his eyes anyway. “Why?” he asked simply.
Grey quirked an eyebrow. “Why what?”
“Why did you step in? When you didn’t have to?”
If Greg read anything more, anything deeper, behind the intensity in Kevin’s voice, in his eyes, he didn’t let on. Instead, he offered Kevin the smallest of smiles, making him once again wonder how he never noticed how pretty Greg Sakaitus was.
“I know what it’s like to be different here, too,” he said. And then he jogged toward the field.
Kevin was left standing between the rows of lockers, dumbfounded and stock still in his garment shorts. He was definitely going to be getting extra laps for being late to warm-ups, but he didn’t really care.
As he finished getting changed, Kevin thought about how much time he had spent trying silently to convince himself and everyone around him that he wasn’t like Greg, when all along, he was a better example than anything the church or his parents had ever set before him. Maybe Greg had it right. Maybe it was a bold thing to be your authentic self in a town like Carmel, Indiana, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing you could be.
Maybe Kevin could afford to be a lot more like him.
Graduation was in a few months, which was terrifying most of the time when he thought about it. But it had also begun to carve out a little bit of light at the end of a tunnel he didn’t even realize he was walking through until he began to approach the end. And then the light got bigger. And bigger. And bigger.
Graduating meant cutting the ties that held him here in Indiana. The narrow plane of existence he had grown up in would be expanded to the whole world, and he could go wherever he wanted. In another year, he would be going off to his mission, hopefully somewhere far, far away from here. Maybe he would even make some real friends while he was there. He even allowed himself to really, really hope so.
As he jogged out onto the field, the first set of eyes he caught belonged to Greg, who offered him another private smile as he sank onto the asphalt beside him and started stretching.
Or maybe, he thought, with a wild flash of rebellion, His future could be something else entirely.