Archive of Our Own ^beta

Joe understands early on that there is something of a gap between his life, and what they are being taught at school.

They learn that family is a father, a mother, their children. Joe has a mother who has a husband, but he’s not his father. He has a father as well, who makes her mother cry on the phone every few weeks.

They learn that children must love their parents, but Joe hates to go see his father. His mother always looks terribly upset when he has to leave, and he spends these weekends playing video games or sports by himself while his father ignores his existence. So one day he tells his mother that he doesn’t want to go anymore, and she looks as relieved as he feels. There is a measure of guilt there as well, since he is being a bad son, or so he has been told. Children must love their parents.

Joe has a sister with whom he shares a parent, and one with whom he shares no blood at all. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to love them as if they were proper siblings – they don’t cover that at school either. He does love both girls dearly, but it’s not that easy to talk to them or to make them understand that. Children must love their siblings, but when he grows older the other boys tease him for wanting to spend time with them, so he doesn’t know what to do.

They also learn that boys fall in love with girls and girls fall in love with boys. But Joe also has an aunt who lives with another woman, so it’s not like it’s impossible, or forbidden. Or maybe it is. It’s unclear.

What’s very clear is that there is no way he would go and fall in love with a girl. Later on when he grows older, school somehow backtracks on this. Suddenly it’s not completely out of the question for boys to be with boys. But the others around him have backtracked as well. Whatever school says, it’s not a good thing, not at all.

He doesn’t get it. He goes along. He doesn’t ask.

It might be his problem. That he doesn’t ask, never does. Sometimes he thinks he will, when he’s confused in class or when there is a joke he doesn’t get. But he doesn’t dare in the end. Everyone seems to get it, everyone seems to know, for sure. He worries it’s just him, so he stays silent.

High school doesn’t get any less confusing. Popular guys are supposed to be the ones who are confident and smart, who can charm their world and know what they’re doing. Guys like Army, all charismatic and handsome. But somehow Joe gets popular too. Girls think he’s hot and mysterious, guys think he’s cool and mature. Joe doesn’t think he is any of these things. He’s not complaining though – he has friends, he plays football after class, he has fun.

By then he knows without a doubt that he’s gay. It doesn’t prompt much reflection in him – it feels kind of inconsequential, because there is no way he will tell anyone, no way he will do anything about it. It’s a knowledge distant from himself, dating is not an option, sex even less, so there is nothing to even talk about. There are other out students at school but he doesn’t feel any kinship toward them. They are extravagant and casual, confident in their body and choices, which he very much isn’t. He would feel uncomfortable in their company.

Because gay guys are supposed to look a certain way, aren’t they? Feminine and loud, or masculine and virile. It’s supposed to be obvious, and Joe certainly doesn’t fit any of those images, to the point that he doubts himself sometimes. But surely it might count for something that he can’t bring himself to be attracted to girls in any way shape or form.

What he is attracted to, is Army. It’s inconvenient to say the least, as he is pretty sure, for once, that there is no way Army could be gay. This is at least something he knows as everyone else does. Army is perfectly straight, going out with the most beautiful and popular girl of their year. It is one fact he is confident about.

Until Army kisses him at Jedi’s party.

It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense and at least Army knows that too. They have to hide, to sneak around. He’s still going out with his girlfriend like any straight guy would. But he’s also making out with Joe when his parents are out of town and they jerk each other off in the locker room after practice, when everyone is gone. They are definitely gay then.

Army is eager, so eager, to test it all out. He has no fear, no doubt, he’s sure of everything. Joe goes along with it because he doesn’t know a damn thing, so it’s easier to just follow suit. Army is insatiable and Joe feels alive and wild in his presence, feels more like himself than he ever did and completely different at the same time. He starts to think that it’s not that bad if they don’t quite fit the profile, if they stumble a bit and if they’re not like everyone else. They don’t put any words on it so it can be nothing and anything. He fantasizes in the security of his own mind and thinks he might figure things out after all.

He should have trusted the textbooks more.

They have learned, this time early on, that you are nice to the people you care for. You have to be nice in general, but especially when they are close to you, you’re meant to treat them right, and not to hurt them.

It’s hard to decide then, if it’s that Army didn’t learn his lessons well, or if he just doesn’t care about Joe. Because the turns on him completely when they are discovered in the locker room shower. The whiplash is dizzying – one second Joe is elated, both by Army’s hands on his body and lips on his own, and by the conversation he just heard. Army broke up with Cat. Or Cat broke up with Army, it doesn’t matter. Army is not with her anymore, but he’s here with Joe.

The next moment Army shoves him away, spewing accusations with such a disgusted look, such a convincing disdain, Joe honestly cannot tell if he’s faking it or not. It doesn’t matter either way, because what he says goes. Joe is not only outed as gay, but also as a guy who would forcibly go after another, and a straight one at that.

He doesn’t stay very popular after that.

They learned they had to be tolerant and open. It doesn’t go like that either. Joe powers through his last few weeks of high school on the desperate hope that it will get better once he’s out of here, once he goes to study far away from this place and get another shot at this.

Parents must also love their children. It’s confusing again since the man is not his father, not really, but he is the one Joe lives with and the one dictating the rules, and he suddenly takes issues with Joe being so close to his sisters. Joe refrains from telling him that if anything, he should worry less now than everyone knows he’s not interested in girls, but of course it’s not about that. The teachings are becoming blurred, unclear. Homosexual men are sexual predators, gay people are just like anyone else, he is a pervert, he is confused, there is nothing wrong with him, expect there is.

Once again, Joe doesn’t ask.

Army tries to apologize, once, twice, more. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s pointless, when he does it by showing up at his door late at night, when he still won’t approach Joe at school, won’t even look in his direction. When Joe has to quit the football team because the atmosphere is suffocating, with all of them watching him warily as if he could jump them any second. The teachers and advisors make a weak attempt at appeasement, but nothing is happening, is it? He’s not being bullied, no one insults him or tries to hit and hurt him. Just as Joe doesn’t look gay, he doesn’t look like a victim of school bullying either. Nothing happens.

He almost wishes it did. So that he could lash out, break down, so that things would move forward. Nothing happens and he is stuck in place. He graduates lonely and dying to get out of this place. He leaves his year book on his desk.

He debates for a long time going to their first high school reunion, two years down the line. He joined a sport faculty on the other side of town, and that means working the weekends as a coach for middle schoolers so that he can pay for his tiny dorm room on campus. But things are good. No one knows about him here, and he can breathe again. College is not high school, but sports remain the same, and so he keeps to himself and doesn’t tell anyone.

It’s Rose who convinces him to come. She’s the only one from high school he’s still vaguely in touch with, because she attends the same university and she just… keeps texting him. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t reply much, and when they meet on campus for coffee and snacks, he doesn’t talk much either. But she doesn’t seem to mind, or she wouldn’t keep it up. She tells him to come, if only to get some closure, she says. To put it all behind.

He doesn’t know what he expects, but it’s certainly not for Army to show up at the party with an older man on his arms, coming out loudly for everyone to hear. He gets cheers and applause, almost congratulations. It feels surreal, like a scene from a movie, like a confusing dream he knows is false but can’t wake up from. They pat him on the back, they laugh. Army looks radiant, carefree, and Joe feels sick.

Their eyes meet. Joe turns heels and leaves. He hears his name being called, someone running after him maybe, so he runs faster and flees.

Of course Army can’t just let it slide.

Joe doesn’t know if Rose keeps their friendship on the down low, if they’re not in contact anymore or if she’s just being a good friend to him, but the man doesn’t get a hold on his number, so he has to resort to try finding him at his faculty. The first time Joe spots him waiting by the gymnasium, he feels his heart lurch in his throat, dizzy enough he fears he’s going to pass out. He manages to turn tail before Army spots him, to his classmates’ bewilderment, and he skips class for the rest of the day.

He’s not so lucky the next time.

It’s so unfair that Army would be so beautiful still. That Joe cannot summon the hatred he wants to feel toward the other man. He stands there, poised and charming, stopping the students passing him by no doubt to ask after Joe, and Joe experiences a brief moment of wonder at what could have been. He imagines marching toward him and wrapping an arm around his slender waist, kissing his cheek to earn a smile and a kiss in turn. They would meet for a planned date, would leave hand in hand for the food court or the movies. Would come back to a shared flat and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Someone points in his direction, their eyes meet from either side of the hall. The illusion shatters immediately – in no fantasy of him does Army look at him with such a guilty look on his face.

Once again, Joe turns heels and walks into the opposite direction, classes be damned. But Army has no better thing to do than chase after him this time.

“Joe, wait! Come one, wait for me! I just want to talk!”

There is nothing Joe wants less.

But Army is the one who always gets what he wants, not Joe. He used to be fascinated by it, by Army’s ability to just ask for things and get them. Now he finds it infuriating.

Army pushes him into an empty corner with a hand on his chest, that he promptly takes back under Joe’s sizzling glare.

“So, huh. How are you?”

Joe rolls his eyes.

“Okay, okay, I just… It’s been a while. I’ve missed you.”

Joe wants to scream. How can he say that? They haven’t spoken in almost three years. Army came out, he started living his life to the fullest, dating boys, making friends, acing his studies, and he didn’t try to approach Joe once in all this time. Not that Joe would have welcomed it but… he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he would have done, what to do now. Doesn’t know what he wants.

He keeps his mouth tightly shut. Army deflates a little, some of his easy confidence leaking out as the silence grows.

“I came to apologize. Again. I’m sorry, Joe, please, can you just…”

“For what?”

“Huh?”

Joe crosses his arms on his chest, hoping he looks firm instead of defensive.

“What are you sorry for?”

“Well… you know.”

“I don’t.”

He’s not sure Army does either. He’s proven right when the man shrugs, runs a hand through his hair and shrugs again.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that this time, shouldn’t have… I know it was messed up. I didn’t mean to put the blame on you, but I didn’t want to…”

That’s where he trails off. At least he senses that there is no way for this sentence to end in his favor. Because Joe knows all that well. He didn’t want to be outed. He didn’t want to face the rumors, the attention, the judgment.

So he threw it at Joe’s face instead.

“Is that all?”

“I mean I could have said something afterward too. I thought about it, about coming clean, I should have…”

“Yeah. You should have, and you didn’t.”

“Listen…”

“Why are you here, Army? It’s been years. I’ve moved on. You should too.”

It’s a blatant lie, but Army doesn’t know him enough to tell anymore. There’s no telling he ever did – they didn’t do a lot of talking and sharing back then. Army didn’t know him that well, but what did it matter when they touched each other?

“If you’ve moved on, does it mean you forgive me?”

It’s only when Army asks that Joe realizes how much it’s not the case.

He should, probably. He should let it go. In a way, he has. He doesn’t expect anything from the other anymore.

But forgiveness? What is that even, what does it means? He seems to recall being taught forgiveness. It’s what’s they’re supposed to do, right? Apologize, and be forgiven. Get an apology, and forgive.

He finds that he cannot.

The hurt is still too fresh, too raw. Joe is still stranded half naked in that shower stale, scrutinized by the assistant coach while Army gets to walk away unbothered. Army walks away. He doesn’t look back. His words cut so deep.

“Leave me alone.”

He shoves Army out of his way and leaves. He doesn’t go to any of these reunion again, doesn’t answer any request for meet-ups and news. Rose apologizes and he wonders what she knows, if Army said anything, if she can just tell. She invites him to Jedi’s bar but he worries he’ll see Army there, and besides, this scene just doesn’t appeal to him. He doesn’t want to meet other gay guys to go home and fuck and be strangers again the next day. He hates that this is all that seems available to them.

He starts avoiding her because he can’t stand the questions she might ask, and even if she doesn’t, what she must think of him. He doesn’t want to rely on her, it feels like he’s using her because, what, they share something? They don’t, do they? He is nothing like her. She has always been confident in herself, her gender and her sexuality, sure of who she was, who she loved and who loved her. He used to hear that no high school love would last forever, but he was confident, even back then, that Rose and Jedi would make it.

And that he would stay alone.

Even though he doesn’t, not really. Even he has to make some friends at some point, even against his will. A few guys in his various classes, at the football club. He doesn’t stay so lonely, but he keeps to himself, he can’t do, can’t be anything else. No one knows about him. And so, he doesn’t exist.

Army tries a few more times. Each time Joe wonders if this is when he will finally cave in, but each time his fury is intact, and so he pushes Army away again, even if a part of him yearns to give in, to listen to his pleading, coaxing words, even if they are never what Joe truly needs to hear. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t budge, not yet.

But of course it stops, eventually. Army’s attempts become rarer and rarer, and then he’s gone from Joe’s life, for good.

Such a relief. Such a loss.

.

Cha Yen is late again. This time late enough that Joe won’t even have time to scold him properly, because they’ll be in the thick of practice already. He is going to have to call his father, again. He’s not a bad kid, and a decent football player – though he would describe himself in much more praiseful terms. He would maybe live up to his own vision if he was more diligent and punctual.

And less fixated on his sex life.

Joe doesn’t pry in the life of his players, but they are all, to various degrees, obsessed with sex and relationships. They are all straight too, to the best of his knowledge, except for Cha Yen.

It’s not exactly that he flaunts it around. It’s a non-subject for the boy. When the others talk about girls, he answers with his own stories and that’s it. Joe is amazed at how little the kids seem to care. Maybe a little jealous too. He can only be happy that things are slowly changing, but he wishes his own brain would catch up with the program.

So Cha Yen is probably late because he partied too hard last night and stayed way too late making out with some guy in a public bathroom. Or at least that’s what Joe assumes, until he sees the car that brought him here, looking much too expensive for anyone around his age.

He tells him to go warm up, trying to see what this is about, who could be…

No way. No way.

In a moment Joe is overcome with fury, sharp and bright. How dare he, how dare he? He stalks toward the entrance of the stadium, both to confront Army and to make sure he doesn’t set a foot beyond the fence. He doesn’t think he could stand having him here, in this space.

Joe is going to murder him. Would he really step so low? When he can very well have any guy he wants, and doesn’t deny himself any of them? Cha Yen is seventeen. He still lives with his parents, he has to ask permission to go out of town for games, and his mother usually drives him there. And Army is… he’s…

“You slept with one of my athletes? How could you? He’s a minor! I’m going to get you arrested.”

If anything Army looks even more suspicious getting flustered like that, but Joe is relieved to hear he’s not making excuses for having a one night stand with a minor. He has never been the most sensible guy, it’s good to know he’s not completely reckless.

Once this rage has receded, Joe still has plenty left though.

“Leave him alone, and don’t show your face here again. You’re only trouble.”

Joe can’t stand Army’s disappointed face, his pouting lips, how he’s still so damn beautiful, how Joe is still so helplessly attracted to him. How is that even possible? It’s been years. They were kids back then. Surely they must have changed, both of them. Surely they can’t still be stuck there.

Except they can, it seems. They can, they are, because Army comes back when Joe told him not to, and Joe lets him do what he pleases, exactly as he did the last time they were together like this. It’s even the fucking locker room again, and a minuscule part of his brain that is not overcome with base pleasure spares a moment to wonder at the irony of someone catching them in the act again. Would Army push him away this time? Joe would more likely be the one to do it. Maybe it would even be sweet, to play the outraged one this time. To shove him away and insult him, accuse him of trying to take advantage of him, to be disgusted.

It’s a nice thought, but he knows he couldn’t. If someone walked in, he would probably cling to Army harder. Try to hide them away maybe, to find an excuse that would protect them both. Or to weather the storm together.

Exactly what Army didn’t do for him.

No one comes though. Well, Joe does. It’s fast enough to be embarrassing, but it’s been so long no one touched him. Army looks satisfied enough, and that’s what count, isn’t it? It was  always about Army. Army’s pleasure, Army’s feelings, Army’s wishes. Joe would bend to it all. He couldn’t even pretend to deny it.

In the heat of the moment, Joe even says that yes, he forgives him. And in the heat of the moment, he even believes it.

But when he’s alone again, back in his small flat near the train station, with only a half lit room because he’s been meaning to buy lightbulbs for months but keeps forgetting every time he goes to get groceries… Then he hates himself even more. For giving in so easily when he’s been adamant all this time that he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. One forlorn look in his direction, one sweet apologetic smile and he was gone all over again.

He tells himself it’s just sex, as if that is any comfort. It was always the part he liked the least, and it’s the only one he has now. He still craves it, craves touch and comfort and warmth in any form he can get it, and it doesn’t help that Army is being sweet. He keeps saying these things, like how he missed Joe, how glad he is that they’re seeing each other again. Joe doesn’t know if he can, should believe him. He desperately wants to and it terrifies him to no end.

That’s the state he’s in now, terrified, and he realizes it’s been this way for a very long time. Every moment of every day he lives with this fear, he couldn’t even tell of what exactly. Of being found, of never being found again. Of love, of loneliness, of the future, the present too. Everything, anything.

It quiets down some when Army holds him in his arms, when he smiles, but it doesn’t last long. When he’s with him, Joe is alive and well, he almost feels like he can make it through. When he’s alone again, he wants to crawl up in a hole and die.

Maybe that’s why he accepts to see Army more and more. He follows him to Jedi’s bar and the man looks so happy to see him for no discernable reason. Rose also smiles warmly at him, indulgent and fond, which warms him to his core and soaks him with guilt too.

He does his best to go along and enjoy himself, even if he’s feels vulnerable and out of place, even if he doesn’t really see the appeal. Especially when it’s just to be ogled by strangers, or have the man he’s with being flirted with in front of him. At least Army has the good taste not to flirt back, but Joe realizes he’s seeing him in his element here, charming and at ease. It’s easy to imagine him picking up any of the guys drooling after him, taking one home for the night. More than jealousy, Joe only feels resignation. How could it go any other way? And how could he be surprised, how could he even blame Army? Between that and Joe, who’s lacking in basically every aspect, who can even get the sex angle right, how could Army possibly stay?

That’s also why he doesn’t try to get any more out of it. He doesn’t say anything about how little he cares for their sex lives, about how he’s still incandescent with rage and despair, still so far from forgiveness it chokes him up at time. There is no point getting into that, he will take what he can and not wish for anything more. It will come to an end soon enough.

Astonishingly enough, what he didn’t take into account in all that, is freaking Alex.

Nerd Alex turned jock Alex, who so seamlessly took Joe’s place by Army’s side back then that Joe wondered then if they were fucking too. He understood soon enough that it wasn’t any of that, as Alex was straight in the dumbest way possible, no question asked. But he had seen them, and that made him an enemy Army had to get under control.

The Alex that comes to see him at the stadium is weird though. Weird in the way that he reminds him of high school, of that idiotic, heartfelt teenager congratulating them for kissing at Jedi’s party. They had been needlessly mean to him. Alex wouldn’t have said anything. Or if he had, it would have been because he didn’t see anything wrong with that.

Somehow Joe ends up confiding in him.

It’s telling, that he can suddenly pour it all out to a guy he has not seen in almost a decade, when he couldn’t say a word to Army that pertained to anything deeper than what they wanted to eat for dinner. “You should have told me,” Army says later and how can Joe explain to him that he couldn’t? That they are worlds apart despite being in the same room, in the same bed? He holds Army in his arms and he can feel him slipping away already. It is pointless to work on any of this. There is no future for them.

There is no future for Joe, period, when a rumor of him being too close to his male friend threatens his job, the only thing in his life that brings him some measure of joy. He’s mad at Army, and at himself, for letting them being caught like this, but beyond that this time he’s also mad at the world at large. At the manager of the stadium, that couldn’t just look elsewhere and mind his own business, at the people employing him who are so short-sighted and archaic, at the parents of his kids who will only breed hatred and despair into them.

What did he do that was so wrong? What did he do to deserve being shamed and reprimanded like this? He dared to feel good about himself and his life for once, dared to dream of something less dreadful for himself, and his lover? He had barely a day to bask into Army’s words, his outrageous declaration, his love. He is so tired of feeling this way.

And still, still Army doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see the problem. Joe just has to be firm and honest. Joe just has to stand for himself, and if they don’t want him it doesn’t matter, he can find another job, he can do anything he wants.

Joe hates him then. But worst of all, Army dares, he dares to call him a coward and…

“Will you never let that go?” Army asks, full of exasperation.

He won’t. He won’t, it was foolish to think that he could.

Because Joe didn’t carry this shame, before Army placed it on his shoulders, drew the target on his back. He wasn’t the one insisting they snuck around and kept it a secret, he wasn’t the one terrified they would be discovered. It was forced into him and he could never drive it out again, never free himself of it. And Army has the gale to reproach him now?

He can’t even look at him right now, so he walks away, before he becomes even harsher, before he breaks down for good.

He ends up at the stadium because he doesn’t know where to go. It’s not like he has a friend or a family member he could call for comfort and advice. And why is that? He hasn’t called home in months. His younger sister sent him a text a few days ago, but he told himself he needed time and peace to answer, and he still hasn’t. They are not that close. Their relationship never recovered, after his stepfather decided he was a danger to them. His mother calls from time to time, but Joe hates to go there.

So he drives to the stadium instead, only half aware of where his brain is taking him. He parks near the entrance and debates just going home, berating himself for coming here of all places, when he might not even be welcome there anymore. He needs the fresh air though, the comfort of a familiar place maybe, however hostile. He’s surprised to find that the lawn isn’t deserted, as it should be at this hour.

“Cha Yen? What are you doing here?”

The boy trips over the ball he was idly dribbling with and almost face-plants on the ground. His flailing around bring indescribable fondness in Joe’s heart.

“Coach! Don’t scare me like that!”

“Answer the question.”

Cha Yen shrugs, dusting off bits of dirt and grass from his jersey, unable to make eye contact. Joe is well acquainted with his antics, but this doesn’t look like his usual brand.

“I just wanted to practice some more. You told me to, right?”

Joe has been telling him that, for more than a year now. It never prompted any reaction until now.

“We did plenty today already. Rest is important too, and it’s getting late. Your parents will worry.”

Joe’s casual comment has the intended effect – Cha Yen frowns and purses his lips in an unhappy scowl. Troubles at home then.

“What is it, Cha Yen?”

“I don’t want to go home just yet.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t supposed to come to football practice today. Because of...”

He gestures vaguely at Joe.

“They don’t know about me, y’know. It’s fine out here because the guys are cool with it, but I never told my parents. And well, now I know for sure I made the right call, but it doesn’t help, yeah?”

Joe doesn’t know what to say. He assumed the boy’s family was fine with it, since he seemed to be so open and casual about his sexuality. It’s heartbreaking to see him so forlorn, he who is the goofiest of his player by far.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, don’t be! It’s not your fault, it’s… if anything, I- I mean…”

This is also new, this shyness and hesitance, from one usually so boisterous.

“I already knew. About you,” he finally says.

“What? How? Did you see anything? Did you…”

“No, no, nothing like that! I guess I didn’t know for sure but… I guessed, or maybe I just hoped. I had this feeling, you know?”

Joe is struck speechless.

He doesn’t think he ever exhibited any behavior that would be expected from a gay man. Proof enough is that no guy ever hit on him – not that he ever put himself in a situation where that would have been likely either.

Oh god, did he look interested somehow? Did Cha Yen think…

“And it was… Ah. It was nice.”

“…Nice?”

“Yeah. You know how it is. With sport and all, and even at school. In my last club… But you never said anything like that. And it was nice.”

Joe always imagined Cha Yen was just like that. He never considered the boy felt safe here, safe enough that he could be open about something even his parents didn’t know.

It is humbling, to say the least.

And so Joe finds himself telling him the things he never heard himself, the things he wishes someone had told him back when he was a teenager. That neither Joe nor anyone else has any right to comment on who the boy dates and who he loves, that he is not doing anything wrong and that it has nothing to do with football, talent, performance and legitimacy. That he should never feel lesser for it, never let anyone try to deprive him of what he likes and wants based on such a trivial thing.

That he will always be safe here with him.

He tells him all the things he doesn’t even believe in himself. But what else can he do? He wants to believe it, for the first time he wishes for it to be true, and it occurs to him belatedly that he has the power to make it so. He is the one offering this sanctuary, the one teaching the lesson. If he wants it to, it will stay like this.

Cha Yen is a little bright-eyed by the time he’s done, and Joe might be too.

“You should go home. Do you need a ride?”

“I can take the bus, thank you!”

He waves and takes a few steps before thinking better of it. He spins around, looking determined. Joe is a little worried when the boy marches toward him and is caught completely off guard when Cha Yen wraps him in a brief, strong hug.

“Thank you,” he says again, heartfelt and heavy with emotions. Then he’s gone.

The ride back is a bit of a haze, as are the next few days. He goes to work and doesn’t comment on the unusually high level of absenteeism from his players. Something needs to be done right? But he doesn’t know what.

He thinks he might be in need of some help. Some advice. Or just someone to confide in. He considers Alex, but the man will report it all to Army for sure.

He goes to Jedi’s bar instead. His high school friend is inexplicably hostile when Joe asks after Rose.

“What? You want to sleep with her too?”

Joe has no idea what to answer to that, but he’s offended both on Rose’s behalf and his own. Some of his disbelief must show on his face because Jedi deflates at once, sheepish.

“Sorry, that was… she’s out back. You can go find her.”

He goes through the door Jedi points out, following a narrow corridor until he finds a small office where Rose is pouring over some papers. He forgets what he came for, faced with her unhappy face, her tense posture.

“Are you alright?”

She jumps, which he could have foreseen, but relaxes a little when she recognizes him. She even smiles – it’s stupidly nice, that she would be happy to see him.

“Joe! What brings you here? Is everything okay?”

He sits in the chair in front of her desk at her invitation. Somehow the room doesn’t really suit her image – it’s cramped, not very tidy, with documents and pens scattered around. She slouching on her chair. He doesn’t think he ever saw her so uncomposed. It’s a little endearing.

“You first? Jedi seemed on edge.”

She sighs before getting him a rundown of their STI issues. She’s embarrassed to admit that for all that she bragged about it, she never actually went through with sleeping around. He doesn’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, but he understands it is both a matter of pride and equity between them. He doesn’t like to see her so upset, but a selfish part of him can’t help but be relieved that even the perfect high school sweetheart couples can have their issues.

“Enough about me though. Tell me what happened?”

It’s only fair that he confides in her, just like she did. It is daunting though. It’s not like with Alex, who came to him on his own volition knowing the whole story already, or most of it. He has never told a soul. He has never confessed to anyone.

“You know I’m- I’m gay. You know, right?”

It sounds silly then, both obvious and not at all. Maybe she doesn’t know, doesn’t care.

She smiles at him gently, indulgent. She puts a hand on his own.

“I thought so. I wasn’t sure.”

“No?”

“Well, you never said.”

It’s such a tender thing to say. That as long as he didn’t speak the word, it didn’t come to be. That is was in his hands, even if she had guessed. It makes him a little surer, a little braver. So he launches into the story, trying to be concise though there is a lot to say. He talks about Army, mostly, and about his job and his fears. She listens intently, commiserating and laughing in turn, attuned to his mood and his stuttering confession.

It is draining, but it a good sense – as if purging an overfilled barrel where stale water stayed stagnant for way too long. He is lighter, he is emptied out. There is room for something else then. For other feelings to grow, maybe.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

“I meant about your job.”

“He made it sound so easy. But I can’t just…”

“Joe.”

Her voice is firm, she squeezes his hand to get his attention, so that he will look at her serious face.

“This isn’t about him.”

His first reflex is to protest. Of course it is. Everything is about Army, it always was.

But then he thinks of Cha Yen, alone in the field. “Thank you”. About Jedi looking so pleased to see Joe in his bar, telling him to relax, that he was safe there. He seldom felt safe before. The kids coming to practice today anyway, despite their parents and the club management, grown enough to make their opinion known, to make their own decisions.

The short answer is easy – he doesn’t want to quit. He doesn’t want to work elsewhere, he likes it there, he’s fond of his players, some he has known for years.

But there is also this growing part of him that doesn’t even understand what is the issue. Why his work is even put into question. The revolted part wanting to scream that it’s not fair, and that they shouldn’t take this shit. That he has a right to his private life and who he chooses to spend it with. It’s not just that their opinion doesn’t matter, because it does – they could make his life very hard. But they are wrong.

They are wrong, and he’s not.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to be braver?”

“This has nothing to do with courage. Wanting to preserve yourself is not a lack of strength. And the fear and the shame we are made to feel is not on us.”

She was already fully transitioned and settled in her gender when she arrived in high school in the middle of their first year. They were all curious and not all nice, but she had a spine of steel, back then already, and it helped that Jedi fell at her feet almost immediately. They seemed impervious to any rumors and slander. It was inspiring, to see them live so freely. But he knows it doesn’t mean they had it easy. None of them is ever spared these struggles.

“What do you want to do, Joe?”

He doesn’t think it’s a question he heard very often, he answered even less. What does he want to do?

“Think of the children,” his manager said. Think of the children. As if he ever did anything else.

So that’s what he does. He thinks of the children. Of what they are taught, what they will learn from this, what lesson they will they carry, embedded in their head, so hard to dislodge. Think of what they learned at school, from family and friends, and what Joe could teach them now.

He thinks of the children instead of their parents, their teachers, the other adults around them. Rose helps with the legalities – they can intimidate him, but they can’t outright fire him without a good reason. And whether they like it or not, his sexuality is not one.

He thinks of the children. If they are uncomfortable with him, he will resign. It’s all that really matters. And it might be silly of him to be so unsure, when he stands in front of his players and decides to be straightforward, but he has to hide his shaking hands in his pockets and hope for the best.

He feels a little guilty for doubting them, once it turns out there was nothing to worry about. Something that seemed unsurmountable a few days ago, pretty much the end of the world, is insignificant now. That’s how it goes of course – however scary a day can be, it has to come and pass.

This day is not over though, as Rose texts him just as practice is about to start.

“Army came to see us. He’s on his way to you now. Should I tell him to turn around?”

Maybe she should, maybe he should tell her so. He's not ready. But he also feels light and calm, for a change, settled. Isn’t it as good a time as any? He wants to move on.

He wants to move on.

“It’s okay. Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

After, when Army makes a fool of himself and Joe agrees to far more, it feels, than just a prom date, when they hurry home because kissing out there in the open is not happening, but they very much need to kiss right now, he spares a moment to text Rose again.

“How could you not tell me about getting married”

“I left it to Army, I’m a good friend like that”

“You really are. Thanks again”

It might be a little too heartfelt for a random text message, but he is grateful. She sends back a string of various emojis that includes a lot of kissing, hearts, winks and fireworks. Army pouts when Joe laughs as this screen while he’s licking up his neck.

“You should pay more attention to me,” he whines. Joe puts his phone away, happy to oblige. Army is the one to slow down though. He rests his head on Joe’s shoulder for a moment, resting his weight fully on him, pressing Joe further into the front door – they didn’t make it past the entrance yet.

“Army? What is it?”

“I’m sorry.”

Joe chuckles, wondering if he’s apologizing for being too horny, or too cheesy back at the football field, or both. But Army is solemn when he looks up.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you back then.”

Joe doesn’t feel much like laughing after that. Army doesn’t let him get anywhere, his grip on Joe’s hips a little anxious now, as if he feared Joe would run away, disappear.

“You apologized before.”

“Yeah but… I know it was not enough. I know it’s not just about the locker room.”

Joe settles more firmly against the wall, understanding that they are truly doing this now. Army stands back on his feet a bit but he doesn’t go far, both because he seems reluctant to break contact, and maybe also because Joe catches him at the waist, just as unwilling for them to part. Army splays both hands on Joe’s chest, eyes cast low.

“I know how hard it was for you. After. I could see it, but I figured… I wanted to believe it wasn’t that big of a deal. That you would be fine. I convinced myself that there was nothing I could do anyway, that after a while what was done was done and there was no going back. So there was no point saying anything. I know… I know it wasn’t about that though. I-I knew you were lonely, and hurt. I knew, and I…”

He does look up then, briefly, before staring back down, eyes bright. Joe squeezes his waist, both to offer comfort and maybe to steady himself as well, as he is not faring much better.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry fear was stronger in the end.”

Stronger than their friendship, than whatever feelings was blooming between them. Stronger than his sense of right and wrong, of loyalty, stronger than any values he might have thought he adhered to. It’s astonishing, what they are lead to do to each other.

Joe brings a hand up Army’s face to cup his cheek, to gently make their eyes meet. He is tired of the pain. At last, at last, it feels like they could leave this locker room, step out into the open.

At last he can say it and mean it.

“I forgive you.”

They hug as they cry, kiss and cry some more, hug again. They’re both too tired afterward to do any more than crawl into bed and hold on tight. Joe swears to himself he won’t let go this time.

“If we could go back,” Army whispers into his neck, warm and soft and half-asleep. “If we could go back, I would take you to prom for real.”

What a sweet image it makes.

.

(He makes good on those words, in the end)