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She ran her hands through his brown hair as they laid down beside each other, both facing the same wall. She was feeling good. Really good, actually. She’d had a nagging feeling about her boyfriend for the last week or two, and tonight after they split a zima or two, he’d opened up to her. Told her about himself. Herself.
“Babe,” she said as she stroked his hair, “what you told me. It’s brave. You’re such a brave person for trusting me with that.” She reached over and put an arm around her partner. “It was brave. I love you,” she whispered as she wrapped herself around them.
For his part, her boyfriend shuddered. It had taken him a few drinks and some rambling, and before he knew it he had started to say too much, and once he started he couldn’t stop, it just kept coming and coming and…
“I’m not brave,” he whispered. “I’m not brave at all.” He shuddered again and sniffled. “I’m a coward. Hiding here, talking to you. I’m a fake “
“Shhh,” she said, shushing him before he could start to spiral. “It’s going to be okay. You told me. That’s a start. It’s the first step. It’s going to be okay.” She squeezed him. “Tell me it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s—“ he said, hesitating after the first word. “It’s going to be all right.”
“It’s going to be all right, Justin.”
He flinched at that. That name. It didn’t feel right anymore.
***
Justin waited around the locker room after practice, waiting for the rest of the team to file out. Sitting at his locker in his shoulder pads, he gave some of the team high fives and smiled a goodbye to others. When the room was empty he took a moment to take in the surroundings: the empty lockers, the helmets sitting in each stall, the way the smell of sweat and testosterone lingered in the air. Something about it felt foreign to him now. He sighed and reached over his back to pull the pads off. To strip away his armor.
Clad only in a towel wrapped around his waist, Justin walked over to the showers. He paused by a set of hand sinks and looked at himself in the mirror. A mop of brown hair, the slender and lightly muscled body. A face with stubble running across the chin like it’d been stippled there with a paintbrush. He ran a hand across it, feeling the way each of the hairs rubbed against his fingers. He hated this. But it was his. He dropped his hands and walked up to the mirror and stared into his reflected eyes. This is my body, he thought. I need to get used to seeing this.
He felt a clap on his shoulder. “Rough practice, eh?” He looks aside and sees Danny standing right behind him. “But you remember what coach said, right?”
“When the going gets tough the tough get going,” says Justin, forcing a smile.
Danny pats his shoulder and walks away. “Gotta go get dressed, see ya later.”
When the going gets tough… thinks Justin.
***
Justin’s sitting beside Meredith on the bleachers. They’re both looking out at the practice field, watching the wind blow some leaves around the groomed and painted turf.
“So.”
Justin turned his head to Meredith, who kept talking while staring straight ahead.
“About last night. Do you –” she turned and looked into his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Justin looked down and slouched his back. “I was hoping you’d forgotten anything happened.”
“Hey. Hey.” Meredith reached an arm around Justin and pulled him close. “I didn’t forget anything. Did you?”
“No.”
“Then you remember what I said?”
Justin leaned his head into her shoulder. “I do.”
“I love you, okay? Not the star quarterback you. Not the tough masculine boy you. I love you. No matter who you are.” She sniffed. “Hey. It’s going to be okay, right?” She could feel Justin begin to shudder and her shoulder felt damp. “Hey. Hey.” She rubbed the small of his back in a small circle. “It’s okay, right?” She kept holding him tight in the silence and watching the leaves blow around until his shuddering stopped.
***
The day turned into evening and then into midnight. Justin was alone now, laying under the covers and looking at the ceiling. His mind had been racing all day. Moving at a hundred miles an hour and yet it also seemed so muddled. Foggy. Like if he tried to focus and grab just one of his thoughts it would slip through his fingers.
He sighed and rolled over. This was hard. A mistake, maybe, too. He wasn’t sure yet. All he knew was that he’d said something to Meredith that he couldn’t take back. And that when he said it a weight was lifted off his shoulders while a swarm of bees moved into his stomach.
His computer chimed. He got up, walked over to it and wiggled the mouse, bringing the monitor to life and bathing the room in a pale light. It was a message on AIM from Meredith. She wanted him to talk to one of her friends from the squad.
He swallowed. He didn’t want to do this. It was hard enough with just one person knowing. But then: what did coach say?
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
***
He got through classes that day like he was on autopilot. Thankfully practice went okay: he didn’t flub any plays during scrimmage and when he ran laps he kept his head down. But now practice was over and he was sitting on a stool, jersey off but his shoulder pads still on.
I can do this, he thought to himself. It’s just a conversation. We’re just talking. He stripped off his armor and walked to the showers. It’s just talking. That’s all it is. He let the hot water run over his face, his shoulders, down his body. He leaned his body forward until his forehead was pressed against the cold tile. When the going gets tough…
***
Meredith was waiting for him at the bleachers sitting next to one of the girls from squad. He racked his brain for a moment - why was remembering getting so hard suddenly? - before remembering her name. Smiling, he turned on the charm that got him through so much already.
“Taylor! Nice to see you here. How’s things?”
Taylor and Meredith both smiled at him.
“I heard you have something of a problem, Justin?” said Taylor,
He shuddered but continued: “Well, a friend of mine told me…”
Taylor gently punched his arm. “Don’t give me that shizz,” she said. “What’s going on?”
He deflated like a parachute hitting the ground and leaned into Meredith’s shoulder. “I… I’ve been thinking about myself a lot, Taylor. And I don’t know if I like who I am.”
“You don’t like being a quarterback? I mean I guess you were tight end last year, that’s not as stressful…”
He sighed. “Taylor. I don’t think I want to be Justin anymore.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh. Oh!” She reached over and put a hand on his leg. “Well then you’ve just talked to the right woman.”
***
She led him into her beetle and told Meredith to come by her place in a few hours. As she started the car she looked over into Justin’s eyes. “This is going to be fun,” she said with a grin.
A few minutes later she was leading him up the stairs of her house and along a hall until she got to her room. She pushed him in and closed the door behind her. “Okay, bathroom. Strip down for me, okay?” She all but pushed him with both hands into the en suite over his protests.
“But.. but… what about her?”
“No buts, buddy. Get in there!” She pushed him across the threshold and closed the door behind him. Across the room Maxine looked up from a guitar magazine.
“What is this all about, Tay?”
She just giggled. “Oh you’re, going to like this.”
Maxine knew that look in her eyes. It had trouble written all over it. “Well, if you need me, I’ll be over here.” She lifted the magazine. “Reading.”
Taylor nodded and spun around, digging into her closet for something. Maxine watched her dig, taking items out, looking at them and either nodding and stuffing them into a bag, or shaking her head and throwing them aside. Once she had a few things put together she walked over to the bathroom, knocked on the door and opened it, vanishing inside.
Maxine sighed and flipped the page. Knowing her, she might be at this all night.
***
“No, don’t touch that!”
“But it stung!”
“It’s supposed to sting. Here, hold still.”
“Woah! Is that supposed to go that close to my eye?”
“If you didn’t flinch so much it wouldn’t be there so much!”
From the other side of the door Maxine flipped another page. A floating tremolo, she thought. Never played a guitar with this fancy of a set up. Wonder how it plays?
***
Taylor opened the door first and clapped her hands, snapping Maxine to attention.
“Hey. Okay. She’s very fragile, right, so be kind Maxine, okay?” She nodded.
“You can come out now,” said Taylor as a tall, unsure looking woman came out. She was wearing a maxi dress with white and black vertical stripes, had eyeliner with points sharp enough to pop a balloon, and pale pink lips. She looked down at the ground but Maxine could see her mouth curling into a smile. She got up and walked over, putting her hands over the woman’s.
“Hey,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
***
Meredith knocked on the door before she let herself in. She looked at the tall woman and gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. Then she ran over and wrapped them in a hug.
“You look great!” she said. “Great!”
The tall woman smiled and her cheeks reddened. “Do…” she said, “do.. you think so?”
She gently slapped the woman’s arm. “Of course! I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think so!”
They hugged again and Meredith pushed her backwards a bit so she could take her all in. She studied her partner for a moment and smiled. “So…” she said, “do we have a name yet?”
The tall woman thought for a moment and flashed back to the football field, to the leaves blowing in the wind, to when her partner held her close and told her she loved her,
“Autumn,” she said. “Autumn.”
Meredith squealed and pulled Autumn close.
From across the room, Taylor leaned into Maxine as they both sat in the bed.
“So Tay. How did she know to come to you?”
Taylor turned and shot her girlfriend a wink. “Cheerleaders can do anything, Maxine. And I think Meredith knew that I could especially...”
“But she doesn’t know about…”
“No, no. There’s no way.”
Maxine nodded. This was something she would have to file away and ask about later. But for now she just leaned into her girlfriend while Autumn took her first steps in the world.