Page 6 of Untouchable Player

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the problem? Gay bars are fun.”

“For girls maybe, but for me…”

“What?”

It’s a meat market, and one I don’t rank highly in.

I shake my head, “I don’t know, I’m too busy with school.”

Katie sighs dramatically and slumps back in the chair, “you don’t need to kill yourself with studying, you get good grades.”

“Yes,becauseI kill myself with studying.”

“If you say so smarty pants.”

“Smarty pants, really?”

Now she kicksmeunder the table.

I want to tell her about maybe seeing our hockey team enforcer - the literal embodiment of the big dumb hockey player, with a bonafide chipped tooth, a nose that’s probably been broken a few times, a shaved head and too many muscles – on a gay dating app. But it feels like a betrayal. Even if Katie didn’t tell a soul, which she wouldn’t if I asked her not to, there has to be some code with these things right? Like alcoholics anonymous. No, not alcoholics anonymous, being gay isn’t anything like being an alcoholic.

“I know you’re hiding something from me,” Katie says. “It’s fine, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, I don’t care.”

When she talks like that, she reminds me of my mom. She’s an expert at that passive aggressive, guilt-tripping thing.

I have a two-hour lecture for my engineering major and a calculus class right after, so I load up on caffeine and sugar before the lecture and get ready to take a ton of notes.

There are times when I’m sitting in the lecture hall, listening to someone who is an expert in their field teaching me everything they know, and I remind myself that I should take a second to enjoy this. This is what I’ve fantasised about for years. College. Being in a room full of my peers. But all I feel during these lectures and classes is anxiety. There’s always a deadline. Always a grade to chase. Your life ruled by letters posted in an email with the headingAssignment Results.

For years at school, I thought I was the smartest person in my grade. Not that I was gifted or born with academic talents. I knew if I was smart, it was because I’d studied harder than anyone else and worked for it. I was valedictorian of my senior high-school year, and though I’d never say it out loud, I thought I was going to get into every school I applied for. So when M.I.T rejected me, I thought there’d been a mistake, and was probably one of hundreds of poor saps calling the admissions office tomake sure there hadn’t been an administrative error and they’d switched my acceptance letter with someone else’s rejection. I’ll never forget the secretary’s pitying voice on the phone when she informed me there had been no mistake. I just didn’t get in.

My professor talks at the head of the lecture hall and I frantically take notes whilst simultaneously trying to listen.

After calculus, I go straight back home to eat something before studying some more.

Mom’s home from Pilates and orders me to sit at the kitchen table while she makes me a sandwich.

She’s still wearing her yoga pants and matching top and looks way too put-together for someone who just did a work-out. I haven’t done physical activity since I was forced to do gym class at school, but I still remember how red my face would get and how my hair would get all sweaty and stick up.

Mom’s platinum hair is still in its perfect ponytail and her make-up looks like she just applied it fresh.

She hums to herself as she spreads butter on two pieces of bread before asking if I want cheese, pastrami or both.

I’m not going to lie, it is nice having someone take care of you when you’re exhausted and I’m so useless at cooking, I could even fuck up a sandwich.

Mom makes it just right, putting little pickles and mayonnaise on top before sliding it across the table to me. She’s the only person who doesn’t tell me I’m too skinny, but I think I see it in her eyes sometimes and the way she slathers on the full-fat mayo she never eats herself.

I have my calculus books out and she snatches them off me and says, “food first, then books.”

Doesn’t she know how much work I have to do? She’s my mother. She should be encouraging me to read instead of taking books away from me, but I know that face, and there’s no point in arguing with it.

She takes a seat and watches me as I eat. I draw the line at her tucking my hair behind my ear and ask her to back off.

“Sorry,” she holds her hands up in surrender. “I just love having you home.”

“I live here.”

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