Page 13 of Unrecognizable Player

I didn’t exactly get bullied at school - my big sister was too popular and tough for anyone to try that. But I did play the violin in Queens and wear my hair way longer than was fashionable in the mid 00s. I don’t exactly have fond memories of guys who played on sport’s teams. Sure Baba was right when he said most of those guys who made fun of my hair would end up in jail or working at the gas station, but these jocks are college jocks. The successful-still-for-now-at-least kind, the still-mid-peak-before-the-big-drop kind.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”

“Let me pass you his number and you two can figure it out between you.”

Alice jogsa little to keep up with me as I leave the music building.

“You can’t seriously be considering living with a jock?” She slips her arm through mine as we walk past the deserted football field. There’s a crisp coolness to the air and the trees are still bare of leaves in the last remnants of winter. I think about how Dorian and I spent Christmas and Thanksgiving apart because I was still too scared to tell my family I’m gay.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You know you can do much better than Dorian right? I didn’t want to say this when you were together, but, he was a loser, and he wasn’t even hot.”

I laugh. “You did say that when we were together, multiple times.”

“Did I? Well I meant it.” She shrugs.

“It’s not that, or… it’s not just that.”

“What is it?”

“One thing Dorian did have a point about was the fact I’m still lying to my family.”

She sighs. “It’s nobody’s business when you tell them. They’re you’re family and you should tell them whenyou’reready.”

“I just wish I didn’t have to. It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair? Being gay or having to tell them?”

I pause, but I know which one it is. “Having to tell them.”

I haven’t been upset about the fact I’m gay for a long time. I was raised in the Catholic Orthodox church, and I believe in God. But I believe the God I spent my life praying to loves us all as we are and wouldn’t make us some way if He didn’t intend for us to be that way. I refuse to believe in any other kind. And I know my family believe in that God too, at least, I think they do.

There have been times when the sermons Father Yiannopoulos gives go on about the sanctity of family – as in, mother, father, children. Though I’ve never heard my family repeat those sentiments, I’ve never heard them contradict them either.

“Gay marriage is legal in Greece now, and that’s an Orthodox country,” Alice says. “So they should be okay with it, right?”

“It’s not just about them not being okay with it.”

“So what is it?”

I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

“I’m not ready, that’s all.”

Alice offersto hang out at the library with me to give her roommate some space, but I tell her I have to get in the zone over some assignment so she can at least go home and not have to camp out like a fugitive.

I can’t actually focus on any of my college work and I’m not behind right now. Studying a music major means lots of theory, but also a huge portion of your grade revolving around performance. All the theory in the world won’t make up for my tendency to choke at critical moments. And right now, that’s the last thing I want to think about.

I mess around online and login to the Bookgeeks site to see if I have any new recommendations, or messages.

I know I should have stopped talking to Kelsier38 when we agreed to meet a year ago and he stood me up. But there was something about his apology that just rang true, and I got the feeling he was incredibly lonely and confused in a lot of the same ways I was lonely and confused.

He’s left me a generic message, asking if I’ve read any good books lately and my heart sinks.

I never delete our old messages, and the pictures he sent are still there. I kept telling myself to do it, but I decided just not looking at them was good enough. Now I’m tempted. If I wasn’t in the library, I might even scroll back through our chats about books far enough to see a selfie in his underwear.

Alice told me he probably just got those images from Google or something, but I don’t know. They seemed real to me. They were always the same body, same underwear, same striped bedding. He could send me a picture as soon as I asked for one. At the very least, I do really think that those pictures were of the guy I was talking to. Whether anything else he told me was true, I have no idea.

I look around to see if anyone’s watching and think twice at the last second about looking at selfies of guys in their underwear in a library. Slamming my laptop closed, I decide to get out of there before I do something crazy.

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