Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Three

The rest of my classes breeze by. I barely absorb anything that's taught. All I'm focusing on are tryouts after school today. They're a place where I can prove I'm just like everyone else. Or close enough.

A place where I can be better.

And when the bell finally rings, I'm shaking. Because I'm scared of being excited to go to tryouts. I'm scared of thinking I can be good at something because, what if I can't? What if I just make a fool of myself? What if people laugh at me and blame it on my sexuality?

I notice I'm breathing quickly and I take a deep breath to calm myself down. I try to convince myself that none of that is going to happen, and it only partially works.

I grab my gym bag from my locker and turn to Liza. "Sure you don't want to come too?" I ask, smirking slightly. I already know the answer.

"No thank you," Liza says immediately. "Walking is all the physical exercise I crave."

I smile. "Alright," I say quietly. "See you after tryouts."

"See you," she says, shouldering her bag and walking out the door. I watch her leave.

Aydin materializes out of nowhere. "Ready?" he asks excitedly. I pretend like I wasn't just scared out of my pants and nod. "Let's go," he says, walking toward the gym. I eagerly follow. The previous intrusive self-deprecating thoughts are briefly put to rest.

As soon as I walk out of the changing room and into the gymnasium, I feel more at home than I have at home for the past months.

I see kids throwing discs across the gymnasium, jumping to catch them, chucking them down the length of the room. Aydin is standing nearby with a disc in his hands, and he looks slightly uncertain. "I haven't thrown one of these in a very long time," he admits, flipping it in his hands. I laugh and hold out my hand.

"Throw it," I say.

He curls his arm into his chest and violently untwists it, sending the disc sideways and angled straight into the floor with no spin at all. I don't want to laugh at him, but it's really hard not to.

"Don't use your arm so much," I say instead of laughing. "Forget about your arm. Use your wrist. You need it to spin and keep it level. None of this 'tuck the frisbee in my armpit before I throw' stuff. Hold it out from your body and use your wrist." I pick up the disc from the floor. "Like this." I adjust my hold on the disc, level it, hold it out from my body, and flick my wrist. The disc sails to Aydin, fast and with a lot of spin. He catches it easily and gawks at me.

"Show-off," he says.

I shrug. "Not my first time,"

He throws it back to me, still using his arm quite a bit, but it's more level than before and has more spin. I nod to let him know it was better. I throw it back. "You ready for this?" he asks me. "This team's pretty choosy about who they pick, and there's a lot of people here."

I look around me and see that more kids have trickled in since I started throwing with Aydin. There has to be at least thirty. We only need fifteen for a team. I whistle softly.

Aydin is talking again. "Do you think we'll make the team?" he asks hesitantly. "I'm really not that good..." He trails off. I try to take stock of who's all here. Connor Hock, Phillip Fisher, Trina Wanson, Blaine Dahlinger, Gina Victor. My eyes linger on each person, watching them throw, watching them catch, analyzing their skill. They're all pretty good.

"I think we've got a shot," I say. I watch Connor throw a huge backhand across the gym and watch Blaine come out of nowhere to pick it out of the air. It's very impressive. Someone cheers.