Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Five

The list is waiting for me.

I leave before Aydin arrives and before Liza leaves. I have to know. I have to know now. It's like something clawing at my mind, digging into my thoughts, and every single thought I have is infested and becomes flawed with worries about whether or not I made the team. I can't wait any longer.

Liza will probably think I'm a fool because I can't wait a half hour, but she doesn't understand. She doesn't understand the drive I have to prove myself. She doesn't understand how badly I want any good news I can have after what happened with dad.

I'm at the school minutes after they've unlocked the doors.

And I'm not the only one.

Blaine and Sadie are standing next to the bulletin board. From the smiles on their faces and the high five they share, I know they've made the team. Blaine's smile is ear-to-ear, and it lifts my heart a little bit. Sadie gives a little whoop and it makes me chuckle.

Blaine sees me, and, if it's possible, smiles even wider. "I was wondering when you'd show up!" he says excitedly. "You seemed like the kind of person to want to know as soon as possible." He takes a pause. "My kind of person." He seems confused that he said it. He seems confused that he thinks it's true.

The way he says it sends a shiver down my spine and I shake it off quickly. I don't have time to figure out if it's a good shiver or a bad shiver. He gestures me over to the board. I see a smattering of names across a bright orange piece of paper with the word Ultimate across the top in a bold font. I can't read it from here.

I sneak around Sadie who is still celebrating and let my eyes fall on the bulletin board.

My eyes flick to the middle of my paper, finding my last name in the alphabetically organized list. I see two Nicolls, both me and Aydin. My jaw drops as my eyes linger there. "I made it," I whisper. I have no idea why I'm surprised, or why I doubted myself. I'm a skilled player, I shouldn't have worried as much as I did.

"You made it," Blaine says. I look at him and his eyes lock onto mine, his smile still as wide as the Grand Canyon. The image buries itself into my mind, to be dredged up later at inappropriate times. I look at his face, which I've never really looked at before. His sparkling eyes, his flashing teeth, his dimpled cheeks, the stubble on his chin, the wave in his hair. My heart inflates when I sink into his features, absorbing them.

I sigh. Another nice straight boy to fall for. I metaphorically punch myself in the heart. Why do I have to be like this? Now practices are gonna be awkward and I'm gonna be nervous when I talk to him and Liza's gonna scold me about it.

My brain knows this is trouble.

But my heart loves it.

My heart makes me smile back.

My heart notices I'm a little taller than he is.

My heart wants to have him.

My mind won't let my heart have him.

In this moment, I thank my mind.

But I still smile back anyway. And both my mind and my heart like the boost of serotonin it gives me. I give Blaine a high five when he raises his hand and I laugh, the first pure laugh I've released in years.

Sadie wraps me in a hug. I don't even remember seeing her before yesterday, but she seems to think we hit it off pretty well. Normally, I would be scared right now. I would be worried that she would react badly to being told who I really am. But I'm not scared. Because I can assume she knows. I can assume she does because I know it's drifted around the school. You don't get a lot of rumors like that. I can assume she knows that I'm gay, and that it doesn't matter. Now that the important people in my life know, I'm happy to embrace her back and be hopeful that maybe this is the start of a new friendship. I would like one of those.