The Distance

AUGUST - COLE, 1

I never wanted to make a statement. I never wanted to be different, or so different that I stood out. There was comfort in being just one unremarkable face in a crowd. And though I admired those who marched to the beat of their own drum, unabashedly declaring to the world, "Hey world, this is me, deal with it," it wasn't something I wanted for myself. I didn't want attention; I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted privacy. I wanted people to keep their opinions to themselves. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My mom named me Cole. It was her last name before she married my dad and became a McMillan. It was the summer of 2010 and I hated my hair. It was an indecisive color, not strawberry blonde, a light brown, or any color in a crayon box. It was ish, as in gray-ish, blonde-ish, brown-ish. My sister called it dusty or dirty. Not to mention it always stuck out on both sides of my head like a lopsided pair of animal ears.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I frequently had to mash down the untamable hair with water. I flexed my arm as I did. I had very skinny arms. My whole upper body was pretty skinny. In contrast, my thighs and calves were quite thick. I had what some would call a bubble booty. I blame this all on the fact that I decided to run cross-country my first year of high school. Four years later, my body had changed to reflect that life choice. I wasn't musclebound like the boys on the football and wrestling teams. Nor was I evenly toned like the basketball and soccer boys. my body was unusual, yet another way I inadvertently stood out.

To make matters worse, I had recently discovered I was bisexual. It took me a moment to figure this out. I had crushes on girls in my grade. I even had a girlfriend as a sophomore. Anna. It didn't last very long, but we went to a school dance together and we made out a few times. All that was great. Meanwhile, I had a crush on exactly zero boys. Most of the boys at my school were assholes. So even if I thought one had an attractive face or body, I wanted nothing to do with them.

My revelation instead came from watching professional wrestling. At first, I convinced myself that I simply admired my favorite wrestlers and wanted my body to look like their bodies. I wanted my hair to look like their hair. Well, some of them. Some of them had terrible hair. But then, watching it alone, I started to show some physical signs of arousal. This was followed by dreams that, despite being entirely nonsensical, became explicitly sexy.

But I didn't know what to do with my revelation. 2010 in St. Louis, Missouri wasn't the greatest place and time to be a bisexual teenager. I couldn't tell my sister. Olivia was older but not wiser and notoriously could not keep her mouth shut. I didn't feel like I could tell my mom or my dad either. They were a couple of atheist liberals, but again- 2010 Middle America.

I also didn't feel like I could tell my best friend, Aurora Fletcher. She was incredible. An amazing artist, a great listener, and an edgy fashion sense. She was a late bloomer like me. She got carded at the movie theaters because she looked like she was thirteen even at seventeen. And she also had a crush on me. That was painfully obvious. I wished I liked her back. That would have made things so much simpler. I thought if I told her I was bi, it would break her heart.

According to television, bisexuality didn't exist. Girls just said they were bi to make themselves interesting to boys and boys said they were bi until they admitted they were gay. Once, I saw a bisexual character on a show and he turned out to be a serial killer. It was never presented as a real option. I only knew what was in my heart - and my heart did not specify any specific gender when it skipped a beat.

I had been voted as captain of the cross-country team and had a responsibility over the summer to lead optional practices at Kingsley Park. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, we were supposed to get together and do different training exercises. Coach Sawyer's hope was that when the new school year started, we wouldn't have lost all of the speed and endurance we had gained the previous season. I like to think he imagined the entire team coming together every single practice instead of sitting home and playing Grand Theft Auto. But the reality was, only about a third of the team showed up for the first practice, and by the end of the summer, it was pretty much just me and Jason Hernandez.