The uniform was a little tight, then again it always had been. He made sure to order it a size smaller when he was still trying to get Shane to hook up with him. The green jersey and shorts had been left untouched, same with the cleats and knee high socks. It had all been buried beneath shirts and boxers in the bottom of Carls drawer, but also buried in the back of his mind. Carl hated soccer, but the uniform always got him complimented. No matter where he wore it, men always stared and women always gasped and told him he was the cutest thing alive. Rick had even gotten into a fair share of arguments over the uniform and the men who were twice Carls age looking at him.
The soccer ball he was kicking around was sort of flat and covered in grass stains and dirt. If soccer were only kicking a ball into a fence Carl would have been wonderful at it. But it wasn't. Carl couldn't run or aim his kicks very well. He always got mixed up on who his team mates were and which goal was the one he was supposed to aim for. Carl sucked at soccer, half because he didn't bother to learn or try, and then the other half was because he was too busy looking at his coach rather than the field. Carl liked kicking the ball around, though. Running around his back yard and kicking it against each one of his fences.
The cleats were already starting to hurt his feet, probably because Carl wore them a total of two times and that they were a size too small. In reality, the cleats were barely even dirty. Today was the day they got the most use. The other two times Carl was at his games, sitting on the bench, digging his toes into the fake grass and dirt.
Carl moved from side to side, kicking the ball into the same few fence posts he had been all morning. Lori was out with her friends and Rick was driving around their quiet town, hoping and praying that a teenager would drive too fast and he could pull them over just so he could be doing something. It was around one or two in the afternoon, the sun already passing its highest point in the sky. He was covered in sweat and each kick burned, but the distraction was nice. It was necessary.
The heart break left Carls heart aching beneath his skin and bones. He didn't know why it hurt so bad. Shanes rejection didn't make him cry, it just pissed him off. But after replanting all the flowers and taking a shower, Carl went up stairs and cried his eyes out while eating chocolate and reading sad quotes. His night had gone from disastrous to pathetic all because of a few words from a huge asshole. Now, Carl didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to cry or worry or anything in between.
It would be a lie if Carl said he wasn't hoping Negan would see him. In fact, in the back of his mind, that was the entire reason Carl squeezed into the uncomfortable uniform for the first time in weeks. He already dreaded the uniform when he played soccer, but once he quit his hatred for the itchy fabric only grew. But if most men would look at him as he ran around in it, who is to say that Negan wouldn't too? Hes just as weak as the others anyway.
The fence shook each time the ball slammed into it and slowly Carl found himself kicking it harder and harder. Thw ache in his legs didn't stop him, though. Carl promised himself that he would never let a guy hurt him and that he would never cry over one. He had already broke both rules but he knew if he went inside he would simply break them again. Crying over Negan was pointless. It would just prove that he was the child Negan accused him of being. He needed to act unaffected so Negan would know he was mature.
He felt like a school girl with the way he replayed each happy moment with Negan in his mind. When they met. When he messed with him while he babysat. When he teased Negan under the table. Even when Negan took him outside and pushed him around. The thing that ruined them was Carl. When he rushed over to Negan and said all those things he looked like a desperate, immature child and it turned Negan off. If he had been bratty and sassy and left half way through with Negan wanting more it would have been okay. But he looked needy and clingy and he admitted to actually wanting Negan. It was no longer a chase.
