That Night

1.9

Warning: use of homophobic and racial slurs.

"I know Etger Revan is known as one of the weaker schools, but that doesn't mean we can underestimate them. This is our first game and we are going to show everyone that we will make it to post-season this year!" Jeremy shouted, and the twelve of us erupted into cheers.

"Thank you Jeremy," coach said, "starting six get on the court!" Our teammates clapped and hollered as Jeremy, Kade, three seniors and I got on the court. I stood in the back court with our libero, Xander, a 6'5 black guy that looked intimidating as hell but was a sweetheart off court. Next to Xander, was Kade our setter. In front of Kade was Jeremy, opposite hitter. Our middle blocker was Nathan and Nathan's left was Gideon, also a hitter who was in front of me.

Etger Revan's strongest player served first and the ball spiked down hard near the net and Xander almost missed it. Kade sprinted down to the front to set for Jeremy, who performed a perfect spike, landing right on the back corner line.

More than half of our school that came to support us cheered while the Etger Revan's students booed us. We rotated and it was Jeremy's turn to serve, our opponent missed the first three serves and only barely managed to passed back the fourth serve.

This continued on for a while, they did managed to have a few lucky shots but otherwise, it was a pretty easy game. When our scores were 18 to 5, coach switched Gideon and Nathan out for another senior and Kean. We won the first set 25 to 8.

The second set, coach decided to switch Xander with Blake, and Gideon for another senior. Jeremy served first and the second set began. Blake was not as experienced as Xander and sometimes missed a few, but we all helped him out. The scores ended up 25 to 12. Thunderous applause filled the court and our teammates rushed on court to congratulate us. After a quick drink of water, we went back on court to shake hands with Etger Revan. Just as we were almost off court, I heard one of them said, "Can't believe we lost to some fags,"

Before any of us could react, Jeremy punched the guy. The guy stumbled back, holding his jaw, the corner of his mouth tickled with blood. His teammates scowled at us and tried to punch Jeremy, but Kean had moved in front of Jeremy and took the punch. Kean staggered back and Kade caught him, Kean's nose began to swell.

"Fucking niggar," the guy who was bleeding said to Jeremy. Xander, who was holding back Jeremy let Jeremy go and Jeremy pounced on the guy. His teammates were too shock to help him. The referees that were going to stop Jeremy were too taken back and only unfroze when Jeremy was thrown on the floor.

Before the guy could pounce on Jeremy, the referees finally intervened and held the guy back. Jeremy called after him, "I'm Filipino, not black, at least use the correct term."

The guy flipped him off as the referee brought him back to his coach. Xander offered Jeremy a hand and got him on his feet. Wincing, Jeremy limped after the referee back to our coach. The referee talked to our coach while we brought Jeremy and Kean to our nurses office. Luckily, our first game was held in our own school so we knew the way.

Limping, Jeremy went towards Kean and Kade drifted back to me. While the two in front of us talked in low voices, Kade and I didn't speak. I couldn't believe what had happened, I still couldn't process it. Kade and I didn't hide our relationship and Kade regularly posted on social media. With his 2K followers it was no surprise that even Etger Revan's students knew as we had went to few of their parties and knew some them.

I realised that we were lucky to not have experienced this earlier. The support from our parents and friends had hid us from the reality of the world, that most people still found it disgusting and would hate us just because we were not straight.

"I hope he gets expelled," Kade said with malevolent.

I agreed.

The nurse said we were lucky that Kean's nose was not broken and Jeremy had only bruised his tailbone. They asked us to go back to coach and they didn't need to tell us twice. Kean and Jeremy were too invested in each other to really care.

When we got back, Etger Revan had already left and our team all looked at us as we told them that Kean and Jeremy would be fine.

"Jeremy would be out for the next three games," coach said,

"But he is the captain?" I pointed out, this was so not fair.

"Would you rather he gets suspended for a week?" Coach said pointedly.

Jeremy's parents would kill him if he got suspended, we shook our heads.

"And he will have detention for a month," coach finished.

"What about that guy?" Kade shouted, our teammates all echoed, "yeah what about him?"

"He will get suspended for two weeks and not able to participate for the rest of season," coach said bitterly.

"He should be expelled," Blake called out, everyone agreed.

Coach silenced us, "I know, but Jeremy did punch him too and his parents are generous donators of the school, his mother is also the leader of the parent council. There isn't any more we can do."

We could only seethed in silence, coach looked as angry as us but we only had so much power.

The practices were rough, without Jeremy, the team's mood were gloomy like the skies without the sun. I tried to bring the mood up but it just wasn't the same. We lost two out of the three games without Jeremy and that did not improve our mood.

When Jeremy was allowed to play again, we won all the following matches and managed to make it into the season. Etger Revan as predicted, did not and that was enough of a celebration itself.

"Party my house tonight!" Kean announced, as we finished the last practice of the week. Everyone cheered, it had been more than a month since we partied and everyone was done with the tension.

That night was nothing short of wild, almost the entire school came. Kean's enormous house had never felt so crowded. When everyone was drunk enough, Jeremy, stood on top of a table and got everyone's attention.

"Fuck the Etger Revans, we fucking made it into the season while those assholes didn't. Fucking karma, fuck them," while everyone was cheering and filming, Jeremy jumped on Kean. Kean, who was equally drunk, tried to catch him but they both ended up on the floor. Then Jeremy kissed him and the crowd got even louder, screaming and cheering.

Feeling like a proud dad, I turned towards Kade and kissed him. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed two girls kissing, and their friends surrounding them cheering.

I smiled into the kiss, surrounded by supportive friends, knowing that Kade and I had inspired Jeremy, and probably even more people in our school and out there, to be themselves.

Because fuck them, we would be us and wouldn't give a fuck about racist and homophobic people. We deserved love like everyone else.

And I couldn't stop smiling because the familiar bitter taste of vodka, with honey and spice, brought back memories from that fateful night.