Before The Sunrise

lie

Since I was six years old, all I've ever wanted is to be an NFL football player.

At that age, no one thought my obsession with Tom Brady was anything more than a cute boyhood admiration. I caught shit from my friends for being a bandwagon fan for the Patriots, but I never cared for his team; I just loved to watch him. And at some level, the adults weren't wrong; I've wanted to be Tom Brady for my whole life. I've spent the past ten years chasing the dream of being drafted into the NFL, being the Rookie of the Year, making the playoffs, being the League MVP, and most of all, holding the Lombardi trophy with confetti falling around me (though for years I wanted to do it in a Ravens jersey, at this point I've accepted that any NFL jersey will do). Preferably, I'd do it as many times as Tom Brady gets to.

I still have a shrine to Tom Brady on my wall. I still dream of becoming him.

Where the adults went wrong, though, is that as much as I want to be Tom Brady, I also would really like to kiss him.

Unfortunately for me, Tom Brady is apparently married to a hot, female supermodel.

There are tons of players in the NFL who, like Tom Brady, are married to hot, female supermodels. I have yet to come across one who, like me, grew up wishing upon the brightest star in the sky that he would 1) win the Super Bowl 2) meet Tom Brady as he gets named the MVP and 3) share a romantic, love-at-first-sight kiss with him under the purple-and-gold confetti.

I no longer wish for those things upon stars. I no longer need to pray that whatever god that's out there will make me a football player; I am one, and a fucking good one, too.

Mostly, I just wish that I could be straight.

Last February, I went to see our school's production of Hairspray with my best friend, Rosie. I, being from Baltimore and having seen and heard Hairspray approximately six million times, hardly followed the plot and instead became transfixed with the boy playing Corny Collins. His cheeky smile, his tailored suit, his glittery brown eyes.

When Rosie and I went to the lobby at the end of the show to say hi to our friend who was in it, the friend I definitely barely noticed next to Corny Collins, I saw the boy, and I snuck away from my friends in the crowd to say hi.

"H-Hi," I stammered, as shy as always. "You were—really good."

"Thanks," he replied with a kind smile. "I'm glad you came."

I stared for a moment, my eyes traveling from his black-lined brown eyes to his pink lips to his suit. Corny Collins stared at me, tilting his head to the side. Realizing I was making a fool out of myself, I ran away.

That night, I looked up his name in the program, and I stalked him on Instagram. Rafael García. I had never seen a social media page so genuine. He didn't bother to delete the cringey posts from middle school, and most of his captions were emojis. His page was full of smiles, memories with friends from musicals of the past, and rainbow flags.

Too shy to start a conversation myself, I simply followed him on Instagram and resigned myself to watching him from behind my closet doors.

A week later, I saw Josh Fuller, my teammate, slapping Rafa's books out of his hands, shoving him roughly into a locker, and calling him a fucking faggot.

I did nothing. Just watched as Josh humiliated this boy for being gay, for being no more of a fucking faggot than I am.

Because I was scared.

Rafa caught my eye as he picked up the last of his books. I tried to smile, but I failed.

Despite everything, he smiled back at me.