Freddie Cook is NOT a Sex God

the cancer card

Freddie Cook didn't get jacked by accident. His dad got cancer, which doesn't sound like the start of a classic work out montage but his dad's diagnosis is what made the whole family go on a health kick. They started going on hikes, and Freddie's dad joined a gym so Freddie did too, because that's what you do when someone you love gets sick. You try to control everything you can because you know you can't control anything that matters. Around the same time Freddie also started going on long runs, which was more about getting out of the house than getting healthy.

While most of Freddie's classmates were coming  to school bragging about punching holes in their bedroom wall, or secretly installing a locks on their door, Freddie just wanted to make his dad's life a little easier. Turned out cancer was a parenting trump card. So if Freddie felt like something in him was going to burst inside him he put his headphones in and ran until he was too tired to care. Occasionally in the dark moments he'd never admit to, Freddie wished he'd hated his dad more before he got sick so he could still get mad like all his friends did, but then he hated himself for thinking that and he had to run for another two hours to forget it.

For Freddie the changes to his body didn't exactly have positive connotations. He mostly ignored it unless he had to buy new clothes, which to be fair was happening more and more at the time. He knew he was fitter than he had been but everyone in his year was getting taller and bigger or something so no one seemed particularly bothered by Freddie... until he got doused with lemonade and took his shirt off.

Even at the time Freddie thought the reaction was a little weird. He noticed pretty quickly that most of the girls, and more significantly a couple of the guys, were staring very obviously at his bare chest. He thought about picking his shirt up to cover up but by that point Darren Clark had already started ribbing him for being too prissy to take a splash of water. Freddie wanted to defend himself but he met eyes with Lauren Swan. Seeing desperation and fear, Freddie didn't say anything. He ignored the staring, including a disturbing look he got from their PE teacher, and laughed along with the teasing until they got bored by his lack of reaction. Soon enough excitement abated and everyone moved on, Freddie figured that would be the end of it, but something insidious was bubbling beneath the surface.

Later that day, Lauren Swan searched him out and pulled him away from his friends to privately thank him for not outing her contraband lemonade. Freddie said it was fine because it was, he couldn't see what the big deal was. When he returned to his friends they all joked about Freddie 'getting it' as teenage boys tend to do even when they're not entirely sure what it is they're supposed to be getting. But they said the same thing every time any of them spoke to a girl, so it barely warranted notice. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight Freddie would probably say that was were the rumours started.