When we were Wallflowers

Chapter 1: How's the weather

"Aw, you're such boyfriend material."

It was a phrase Brent had heard a lot. Mostly from girls who said he was nice to hug, and sometimes even guys would say it to him in regard to his 6"7 height and wide build. Neither party tended to actually want to make Brent their boyfriend though.

He wasn't trying to gain pity when he said that. It was just something he'd come to notice. He was always "boyfriend material" never the boyfriend. It reminded him of that scene in Corpse Bride when Emily is taunted with the fact that she is always the bridesmaid and never the bride.

It weighed on him, especially as he got older through high school and he still remained only "boyfriend material." He'd had crushes on girls that he would try and pursue, but he tended to get rejected. Which was fine, those girls had no obligation to like him back, but it still stung a little.

What exactly was it about him that designated him in the realm of 'boyfriend material' and not boyfriend?

The perfect boyfriend was tall but not too tall, muscly but not ripped, if not muscly then a dad bod but not fat.

Brent was sure that he had the perfect boyfriend body, but he had it in excess. He was ridiculously tall, he knew it, he didn't need every person that ever passed him in the streets to point out how tall he was as if Brent wasn't aware of it already. He had heard every tall joke there was; from 'How's the weather up there' to 'You could stand in the deep end of the pool.' The latter wasn't even that funny but he heard it all the time. Each time he was told the terrible jokes, he would laugh as if he had heard them for the first time; he didn't want the joke teller to feel embarrassed, that would just be mean.

He wasn't fat, but he definitely wasn't skinny either. He used to be a cute chubby kid when he was younger before his growth spurt hit and stretched him out.

If he flexed, then you could see a resemblance of an eight pack. Naturally, as soon as he un-flexed, his tummy fat would roll back over again and hide his possible eight pack. His mom called it natural padding and said that's why he was the perfect person to play defence in football. There was logic to her argument, but it didn't really help the fact that in the end he was... big.

He couldn't even make up for his body by having a nice face. His nose was too wide. His eyes were narrow and scary and if he didn't smile all the time, he'd look like he was scowling. He had big lips when compared to white boys, but quite thin lips when compared to black boys. Being mixed was supposed to get you the best of both worlds, but that didn't seem to apply to Brent.

It was frustrating just looking at himself in the mirror sometimes and knowing that people looked at him all the time and saw everything that was wrong with him. Whatever. Nothing he could really do about it.

"Brent. You alright?" Asked Ezra. Now he was boyfriend material and people wanted him to be their actual boyfriend. He was handsome and friendly and perfect. The only stain on his record was that the only girl he'd ever gotten with was the infamous Joanna.

Brent felt guilty just thinking her name. She had been the girlfriend of his teammate, Colby, before she had been caught in the act of cheating on him with Ezra. It wasn't the first time she'd cheated on him, but it was the first time Colby knew of. To think that Brent  had even flirted with her at one point -fully knowing that she was Colby's girlfriend- he was the worst. To this day, the guilt of it kept him up at night.

Brent took his shirt off with the goal of getting changed for football like everybody else. The lockers were a little cramped and the lockers were quite small for the kit that was supposed to fit in them but it was good enough. He kept close to the wall and would never show more of his body than needed in front of his teammates.