Love, Hypothetically[Theta Alpha Gamma 02 ] Read Online Free Page B

to him, just mostly. “Paul, you need to stop trying. It’s not going anywhere,” he said.
Paul straightened himself—mentally and physically— and carefully shut off the running water. His heart thudded in sync with the sound of the last few drops dribbling from the nozzle, and he took those few drips of time to gather his calm.
When he turned back to face them, Calvin was staring at him in a way he didn’t like. Paul swallowed. “Yeah, obviously this isn’t what I thought at all.” He tried to look at Trevor, but Trevor wouldn’t lift his gaze from the ground. Paul forced himself to rasp, “Sorry,” and then walked to the stack of towels, shaking hands wrapping one around his hips in the completely silent room.
As he walked to his pile of clothes, Paul heard Trevor say surreptitiously, “Calvin, be cool and don’t mention this to anyone, okay dude? I don’t want to embarrass the guy, or make it too hard on him.”
It was way too fucking late for that.
    Calvin didn’t have any qualms about embarrassing Paul. Or humiliating, harassing, or tormenting him. He and most of the rest of the jocks at Roosevelt High School—who Calvin had informed tout de suite of Paul’s sexuality—made the end of his senior year hell. Fortunately, it was only a little over a month before graduation. That was a bigger consolation than the fact that Trevor didn’t join in the torture.
    Trevor didn’t help him out, either.
He did show up at Paul’s place at 2 a.m. a few days after the locker room incident. It wasn’t like Paul was asleep—he hadn’t slept much since that scene anyway. But it was still a bit of shock when Trevor shimmied up the tree outside his window and tapped on the glass.
“We’ve been having sex in the back of my car for six months when you could have just climbed this tree?” were the first words out of Paul’s mouth. He only just managed to keep his voice quiet so as not to wake his family.
When Trevor started to answer, Paul waved him off angrily. “Never mind, that’s not even important and utterly absent from the list of things I’ve been compiling to say to you. You know, should I ever get the chance to speak with you again.” He sneered at Trevor, not offering to help him over the sill and into the room. When Trevor tried to climb in, Paul blocked him.
Trevor sighed and stopped. “Okay, just say what you need to say.”
“No!” he whispered furiously.
“Why not?” Trevor looked like a confused, nocturnal monkey, clinging to his tree, whispering through his open window.
“Because I can’t,” Paul burst out, his voice nearly breaking the quiet barrier. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was, Trevor? You think I’m upset because I got forced out of the closet, don’t you? I’m not. You know what, Trev? What destroyed me in that locker room was being sacrificed by my boyfriend for a fucking game.” He felt like breaking down and crying, and he had to turn away from Trevor to keep from showing too much.
Trevor didn’t answer for long seconds. “Paul, I wasn’t really your boyfriend . . .” He sounded as if he was trying to convince both of them.
It would have been kinder to punch him in the chest. Paul whirled around to face him again. “Oh, how could I forget, I was just the guy who was satisfying your curiosity. I hope you figured out whatever you needed to, because any future investigations will have to be conducted with some other handy homosexual.”
“Paul, c’mon . . .” Trevor let his head hang down. “I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
Paul was too wrung out for this. Yes, he generally met everything with a healthy dose of caustic anger, but he was having a hard time hanging on to his anger now that Trevor was actually here. He sat on the floor in front of the window and buried his head in his hands. “I knew fucking baseball was more important to you than anything—I even accepted that—but until the other night I didn’t feel it. Now I know, and I can’t