This week was awful. Walker and Taylor have been trying to walk all over me all week since I out played Walker in baseball, that became clear when Walker pounded me into the lockers the next day. In addition, I have nestled a bit in Jake's group, which has gone by itself.
He just invited me over for everything, lunch, practices after training or hanging out. The only bad thing is that Charlie is also in that group. I don't know much about her yet, it's not that she's not open about stuff, I think she's really an open book, except about her feelings, I saw right away that she's wearing a mask and I wonder if I'm the only one who sees it, since no one ever makes a comment about it.
Besides that, all I know about her is that she has a twin brother, Keith, that she is 17 and plays baseball. I want to get to know her, just like I am getting to know the other guys now, but every time I get close to her I forget how to talk, even breathing is difficult.
I've also been getting more attention since I started hanging out with the guys and I hate it. All those guys smile and wink at me, aiming to get into my pants.
Over the past few years I have learned one thing and that is that they are all the same and It makes me sick. Don't get me wrong, I was in a relationship, he was completely crazy about me, but I just didn't have feelings for him. Nothing at all, he was like a friend to me. From that moment on I knew for sure, I am gay. I just don't dare to admit it yet. God I don't even dare to tell anyone.
Now I would have liked to say it to my mother before she could no longer communicate normally, but at the age of 12 I was still figuring myself out.
"Jo Jaystar, what are you thinking about?" Jake puts his arm around me, drags me to the dugout. I almost forgot we had training now.
I try to smile. "School."
"Mm-hm," he grins, almost as if he knows what I'm really thinking about.
"What?" I ask when I hit him with my shoulder.
He shakes his head. "Nothing, you know, nothing at all."
"Jake!"
He laughs and runs to Andrew. "I say nothing."
"Jerk," I mumble under my breath.
"I agree with that." I look ahead, forget my bag and swallow. Charlie throws her things next to me. "If he keeps it up he is in a wheelchair next time."
I can't help but smile. "What did he say to you?"
"What didn't he say?" She puts her cap on her head and grins. "I think it's still special that his head is still on his neck."
I bite my lip with a grin, I look at Jake, he tries to jump over his own leg and fails enormously. "Yes, I wonder that too."
Charlie looks at me, she seems to say something else, but Coach Lewis interrupts her.
"Later," she gestures, saluting the coach quickly. He shakes his head and cannot suppress a grin.
Coach claps his hands. "Start with a gentle warm up, stretch a bit, I want you running in two minutes." Ugh, I hate fitness training.
I follow Charlie to the boys. Jake leans on Andrew and folds his leg back. "I'm going to set a new record."
Keith snorts. "And I'm going to be president," he jokes.
Jake rolls his eyes. 'I mean it.'
"My grandmother is even faster than you and she has a walker." Andrew pats Jake's shoulder and leans forward to put his hands on the grass without bending his legs, mmm, I didn't expect him to be so nimble.
I shake my legs and laugh as Jake embarrasses himself again. He's sitting cross-legged and has managed to walk on his knees.
"Look guys, I'm a crab."
Keith, Charlie and Andrew sigh and turn their heads and continue to stretch, I can't help but laugh. He looks so moronic.
Finally Charlie looks up from my laughter and when she sees my flushed face a small smile escapes from her mouth. She quickly puts her hand to her lips before she laughs out loud, no one ever hears her laugh.
"Char, was that a laugh?" Keith looks up, he wants to tease Charlie with it, but when he sees me he also laughs.
"Guys are you-" Andrew's laugh fills up with ours. This is too funny. I have a stomach ache from laughing and my jaw hurts.
Everyone looks at me smiling. "Yes, sorry... I... Look at Jake..." I can't form sentences normally anymore and almost piss my pants because I laugh so hard.
"Stop." Charlie bangs me, which makes me fall to the floor. She expected that to calm me down a bit, but I've gotten the giggles in the meantime. Jake is lying next to me and laughs just as hard as I do. I believe we laughed at each other's laugh more than that his crab imitation was really funny.
"Okay." Coach claps his hands and is tired of our laughter. "I see some people think I'm doing all this for fun, so do an extra round." We immediately get some angry glances in our direction.
"Stand." Andrew pulls Jake to his feet, who tries his best to hold back his laugh.
Charlie shakes her head and holds her hand out to me. "Sucker," she grins, I can see the laughter continue in her eyes. "Take my hand." Oh. I was probably immersed in her eyes again. I shake my head and take her hand, as soon as our hands make contact I feel a crazy kind of tingling running through my body.
Charlie pulls me up with a lot of force and pushes me forward. "Run."
"Jake, I thought you said you were going to set a record," Charlie says as she runs next to me. Jake sprints straight ahead. Mark my words, he is already dead after the first round.
—————
What did I say? Jake is already running all the way behind, just barely tripping over his own feet and sweating like a moron. He had passed us for a whole lap and when he had caught up with us for a lap and a half, he could no longer continue. He's dead.
"How many times do we have to tell that boy that he has stupid ideas?" Keith sighs, even though he's co-captain of this team, Jake doesn't listen to anyone.
"I've already given up hope," Andrew says, shaking his head.
"Why do you think I don't say anything anymore," grins Charlie.
"He fucked himself over," I add. I try to keep up with their pace, we run ahead and for quite a bit now. Although my condition is fine, this breaks me down. I should have run more during the summer holidays.
Keith sighs. "Just wait, he'll say that the laughter bothered him or that he hadn't eaten properly." I shake my head, which makes Keith laugh. "Yes, really, or he's challenging someone else."
"Not me, after that big big defeat he didn't dare to challenge me anymore," grins Andrew, who is quite proud of himself.
"Then with what did you win?" I ask, I am a bit curious now.
"Ping pong." I chuckle.
"No really," he says dead serious. "21 - 2." Oh dear.
Keith shakes his head again. "We all said, don't do it, hold back a bit, but Andy just did whatever he wanted."
"I agree with him," adds Charlie. "Jake can be really annoying, he kept his mouth shut for at least 8 days."
"Was it really that bad?" I ask.
Now all three of them are nodding their heads. "He only spoke to us again when we offered his favorite ice cream and that went with difficulty." Keith takes a deep breath, almost as if is back in time again.
"I didn't know Jake liked ice cream that much," I grin.
"He'd kill someone for it," Charlie sighs, shivering from Jake's ice cream obsession.
Andrew grins at her reaction. "He'd do more than that." Oh God. I dropped the conversation a bit, now I really have to focus on my feet and my breathing. I am going to break down here and I try to do everything I can not to let it show. Yet someone has already figured it out, someone who seems to have understood almost everything.
Charlie grins at me, slows down her pace slightly, she winks. I say thank you without a sound, knowing that now she's getting thrown at her head that she's out of shape.
"What is this Charlie? Since when are you so slow?"
"Slow?" She says insulted. "You're going to tear off your hamstring when you're running from base to base at full speed, what I'm doing is called running."
"Bull shit," Keith gasps. Man these two can really bicker, it's not normal. I watch from Keith to Charlie as they throw arguments back and forth.
"Oh yeah, ask Dean, he tore his Acl last year and where is he now? Oh yeah, dropped out of school because his baseball career is over." When Keith remains silent, Charlie knows she has won, a smug smile appears on her lips for a few seconds. That was hot. Wait what! I shake my head, I must be really oxygen deficient.
"I like this pace much better," Andrew says, grinning at me. Oh come on, does everyone get it now?
"Wimps," Keith mumbles. "I'll just go for it, later losers." He speeds up again, making sure no one else catches up with him. Where did he get that energy from? He's already running far ahead of us.
Andrew is also looking after him. "He's really going to tear off a hamstring if he continues like this."
"Oh no," Charlie replies. "He's been doing that since he was six, he knows what he's doing."
"But why the discussion?" Charlie doesn't have to answer, Andrew knows the answer within 3 seconds. They both look at me with a grin.
"Guys, I don't need to hear it," I mumble a little grumpily.
"You can run next to Jake too," Charlie teases. "He runs at your pace."
"Nice, we are really nice again." She has to suppress her smile when she sees my gaze.
"If looks could kill," Andrew coughs. I shake my head and try to cover the last few meters without falling.
Unfortunately, things don't always go the way you want. I feel someone coming in my back, but I don't worry too much about it until they get really close. What the -
My foot gets stuck behind someone's else's and before I can make a jump I already fall. The red sand hits like a brick and I don't feel anything when I fall. Until I lie still and move a little bit. Everything happened so quickly that I don't even notice that someone is bent over me and talking to me. I can only put my hands under my head and suck in a few choppy breaths of air.
"Jay..." I get some water on my head, or it's sweat. I do not know anymore. "Jay, can you hear me?"
I force my eyes to focus and stare into two bright blue eyes. I forget everything for a few seconds, even the pain disappears. She looks at me concerned and I hear a small argument in the background. Andrew and... Who else do I hear? Walker, yes Andrew and Walker. I hadn't really seen Andrew as an angry type to me.
"Are you okay?" I look at the blue eyes again. "Jay?" She's bent over at me and rubs my arm.
"M-my knee," I mutter in pain.
"I know." She helps me sit up and puts her hand on my back for support, everything she touches feels numb and everything around it tingles.
My eyes find my knee, there is a wound on it, my other knee doesn't look good and my hands are also scratched. Damn it!
Charlie sees the frustration in my eyes and before anyone can see a tear running down my cheek, she wraps her arms around me. Why did she have to see this? I growl, why did that bastard have to drop me? My hands are the most important, I have to pitch.
"It's okay," Charlie whispers. "It's going to be okay, it's okay." She keeps saying words of comfort to me and as much as I want to be angry I can't. Not when she's got me in her arms like this. I give up the fight, don't hit the ground anymore and let my shoulders hang, let her hug me.
The words she said don't bother me because I know they are lies, but somehow this hug is comforting, a kind of home feeling. It's been an eternity since I've hugged someone that makes me feel fragile. I push my head against her chest and don't want her to let go. Those thoughts frightening me, what's happening to me?
—————
Long story short, it all seems to be less bad than I thought and that hug with Charlie I have cleared in my mind. I was deeply ashamed that I had let myself be known like that. I don't know what happened when she held me like that, I broke for a moment and I hate that. I didn't want anyone to see me break, especially Charlie. What I found even worse was the look in her eyes when I broke away from her, so much pity. I don't need her pity.
I shake my head, why can't this memory just stay in the trash?
Walker received extra training from our coach, as a punishment, which benefited me, and I was sent to the nurse to have my hands and knees checked. Everything was cleaned thoroughly, which hurted a lot, I really had to bite my tongue. The nurse put gauze on my knees and gave some ice for my hands. Rest appears to be all I needed.
I sit up when Jake slaps me on the leg. He immediately gets hit on the back of the head from Keith. "Ouch," I say expressly.
"Oops, sorry." Jake hands me an ice cream and jumps on the back of his truck next to me. The five of us are on Jake's truck. Well, Andrew and Charlie are still inside to get the rest of the ice creams. Jake promised to get me an ice cream as soon as possible.
"How are your hands?" Jake asks.
I stare at the scorched spots on my hands for a moment. "Fine, painful, but fine."
"So you can still keep on pitching?" Jake sounds hopeful.
"Jesus Jake if you hate pitching so much, why don't you tell Coach," Keith sighs.
"Because then Coach Lewis would kick me out of the team."
"Probably yes," Keith and I say in unison. Jake rolls his eyes.
"What are you laughing at him about now?" Andrew asks as he and Charlie come back with their hands full.
"Baseball," Keith replies. I take a quick bite of my ice cream so that I don't have to say anything and immediately regret it. My teeth! I get laughed at when I try to keep the ice in my mouth with everything in me.
"Come on, Miller, you can do it." I raise my middle finger to Andrew and finally manage to swallow the bite.
"I don't like doing it, actually I like it," Jake says, laying back and leaning on his elbows just like me.
"We know that." I start to laugh when everyone answers the same. Oh man, maybe not all of this day was fun, but I'm glad it turned out to be fun, sort of. I'm glad I'm hanging out with these morons, maybe if I know how to stay away from Charlie, learning to handle myself won't be all that bad this year.
"We have a team meeting next week." Jake nudges me. Or maybe this years is going to be terrible.