This Love (Paige Bueckers)

1

TW: mentions of physical and mental abuse and homophobia.

narrative & text

iris pov

tonight Caitlin is coming to Connecticut for a game against UConn. I've never been very interested in basketball. pretty much the only games I've ever gone to were my sisters. tonight will be the first game I've gone to in almost four years.

I've gone to UConn for three years and haven't been to a single game. Claire always begs me to go with her, she's dating Azzi so she obviously only goes to watch her sweaty girlfriend run up and down the court.

she really wants me to go because she thinks I would like Paige Bueckers. I've definitely heard of her before, I mean I've gone to UConn for three years and she's the star player, so of course I've heard of her. but I'm just not sure how I would feel about a relationship right now.

a few years ago I was dating a boy named Noah. I dated him all of my freshman year and fell completely in love. he made me feel safe.

I was always scared to tell Noah about my sexuality. I had known that I was bisexual since 9th grade, but the idea of coming out to him terrified me. at the time the only people who knew were Caitlin, Claire, and my parents.

sometimes I would hear Noah say things like, "he looks so gay" or "She's definitely a dyke" but I always thought he was joking.

one day I decided to tell him about me being bi and all he said was, "You don't need to worry about that. I've knocked the dyke right out of you. From now on, you're straight. because you're mine." then walked away.

he clearly didn't understand that just because I was dating a man, doesn't mean that I still couldn't like girls.

after our "conversation" about my sexuality, he started acting completely different. he would yell at me for the smallest things. he would call me a "dyke" every time I would so much as LOOK at a girl. I started to get so sick of it. one afternoon we were at lunch together, and I told him how uncomfortable and upset his words made me. he proceeded to tell me that he didn't care and that if I was going be bi, he was allowed to say it. I then walked out and told him that we were done.

Later that night I heard a banging on my door and opened it to see an extremely drunk Noah. He let himself in and started going off about how I'm a bitch who would regret breaking up with him. We yelled for about an hour before he hit me. He punched me in the eye and then kneed me in the side. Right as he was about to punch me again, Claire walked into the apartment. She started yelling at him to leave, and he cooperated for once in his damn life. That was the last I heard of him.

Noah is the reason that I'm scared of a relationship.

I walk into the stadium and meet up with my parents.

"hey, Iris! I've missed you so much, sweetheart!" My mom says.

I hug my mom and turn to see my dad and say, "Hi Dad!"

"Hey kiddo," He says, pulling me in for a hug.

My parents lead me to our seats and we sit down. Both teams are doing shoot around. I look around and find Caitlin. She turns and waves at me before going back to talking with Kate.

My eyes wander around the room, eventually falling on Paige. Her hair is up in two braids going into a ponytail on the back of her head. She moves gracefully, as she passes the ball to her teammates and runs to shoot it. I see her look over at Caitlin and stick her tongue out at her. Caitlin sticks her tongue back out at Paige, before laughing and turning back around to shoot