Living in Sin (On Hold)

Seventeen _ At Every Turn

Rina

Alone as Derek left behind to change, I walked back onto the field. It wasn’t that late like I’d thought. Sure, everyone seemed to be here but the ‘election’ was yet to begin.

I did notice Nicole in the dugout with Steve but opted to steer clear of them and started doing warm-ups near the group of kids who obviously were here for the tryouts. It should’ve been awkward, doing these exercises alone while almost everyone had warm-up buddies. But I hardly felt it.

Truth be known, I felt pretty proud of myself. ‘A lot’ had happened these last few days and if this were only 1 year ago, I doubted I’d been able to tackle these situations like I had. Well, at least that was what I’d thought I’d been doing: tackling!

Kim showing up just out of the blue would’ve been enough to weigh me down to the floor. That added by Jen’s yet-to-unfold secrets and Nicole blowing hot and cold, not to mention those marks all over my chest would’ve been a hell lot more than I could possibly take. Yet I found myself with a smile, making new friends even. What the hell was ‘right’ with me?

So I was virtually floating on the air of pride when I fell into another conversation with a boy.

“That makes sense.” He opined as I told him that I wasn’t here for the tryouts initially. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t think you are really cut out for the position.” He said, giving me the third once-over of the day.

I said nothing back but just gave him an I-know nod smilingly. He continued. “And it is good to know,” he said, glancing around but never slowing the pace, “that you are really here for the team.”

I gave him a puzzled look at which he answered. “Enough girls had tried out not for the team but for the player.” I followed where his gaze ended up and met eyes with Nicole from her dugout conversation. Immediately I broke the gaze. “I believe you are not into girls?”

“Umm, no.” it was just an answer to keep safe. Actually, I hadn’t given a serious thought about my sexuality, or my into-ness. But Kim was more than a friend; that was for sure.

“Great.” However, though I wasn’t gay, the homophobes didn’t exactly occurred to me as people to be friends with. And this guy was turning out to be just that. So I felt more than glad when I heard Derek pipe in.

“Hey, Seth.” Falling into stride with us, he greeted the guy.

“Hey.”

“Rod wants to talk to you.”

“Really? I’m off then. Hey, nice to meet you.” He waved and parted away to the sidelines. I turned to Derek as we kept our pace.

Now that we were a little closer than we had been earlier, I noticed that he was not that taller than me like I’d thought. He must be at least five ten. That’d make me about only 5 inches shorter. But still I had to look up at him.