Take Me Beyond Me (boyxboy)

*32*

Rightfully deserved, I endured the next couple of days without Shane or his concern. What I did to him was vile and selfish, so I knew nothing I could say would ease the tension between us.

Funny how everything I used to hold dear lost importance in the blink of an eye. Football practice seemed to loom forever, and I ignored all of my teammates. More accurately, they stayed out of my way. Somehow, my enraged confession earned me a special kind of respect. I think that might have spread as well because in the halls, nobody paid attention to me. No one even whispered about me.

I was invisible... and I liked that. It was the only bright side out of all of this.

Sometimes I'd be at my locker and see Shane walking with his cousin or Nolan, or they'd eat together with some other friends. I never intruded. Locking eyes with him was worse than having to look away. It was painful knowing he didn't want to talk to me. Knowing I deserved it for hurting him.

At this moment, I was in the locker room with the rest of my team preparing for the game in a few minutes. I couldn't say I was looking forward to it. No one was coming to see me. If I hadn't put myself first so often, Shane would be out there.

Suddenly, someone sat next to me on the bench as I tied my shoelaces.

"Hi, Jace."

I sat up and turned my head to see Kaleb next to me. I stared at him for a second before rolling my eyes in exasperation. Hi my ass. "Leave me alone, Kaleb."

He sighed. "Kane had a long talk with me when he found out about the whole...situation. Listen, it won't do any good, but I just wanted to apologize before the game starts. I had something against Shane for a long time and I wanted him to hurt like I did. It's a long story-"

"No, I know. The car accident, and the driver that was injured was your boyfriend."

Kaleb raised his eyebrows at me, surprised that I knew. He relaxed and let out a shaky breath. "Is my boyfriend."

"I'm not gonna hound you about having one. I don't care if you're gay, bi, transgender..." I shrugged. "No one should ever care. I'm glad Shane taught me that."

He slowly nodded. "I haven't seen you two... together-"

"Yeah, well why would you?" I squinted my eyes at him. "You got what you wanted. I was too much of a coward to openly be with him, you used that against me and he basically can't stand the sight of me. What're you sorry for? Give me a break." I bent down to continue tying my shoes.

"I understand. But I had to say sorry. I was wrong."

"Your boyfriend- Is he better?" I inquired.

Kaleb nodded. "Much better, yeah."

I was silent for a minute. "So you don't have anything against me being gay? The point of all this crap was just to get back at Shane?"

Kaleb sighed. "Part of it was insecurity. I wanted to hide who I was, you know. But after you shouted that you loved Shane..." He nodded. "It hit home, and I realized if you can come out like that, hell, so can I."

"My coming out shouldn't be the reason you're sorry. Kaleb, if you love your boyfriend so much... how could you not want to tell the world?" I looked at him, genuinely curious.

He nodded, silently agreeing with me. "No, I wanted to. I want to. Again, I'm sorry for everything. We have a game to win, and I'll apologize to Shane later. I just wanna ask you a little favor."

"What could you possibly want from me?"

Kaleb glanced at his hands nervously. "I really wanna win this game. My boyfriend's been away for a while, but he's back in town and... he came here to see me play."