Ben

Ben got used to his new school pretty quickly. It helps that Max was there. He couldn’t believe his luck when the boy who took him under his wing at basketball camp ended up being his almost-next-door neighbor. If Ben is completely honest, he wasn’t sure about him at first. Max is the picture-perfect white, straight, douche jock. Or so he seems. He is actually a kind and caring person with a strong moral compass and, that’s true, a bit of an obnoxious sense of humor.

Max has been a godsend to Ben’s life. Twice. The first time when Ben joined this basketball camp near Atlanta for the first time. He didn’t know anyone there and he had always been a shy kid who didn’t know how to mix with people. He knew he would be accepted by the other players as he is skilled on the pitch, but he wasn’t sure if he could make friends. And then Max happened.

The second time was when they bumped into each other when Ben and his mother were moving in. Ben remembers being so happy to see a familiar face, but even more so that this familiar face would remember him. Once more, Max took him under his wing. He helped him get a good start in school, got him a tryout that put him on the basketball team, introduced him to his friends… Most importantly, he gave Ben his unconditional friendship and support.

Ben doesn’t know where this is coming from, but the two of them just click. The introvert and the outgoing. Opposites do attract, he supposes. Or maybe it’s just logic. How would two introverts find each other in the first place?

It took him a couple of months, but Ben finally feels like he is home in this new city. His mom seems happier since she doesn’t live in the same neighborhood as his dad and his new wife. He made new friends, maybe closer ones than he had in Savannah. He got into the routines of his new school, academics and sports, still an eye on the prize: Columbia.

There is one more thing that Ben is grateful for, even if he shouldn’t be. That something is a someone.

It took Ben a few weeks to realize what was happening. Or maybe he was trying so hard not to notice. When you’re a boy, you have to be careful who you crush for. So Ben never acknowledges his crushes. This time, though, he couldn’t even pretend that he wasn’t seeing it. Every day, at lunch, he is completely reduced to silence, entirely incapable to talk to Paul. Or in Paul’s presence, really. He finds himself only able to look at him.

Once he accepted that he was developing feelings for the smiley boy, he immediately understood why. A long list of little things he noticed one day at a time and that won’t leave his mind. It’s his silver eyes, his laugh, the way he truly cares about his friends, even for the smallest things, the way he holds eye-contact longer than he needs to, as if he was building a secret bond with every person he is looking at, how positive he seems to be about everything… and, again, his eyes… God those eyes… The way they look… in every sense of the term.

Whenever Ben gets this deep in his crush, he closes his eyes, counts to three, and wishes it away. At first, he tried to get over it by convincing himself that it was hopeless. What could come from a crush with a straight guy anyway? But then he heard about the photo. He didn’t look at it, he refused to look at it – it was an intimate moment for Paul and he had no business involving himself in it – but he still knew about it.

Paul is gay. Well… Paul kissed a guy. Just because he didn’t take the time to shut down the rumors, it doesn’t automatically mean that they are true. Still. It makes Ben hope. Very much against his will, but he can’t help it. He knows it’s irrational. Just because his crush is gay doesn’t mean that he will reciprocate his feelings. Plus, he was kissing a guy who might still be in the picture. No pun intended.

Most importantly, Ben is nowhere near being out. Even more than falling for a straight guy, he refuses to enter a relationship if he is still closeted. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved.

Gay or not, crush or not, Paul has to remain a nice thing to daydream about, nothing more. At least until Ben feels courageous enough to stop hiding part of who he is.

It's very convenient to be living next door to Max and have the same extra-curricular activity. It means they can carshare most days. Sometimes, when Max’s dad and Ben’s mom are working late, the two of them stop at the diner a few blocks from their houses. It’s called Mindy’s, although the owner is a seventy-year-old man called Joe. Apparently, no one knows where the name comes from as Joe has a new story every time. He told Ben that he bought the place and kept the name. He told Max that it was his mother’s middle name. He told Leo that it was the name of his first sweetheart. Ben sort of likes the mystery.

Ben and Max have their favorite booth. It’s slightly aside, almost sheltered from the rest of the diner, and has a view of the hills instead of the parking lot. It’s usually empty because people either don’t see it or know that the waitress won’t see them most of the time.

Tonight, it’s already dark and Ben’s eyes are lost on the street lights, a couple of miles away.

“Hey, are you okay?” Max asks, reading the menu as if he weren’t ordering the same thing every time.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just tired. Practice killed me.” It’s not a lie. Practice here is rougher is than in Ben’s former school. It makes sense: bigger city, bigger school… Ben doesn’t mind it. Quite the opposite. He enjoys being challenged, he appreciates having to try his best and then a little harder, he likes that he isn’t the best anymore, and he globally prefers the boys in his current team. Max and Leo in particular, but all of them, really. But if Ben was being completely honest, this isn’t what he is tired of. He is tired of being afraid to be himself.

“Today was rough,” Max admits. “But you seemed off before practice too.”

Ben has felt off for a couple of weeks. It’s been a couple of months and the craziness around Paul’s infamous picture and forced coming faded down. There are still some forms of bullying. Nothing scary, but it’s sneaky and relentless. Things written on his locker like it’s the funniest joke, comments made using his name as a synonym for gay, winks from ridiculous boys thinking that it is the apex of humor… Paul pretends like he doesn’t notice nor care, but Ben knows that it probably takes a lot of strength and energy to see things that way. It even hurts him, when none of it is directly targeted at him.

Ben knows he should come out. To stop spiraling, to start the next chapter of his life, to be a supportive presence for Paul when he needs it, crush or not…

He looks at Max and he only sees concerns in his eyes. Max who has been nothing but support and light since Ben moved here. Before that, even. The two of them clicked instantly and even if it’s just ben a couple of months, Ben thinks he can truly say that he is his best friend. Not just now because he is the best one around, but ever. He just feels understood and accepted, and he seems to see who Max is behind the always happy, sometimes douche front he is presenting all the time.

Maybe Max is the safest choice. Ben thinks that he should tell him first. “Max, I…” But the words don’t make it out. Instead, his hand starts shaking on the table. Ben is about to hide them on his knees when Max gently grabs his wrist.

“Hey! Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just tell me.”

Max’s hand is steady, his smile is soft, and his eyes are caring.

“I’m gay,” Ben whispers low enough that Max might not have heard. Ben looks down, almost expecting to see Max let go of his wrist. He doesn’t. Instead, he answers the last thing Ben had been expecting.

“I know.”

Ben looks at Max, trying to see if he is joking. He doesn’t seem to be. He looks dead serious.

“You know?”

Max half-shrugs. “Okay… I didn’t know. I couldn’t know for sure before you told me… but I noticed a few things.”

Ben gets nervous. He is fine with ‘looking gay’, whatever that means, but he would hate to think that he is obvious. At least as long as he isn’t properly out. And now is as close as he ever got. Before now, the words never made it out of his mouth. Not even in the privacy of his bedroom.

“Things like what?”

“The way you look at someone.” This is even worse than Ben thought. He is noticeably into Paul? Could anyone else tell? Does Paul know? “Relax,” Max says, apparently knowing what’s happening in his friend’s head. “It’s not like you’re obvious or anything, it’s just… I don’t know. You were acting differently at lunch and I guess I wanted to understand why. I was afraid that, maybe, you weren’t comfortable for whatever reason. It took me a while to get what was happening.”

“Me too,” Ben replies almost in a whisper.

Max lets go of Ben’s wrist when he hears the waitress approach and Ben knows that he did that for Ben not to be embarrassed and not because of whatever the waitress might think. They order the usual and when she leaves, Max has a happy spark in his eyes.

“So… Paul, uh?”

Ben feels his cheeks heat up and, as usual, he is happy that his complexion covers most of that. “It’s nothing. It’s just…”

“A crush,” Max finished.

“Something like that.”

“But it could be more.”

“Why. Because we’re both gay?”

“No, you idiot. Because you like him, because you’re a catch, because I’ve known Paul forever and he’s really nice, because you both deserve to be happy, and, yes, sure, it helps that you’re both gay. Plus, you’d make some very cute babies together.”

“It’s not how biology works.” Again. Max and his obnoxious jokes that are here to break the tension. It works, though. Ben feels much lighter. “But it’s not that easy. I can’t even talk to the guy.”

“I’ve noticed. Look… I know where you’re coming from, I have a crush too and I would rather die than tell her, but… talk to him at lunch sometimes. Start things off as friends.”

Ben ignores the part about talking to Paul. “It’s Sarah, right?”

“What?”

“Your crush. It’s Sarah.”

“Maybe,” Max answers, elusively. “How do you know?”

“I can’t speak at lunch. So I look.”

Max makes his ‘fair enough’ face. “Who else knows?” he asks.

Ben immediately knows that he isn’t talking about Sarah anymore. “No one.”

“Really? Well… I’m flattered. Are you going to tell your parents?”

“My mom, at least. I just don’t know how.”

Max nods but doesn’t give any advice. Ben appreciates that. He doesn’t know his mother that well and he can’t really understand what it’s like to be in this situation. Instead, he asks: “Not your dad?”

“I want to tell my mom first. See how that goes. We’re quite close, and I know she loves me, but she is also very religious. My dad and I have a different kind of relationship and he is very… I’m not sure if conservative is the word, but he definitely has standards and values. I don’t know where homosexuality stands in those. Besides, we haven’t spent that much time together since the divorce, so… I just don’t want to do this over the phone.

“Okay,” Max says. “You take care of telling your parents. I’ll take care of making Paul fall in love with you…”

Ben can’t help but snort. This went much better than he expected. It’s nothing but a baby step, but the world doesn’t seem so scary anymore.