Taliesin

The rest of the day went by quickly. Tal hated being excluded from practice. He loved Ice Hockey, he loved playing for the Academy. It was a good distraction from studying and it kept him fit. When he first came to the Academy he had been forced to choose a club to join. There had been too many choices, and he had despised almost all of them. He never learnt how to swim so he couldn’t join the swimming team. He was rather shit at playing an instrument and his singing voice was horrible enough to scare people so he couldn’t join the school band either. The only two options he’d really liked were the hiking club and the hockey team. Despite the general opinion, Tal didn’t mind the cold. He fell in love with the Academy’s ice rink as soon as he stepped foot on it. He had to learn everything from scratch but his Coach, Mr. Moreno, had been patient with him.

Roughly two years later Tal paid him back for his efforts with one goal after another. He became the best player of their team and secured the Academy the first place in the local ice hockey league. Tal would give everything to get back on the ice to do some exercises. With a sigh, Tal stretched his arms. He figured that although he was banned from team practice he could still do some exercises at home. He couldn’t afford to slack off. The end of the season was near and they still had to win two more games to stay at the top. He wasn’t going to let his team down.

Tal threw on a loose shirt and changed into a pair of shorts. His Bluetooth headphones were at 60 % but he could charge them after this quick session. He searched for the last true crime podcast he had listened to and began with a few sit-ups. “How do you think he got away with it?” The first narrator asked seriously. “He was handsome, Darcy. People doubted that such a good, young lad could be so terrifyingly cruel.” Pictures flashed through Tal’s mind. He saw himself back in Nik’s room when his body had been paralysed out of fear. The narrator’s voice resonated like an echo through his mind. “He said those people deserved to die, do you think he was insane or did he have a messed up definition of justice?” Nik’s lips twitched as he smiled. “I don’t kill Gods, Taliesin. I kill those who defy them.” He was taking a step forward and raised his sword. In his imagination, Sally was kneeling before Nik. She was crying, a desperate scream leaving her trembling lips.

Tal sat up in shock. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and stopped the podcast. His hands were shaking. What was that? “Nik wouldn’t.” He said in an attempt to reassure himself but Tal frowned at his own words. How could he be certain? Was he so blinded by his crush? He hastily reached for his phone but it slipped through his fingers at first. He blamed the uncontrollable shaking of his hands on this embarrassment. He needed a few more tries before he managed to open a new chat with Nik. He changed his name as he’d planned to earlier and began typing.

>> Hey, you’re not going to hurt Sally for what she said, right? Just checking in haha.

Tal stared at the message and hesitated. It sounded bad. Really bad. What would Nik think if he received that message? He could almost imagine the pain in his voice. “So you think I’m a monster, Taliesin? Don’t you like me anymore?” Tal gulped. He swallowed a dry sob and shook his head. What was wrong with him? No matter what he had seen, he couldn’t just assume something so horrible about Nik. It wasn’t fair. He deleted the message and put his phone aside. Tal wanted to continue his workout when he once again hesitated. What if he was wrong and Nik was going to hurt her? He grabbed his phone.

>> Hey, this is Tal. I’m used to bad comments, there’s no need to punish Sally for what she said. Just wanted to let you know.

Would that be enough? Was it too much?  He chewed on his bottom lip while erasing the message again and leaned back until his back hit the floor. Maybe he should finish exercising first to clear his head. He could worry about what to write later. He convinced himself that Sally would be fine. Nik wouldn’t hurt her. They were friends after all. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Nik wouldn’t.”

Two hours later Tal was finally finished with his exercises and stepped out of the shower. He tied the towel around his waist and used another to dry his hair. He was worrying the whole time and didn’t notice the trail of water he left behind with every step. The towel around his hip couldn’t soak up everything as he picked up his phone and sat down on his bed. He was staring at the empty chat. He should at least text Nik to tell him when they could meet. Just how does one start a conversation?

As if writing alone wasn’t hard enough, his wet fingers made typing on the screen even more complicated. They moved hesitantly. He typed and deleted. He finished one sentence and erased it to start over. One text, two texts, three. He wrote them tentatively but nothing seemed right. Five minutes went by but the chat was still empty. Compared to that, Tal's mind was filled with unwanted thoughts. He was an overthinker through and through. What if Nik was just messing with him? What if giving him the wrong book wasn’t an accident? What if he’d given him the wrong number too? Everything he said, what if it was all a lie to make a fool of him? He called him a ‘descendant of the gods’. Wasn’t it pure blasphemy to believe that Tal could be such a powerful creature? Was it perhaps an internalised desire, a sort of greed that wanted it to be true, a rotten part inside of Tal that wanted to believe all the sweet words that left Nik’s equally sweet lips? After being an outcast for so long, how could he resist the chance to be put on a pedestal? Wasn’t it normal to want an explanation, a reason for the way his life had turned out? He had been wandering in the dark for so long, could he really blame himself for following the tempting warmth of the light at the end of the tunnel?