August (24 months since we both changed)
Jeremy texted me just before he got on the plane to Toronto.
Will you Skype with me once I’m settled in?
I was half-asleep at the time and, in my impaired state, responded with, Sure.
So now it’s early afternoon and I’m at my computer, waiting for Jeremy to sign in. I’m sitting in the middle of the living room of my new apartment, which is also the bedroom and the kitchen. It’s a one-room box, but I’m renting it by the month and it’s not breaking my bank account.
Aaron offered to let me stay with him until September, but I couldn’t do that to him. This is an in-between place, just until I can find something more permanent.
The computer dings, alerting me that Jeremy has signed in, and I wait impatiently while the call connects.
And then, for the first time since May, I’m staring at Jeremy.
God, he’s somehow hotter than I remembered.
He’s gotten a haircut recently, and the short blond strands stick straight up in the front, like they do when he tugs his sweatshirt off over his head. He has circles under his eyes, but he’s practically vibrating with excitement.
I mean, he’s at the Olympics. He’s literally living his dream. Can’t say I blame him for the excitement.
“Hey, Brandon.” His eyes light up as he speaks. “You look—” He bites his lip and his cheeks flush bright enough that I can see the color through the terrible camera on his laptop.
“Jeremy. You look really good yourself.”
He blushes deeper.
Shit, this was a bad idea. My attraction to Jeremy hasn’t waned a single bit in two years.
Two years. The realization hits. “It’s the beginning of August.”
He blinks, but catches on quickly. “Crazy how much has changed.”
It’s insane how much he’s changed, but I don’t say that part aloud.
Instead, I say, “Show me your room.”
He carries the laptop around, showing off the two tiny beds—“I don’t have a roommate, thank goodness”—and the view from the balcony overlooking a beautiful field. “It’s basically an apartment building, though the atmosphere is more like a college dorm than I expected. I mean, there are people everywhere! There’s a huge common area that we passed through, and a massive cafeteria that serves everything you can think of twenty-four/seven.”
“Sounds like my kind of place.” I’m grinning at the screen and at his unbridled enthusiasm.
“I wish you were here with me.” Jeremy’s face reappears on the screen as he sets the computer back down and returns to his seat. He sounds absolutely serious.
I wish I was too. The sad thing is, I’d be there in a heartbeat if I could. I haven’t been able to resist Jeremy since the first time we trained side by side. I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame—the gorgeous, talented-as-hell boy who used icy disdain to mask his fear. But I’m afraid of getting burned again, and that’s what makes me hesitate to say yes.
Loving Jeremy has been such a deeply ingrained part of me for the last year that I have to bite my lip and look away from the screen to avoid the pain that seeing him creates. I love him, but he’s hurt me once, and I’m not sure if I can risk being hurt again.
It’s easier to focus on the other reason I can’t go: I can’t afford it. When I looked it up, the plane ticket to Toronto, the hotel, everything I’d need added up to three or four months of rent at least.
I’ve never been ashamed of being poor before, but I’ve never been close to anyone who might use it against me, even unintentionally. Besides, latching on to my own relative poverty means I can ignore the part of me that wants to give in and go back to Jeremy’s side.The financial issues are just another thing to get between us. Jeremy made it clear back in May that we’re on two different tracks in life, and the last couple of months only nailed that fact home. Now I’m broke, living paycheck to paycheck. Jeremy is basically a superstar in the athletic community.
He’s committed himself to diving, shaped his entire life around it. And I’m not a diver anymore—I’m just a guy who used to dive. A guy who couldn’t afford to dive if he wanted to. When he broke up with me, Jeremy said that I didn’t take diving seriously, that I distracted him too much from his goals. That was when I was putting every ounce of myself into diving with him, shaping my life to be at his side. If that wasn’t enough devotion, how much worse will it be if I don’t dive full-time ever again?
As for the part where I distracted him . . . well, I can’t see how I wouldn’t be a distraction if I showed up in Toronto right before the biggest competition of his life. No, better to keep my distance.
Jeremy’s face changes, and I’m aware that I’ve been silent for too long.
“Sorry,” he says.
“Jeremy.” I exhale his name, and just saying those three syllables makes me feel better. “I want to, but . . . I can’t.”
Maybe if we’d done better at the World Series, none of this would have happened. If we’d qualified at the World Cup back in February, I would be in Toronto with Jeremy now. Would we still have fought in Madrid, if we’d secured that synchro spot six months ago? Maybe not. We could be diving together at the Olympics, sleeping together at night.
But then Jeremy wouldn’t be out.
“You know, I’m really proud of you for coming out.” I haven’t said that yet to him, which makes me feel like a terrible person. It seems like the rest of the world has already commented on it, but I’ve been silent. The interview attracted a lot of attention; I saw a gay blog make note of it, and then one of the bigger sports websites picked it up, including Jeremy in a list of openly gay athletes competing in Toronto. People left comments congratulating Jeremy, offering support.
This time his blush is clearly a pleased one. “I did it for you.”
“I hope you did it for yourself too.”
A beat, and then he nods. “For us.”
Is there still an us?
The conversation slowly turns back to the Olympics. Jeremy has the Opening Ceremony tomorrow, and then a week to enjoy the Village and the events before he competes. He’s arresting, backlit from the sunshine coming through the windows, skin glowing as he talks about everything he’s seen so far and what he’ll be seeing soon.
Eventually he glances at his phone. I look at my own and see that we’ve been talking for an hour.
“I should go,” I say. Better to untangle myself from this painful situation now; it’ll only hurt more if I get drawn in any further.
Jeremy nods slowly. “It was so good to see you again.” He pauses. “I like your hair like that.”
I run my hand through it, and Jeremy’s eyes track the movement. It’s just another nail driven home in the fence between us, another reminder that our paths in life are different. He’s clean, respectable; I’m like a guy who can’t afford a ten-dollar haircut unless I want to give up money for groceries.
Yeah, definitely time to end this call.
“Good luck with your event.”
“Brandon.”
The way he says my name makes me stop before I end the call. I glance back at the screen, and find him staring at me with desperation clear in his face.
“Please?” He doesn’t sound hopeful, but he asks like he has to try, one last time.
My heart sinks. “Bye, Jeremy. Have fun at the Opening Ceremonies tomorrow. I’ll watch for you on the TV.”
He looks down. “Bye, Brandon.”
I catch the Opening Ceremony at work, because it’s a week night and the bar is quiet. Everyone is half-watching anyways, so I don’t feel bad about stopping every so often to check the TV. There are tens of thousands of people in the stadium, and some crazy fireworks. A few of my female coworkers whistle loudly when they show the super-hot Canadian prime minister, and we all laugh.
Then the Parade of Nations starts.
I’m waiting for one of the last countries, of course, so I drop a few beers off at a table, and then take a tray of glasses to the back to be washed. They’re at the Gs when I come back out, so I wipe down tables, help drag a keg up from the basement, and take a few orders. They’re up to the Ps.
“You’re jittering like a junkie lookin’ for a fix, sweetheart.” It’s my manager Suze. “Didn’t think you were a big sports fan.”
I shrug. “I’m not really.” Just one sport, to be honest. “My b— I have a friend who’s there competing. I don’t want to miss him.”
She doesn’t seem to buy it, but it doesn’t matter because pretty much everyone in the bar gets excited when the United States comes out. It amazes me how enthusiastic people get when they can bond over something like the Olympics and being patriotic.
There are hundreds of athletes, so my chances are slim to none of spotting the one I’m searching for, but I still hold my breath and wait. There are smiling, waving people everywhere, but then—
There. A split second, a wave and a smile, and Jeremy stares straight into the camera like he can meet my eyes all the way from Toronto. Then the camera flips away, onto someone else, leaving me standing frozen in the middle of a bar in Dallas, feeling light-headed and surprisingly sad.
Suze catches my arm. “Friend, huh?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“Brandon, hun, the look on your face when that boy came on screen—that wasn’t friendship.”
I know.
“I should get back to work.”
Suze lets me go, but I catch her glancing at me through the night.
Jeremy said he was still in love with me. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t still in love with him; it’s only going to make this more difficult.
The bar is quiet for the rest of the night, giving me time to think. I’m already resolute in my decision to keep the distance between me and Jeremy—both physical and emotional. I can’t go to Toronto, and I won’t go back to Ohio. I have a life here in Dallas, I have Aaron and a good job. It might not be the glamorous life of a professional athlete, but maybe I can dive for fun sometimes. I’ll heal, and I’ll do that even better if I force myself to move on.
If I tell Jeremy, he won’t understand. He’s made up his mind that he can fix this, can fix us. He came out to the world, he’s at the Olympics, and now he wants a gold medal in diving, and his diver boyfriend at his side. He wants to just erase months of heartache. I can’t explain to him that we’re too different to work out, that we’re on two different paths. All he cares about is diving, and I can’t be a part of that any longer.
And trying to explain the money situation wouldn’t work either. He has sponsorships or endorsements probably, I don’t know, but he clearly doesn’t have the same problems I do. The money thing is just going to be another wedge between us, another reason for Jeremy to resent me when I can’t focus on diving with the same intensity that he does.
It’s easy enough to reach a conclusion: I need to let go of Jeremy. He’s apologized, and we can be friends from a distance, but that’s all we can be.
I honestly expected that to be the end of it. I mean, I didn’t think Jeremy and I would stop talking to each other altogether—and I hoped we wouldn’t—but I made a decision to leave things on a high note and to move on.
Obviously I was sadly mistaken, because I didn’t take into account the other part of the equation.
My phone rings the day after the Olympics begin. It’s midmorning, which means I’m just rolling out of my cheap futon bed and trying to decide if I want to be lazy and leave it as is, or if I want to be a grown-up and turn it into a couch for the day. The phone ringing decides it for me—besides, the only person who ever comes over is Aaron, and I don’t see him as much now that he has privacy to have his boyfriend over more often.
I don’t recognize the number, but it’s an Ohio area code.
“Probably the university asking for donations or something,” I mutter. But I answer it anyway, if only so I can tell them that I’m broke. “Hello?”
“Brandon Evans.”
What the— “Andrey?”
“Yes. I have heard a rumor that you wanted to come to Toronto to be with your team, but were unable to do so.”
Your team. Andrey has no idea how badly those words sting.
“You heard wrong,” I say. “It’d be cool to see the Olympics, but I’m good here in Texas.”
“Do you lie to yourself as poorly as you lie to me, Brandon?” Andrey doesn’t pull his punches when he wants to make a point.
And even though he can’t threaten me with sadistic exercises, I’ve clearly been conditioned from two years of training with him, because I don’t try to hide the truth. “I can’t, Andrey.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I exhale. “I can’t afford to.”
“Bullshit.”
I gape at my phone. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Andrey curse before, and definitely not so vehemently.
The words spill out, things I couldn’t say to Jeremy, or even Val; not because I’m embarrassed, but because I wouldn’t be able to accept their charity if they offered to pay for my plane ticket. “My job here barely covers my rent. I’d love to be there with you guys . . . with Jeremy. Hell, I’d come back to Ohio if it was remotely possible. You have no idea how badly I want to. But it’s not possible.”
“I don’t understand.” Andrey sounds puzzled.
I resist the urge to sigh. “Rent, Andrey. Food. The cost of living. I have a job now, and I work forty hours a week, sometimes more, just to break even. I can’t dive anymore because I can’t balance a job and training. And I sure as hell can’t afford flights and hotel for a vacation.”
There’s a silence, and I can hear a tap-tap-tap—Andrey’s finger against the side of the phone, I suspect.
“Brandon,” he says after a moment. “What do you think happened to all of the prize money?”
Um, what?
“What?”
He makes a strange noise. “The prize money. The money you, Jeremy, and Val are awarded when you place in an event at a competition.”
“I have literally zero idea what you’re talking about.”
Logically, I know there was money involved. It was how we could pay for hotels, flights, and entry fees for competitions. But I never thought about it beyond that.
Jump first, look later.
“Brandon, when you compete and place, you are awarded prize money.” Andrey speaks slowly, like he’s talking to a small child. “You and Jeremy placed first in your synchronized event at Nationals, which paid for most of your competitions expenses. You finished sixth at the World Series two years ago, and fourth this year, and the small amount won there covered all other fees that your Nationals win did not.”
I’m holding my breath, a tiny bubble of hope growing in my chest.
“And when Jeremy won the World Championship, he folded all of his remaining prize money back into the team.” Andrey pauses, and his next words are hesitant. “After it was discovered that your scholarship had fallen through and you’d been homeless, Jeremy approached me. He asked me to make sure that his prize money from that win went to anything you might require . . . even non-diving needs. Valerie did the same.”
He says a number, and my knees wobble like my legs are about to go out from underneath me.
It’s not, like, pro-football amounts, but . . . well, it’s nothing to sneeze at, either.
“But they probably didn’t mean—”
“Jeremy and Val made it clear that you were to have access to this fund if you need it. They insisted that their teammate have support . . . And you are part of this team, Brandon.”
My legs finally give out, but thankfully my apartment is so tiny that the bed is only inches away, and I can fall gracelessly onto the futon mattress.
But there’s still the other problem, the bigger one, and I can’t shove it aside any longer. “Even if I took the money and came up there, I wouldn’t do that to Jeremy. Or to myself.”
There’s a questioning noise on the other end of the line.
I dredge the words up from where I’ve buried them beneath the easy excuse of being too poor. “Jeremy, when he broke up with me, he made it clear that diving is the only thing that matters. That I caused him to lose his focus, that I was ruining his dream for him. I always knew that diving was more important than anything else, but I thought it was something we could share, y’know?”
Andrey is quiet for a moment. “Jeremy talks about you often,” he says. “How much he wishes you would be here with him.”
“Sure he does, but what happens if I actually come up there? If I show up and distract him from the competition? What happens if he doesn’t medal, and he says that it’s all my fault again?” The words hurt, but the memory of Jeremy’s cold anger hasn’t faded at all.
Another pause. “A month ago, I would have said that Jeremy would be devastated, if such a thing happened. Now? I’m not so sure. I think Jeremy is beginning to understand that there’s more to winning than a ribbon around his neck.”
It’s a bombshell statement, from someone who knows Jeremy’s hopes and dreams better than anyone else.
“What if you’re wrong?”
There’s a scuffle on the other end of the line, and I hear another voice. A female voice.
“Let me talk to him,” it says faintly, and then there’s a rustling in my ear, and Val’s voice comes through the line. Oh god. The only thing worse than having to spill my worst fears to Andrey, is having Val know them as well.
“Brandon,” she says, “Jeremy thinks you’re still angry with him because he broke up with you, but I knew it was something else keeping you away. And I knew Jeremy hadn’t told you about the team fund, even though he said he would.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
Val sighs noisily. “Did you know Jeremy rescheduled a training session with me a few days ago because he knew it was the only time you could Skype around your work schedule?”
“What?” Jeremy, who refused to skip an early morning workout last year during finals, even though he was exhausted from studying late into the night? The guy who once asked a professor if he could reschedule an exam because it overlapped with his usual ten-meter training time? “No way.”
“Yes way. And after that call, I found him in the diving room moping into a chocolate milkshake.” Val laughs sadly. “He looked at me and said, ‘Is it even worth it if he hates me now?’”
“He’s just being dramatic.”
“No, Brandon. He’s realizing that winning gold isn’t worth much if he has to lose you to get there.”
I’m not sure what to say.
“Come to Toronto,” Val pleads.
“I can’t. And Val, that money should be for diving things, for you and Jeremy. I’m fine here.”
Andrey says something too softly for me to make out the words, but the result is that Val groans with obvious frustration. “We’re trying to help you, Brandon!”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Do you remember when your scholarship didn’t come through? Or when you were crazy sick with the flu and didn’t bother to tell anyone how miserable you were?” I keep my mouth shut, waiting for her point. “You have a team to support you.” She pauses, and her words are gentle when she continues. “Come back to your team.”
Suddenly I remember Jeremy’s words to me, almost a full year ago. “You don’t have to be on your own anymore.”
It’s not that simple. “I have a job. An apartment.”
“You’re a diver, Bran. You have a team, a boyfriend. What makes you happier?”
The answer is obvious, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to admit it. “I need time to think about it,” I say.
Val is clearly frustrated, but Andrey must say something to her because she finally backs down.
“Don’t think too long.”