Bad Stereotypes - 13. Wednesday 5th April 2011

The season for cross county had ended, and thanks to Zach Sarver’s continued improvement, much of which was brought about by me hauling him out of bed at the crack of dawn to run miles before school, along with our new recruit Miles, our team had placed second in the district and we got a big silver cup for the school’s trophy case and an honourable mention in assembly. Miles and David’s other sport was football, and Zach and I both went out for athletics and the shorter distance runs, though only I liked to sprint. As such, the four of us spent a lot of time hanging out together after training and Zach and I went to watch the football matches our friends played in, and they came to see us. Sometimes at weekends, we would all go jogging together. The four of us, became fast and close friends.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that we all started to get girlfriends at about the same time. Miles was first, with a pretty blond, then Zach started dating a variety of girls from the swimming and diving team, one of which moved from him to David’s permanent girlfriend. I was last.

Lena Shafer was the hottest girl in our year at school. She was blond, big brown eyes like a doe, super clear skin. But she could hold her own in lessons, she was smart, intellectual, into art and music, and she didn’t care so much about hair styles and manicures. I asked her out over a shared photography project on favourite landmarks while we were listening to Coheed and Cambria. Lena smiled and held my hand, and we agreed to take things slowly.

So there was a group of eight of us who went out in the evenings, group trips to the cinema, to cheap cafés and restaurants that we could afford, hanging around in the skate park and on the swings, disappearing into the dark to make out in the sort of privacy that fifteen year olds enjoy. Us boys still went out running together, and I started to miss the times when it was just us guys.

Kissing Lena was fun, but strange, and really, really different from kissing Alex. The more I kissed Lena, the more I needed to picture kissing Alex. She was lovely, tasty, happy. But having her body all soft in my arms, curves and bulges where I was used to the smooth hard planes of Alex’s torso was strange. I missed Alex.

I hated that I missed Alex. The guys were excited about having girlfriends, all of us in the process of growing up and turning sixteen within the next few months, but I found it really hard to join in their discussions with enthusiasm. Tits and curves were not the things about Lena that I liked. She was great company, but when she lay against my chest, sitting in my lap, I felt nothing. Nada. Zip. And she was starting to notice.

Nights I would lie awake and wonder what I’d gotten myself into. I liked boys, that was deeply obvious, but having Lena fitted me in well with my friends, and at least hanging out with all of them took my mind of other things, things like Alex. Things like wanting Zach. Wanting Zach Sarver was not something I was brilliantly pleased about, but when I was making out with Lena and trying to will my crotch into activity, looking over at Zach was a great help. Zach was obviously straight, completely not interested, and I hated using him as fodder to make out with Lena. He was my best friend.

I started running at night. Creeping out through my bedroom window in the dark to pound my frustrations out into the pavement. It was worse after evenings when we’d been making out in the park, the flavour of Lena on my tongue and the memory of her skin under my hands making my desire for Zach sharper and keener. I hated talking to Zach when the last time I’d ‘seen’ him was imagined naked and raw in my bedroom while I touched myself. So I ran, and stayed frustrated. I’d gotten myself in such a mess, and I had no idea how to get out of the space I had found myself in.

Music helped some, the pounding heavy drums and bass guitars knocking my pulse out of my ears, lyrics replacing my inner monologue of guilt and anger. I hated what I was doing to Lena. She was a nice girl, we had great conversations, but I wasn’t the caring, attentive boyfriend which she wanted, and which she deserved. More than once she had asked why we didn’t go on dates without the other guys. I never had any answers for her. I knew that Zach had slept with at least his three most recent squeezes, and David and Celia were saccharine sweet together and hung out all the time. We had to drag him away for jogging and practice. As spring wore on, Lena got more persistent, and I lost more and more sleep, spending every night running as hard as I could. With no cross country competitions, I put everything I had into sprinting and relay and prayed that I could hold everything together long enough for my world not to fall apart.