Extra Innings - 8. Chapter 8

I left Bryce behind and got changed in silence, wondering who saw us and how much they saw. Hopefully it wasn’t someone I knew or who could use it to get back at me in some way. I wasn’t looking forward to being outed, but if that was a stranger who saw us then it might not happen at all. At least that was my hope.

Once I was dressed, I started to walk back to my dorm. I tried not to think about what just happened. Besides, I was exhausted from baseball and my extra practice with Bryce, and it was a lot easier just to not think about anything at all right now.

When I got back to the residence, Vincente was there. He was sitting on his bed with his arms crossed and an incredibly angry expression on his face.

“You liar!” He exclaimed without preamble. “You lied right to my face when you said you weren’t a queer, and not even a week later I find you fucking in the stadium locker room! You’re disgusting, I knew you were a queer and should have transferred out of here the moment I thought you were starting to look at me.”

I panicked and stuttered “W-wait, I can explain~”

Vincente cut me off. “Save it. I don’t want to hear it. Get the fuck away from me you queer. You make me sick.”

Vincente continued to glare at me, and not knowing what else to do I left the room and went back down into the lobby of the residence hall. I put my stuff down and sat on one of the benches, thinking about how awful my life was about to become. I’d seriously cheated on Alex, and worse still my roommate was the one that caught me having sex with another guy. I was starting to break down when I heard a somewhat familiar voice.

“Hey there Devin, everything okay?”

I looked up to see Heather standing over me. I hadn’t seen her too much now that classes had been going on, since she had her own classes and other residence advisor duties. The only times I normally saw her was when she was trying to get people in residence together for events or to give us information, or when she was going around just checking in on people to see how they were doing.

I nodded at her and replied. “Yes, I mean no… Probably not. Things just kinda spiralled out of control and I’m still figuring out what to do.”

Concern radiated from Heather and she took a seat next to me on the bench. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was hesitating to do something to try and comfort me, and then settled on placing her hand on my lap.

“What’s happened Devin? You know you can talk to me about this sort of thing right? It is sort of my job to settle problems in the residence, after all.” Heather soothed, hoping that I would open up to her even though we never really got to know each other. On the other hand, she was right that it was her job, but I didn’t really want to get into all of it…

“My roommate just threw me out of the room because he thinks he caught me hooking up with someone.” I started, and Heather’s eyes got wide.

“Devin! You know you’re not supposed to do that.” She admonished, waving her fingers in my face.

I retorted “Yeah, like no one actually has sex on a college campus. I know that’s what you’re supposed to say but we all know better. Now can I finish explaining myself? You were all interested before you heard that bit of extra information.”

She nodded and I continued on. “He caught me, and when I got back to the dorm room he freaked out at me and told me to get out.”

“I’m not going to ask where you were since you obviously weren’t in your room, but why would your roommate get upset? It wasn’t someone he was seeing, was it?” Heather asked, trying to figure out what the problem here was.

I blushed and muttered, barely above a whisper. “It was a guy.”

Now Heather was the one blushing and looking away. I guess what I said was a bit of a surprise, it’s not like there were many gay or even bisexual athletes out there.

“Oh! I see.” She replied once she had regained her composure. “Well… that’s between you and him to figure out, but you can’t be kicked out of your room. He’ll have to ask for a transfer and since you haven’t done anything to him, it’s not likely to go through. Come on, let’s get you back upstairs and settled in. We can both talk to him if you want.”

“Thanks Heather. May as well get it over with now right?”

Being away from Devin has been getting a lot harder lately. I know that things aren’t going well for us. He doesn’t text me as much as he used to, and he doesn’t stay to chat for as long as he did in September. I get it, he’s busy with baseball and school which is why he left to begin with, but I feel like I’m becoming less important to him, and I can’t help but wonder about where that leaves me.

I was finding it hard to concentrate throughout the day. Things would happen or someone would make a comment and I’d be stuck thinking about Devin, and what he’d say or do if he was in that same situation with me. I found myself daydreaming about him too, not something that I was normally accustomed to doing, so it was surprising to me to see that my concentration was lapsing so frequently and just for images and thoughts of Devin.

There hadn’t been anymore incidents since that last near-attack at the bus stop, though I still had a fair bit of teasing and verbal abuse from the usual suspects like Parker and Annabelle. They weren’t ever going to change, but no one thought it was all that wise to try and physically hurt me since Mother picked me up a couple more times from the bus stop, it was like they were all afraid of what a lawyer with more time than she knows what to do with could do to them.

Today was one of those common days where Mother wasn’t there to pick me up. I got home and couldn’t find anything to do that would hold my interest, so I went to do some homework before dinner. When I finished up some of the mathematics and the biology work that I had been assigned for the day, I laid down on the couch and decided to take a nap, since there wasn’t anything better to do with my time that I wanted to do.

I woke up to the sound of Mother yelling at me. “Alex, wake up! I don’t work as hard as I do for you to laze about all day and night. How are you going to accomplish anything if you just lay around and don’t apply yourself to working hard and being successful?”

I got up from the couch and sat up to face Mother. She was immaculately dressed as always in a pale blue pantsuit in a severe cut. She was wearing too much makeup and her hair seemed even blacker than usual, even while she styled it in a ponytail today.

“Come on, get up. It’s time for dinner and homework. You’ve been like this for weeks now, what’s going on with you Alex?”

“Do you really care Mother? I would have thought it’d be obvious what the problem is. When was the last time you saw I was really happy? Think about that.”

I left the living room to go grab dishes from the kitchen to set at the dining table. Even though it was just the two of us, Mother wanted us to eat dinner as a family. She said it promoted stronger family ties and values, but I think she just didn’t want either of us to be alone in the house any more than we needed to be, we already saw each other so infrequently that it was like we were strangers living in the same house.

Part of that has always been that we don’t always see eye to eye on things. I love my Mother, but she doesn’t get me, and that hasn’t gotten any better since I started dating Devin. She had all these big hopes for me, that I’d grow up and have kids and be successful just like her. Now she had all that falling apart because she can’t really see her way into thinking that gay men can be successful in the world.

When I came back to the table with the plates and cutlery, Mother was already seated in her usual seat and gestured for me to sit across from her, like we did every single night. The fact that it was routine didn’t mean she would stop doing it, and I think she did it just to enjoy the control over the situation she felt she had.

I sat down and barely began working on my meal when Mother began questioning me again.

“Alex, tell me what’s bothering you. Does it have anything to do with those boys who were bothering you a few weeks ago? I thought that was all dealt with. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

I looked down at my roast beef and mumbled out a reply. “You wouldn’t understand, and even if you did you wouldn’t want to talk to me about it, so why do you keep asking?”

I finished chewing and looked back up her, she seemed hurt by what I said and looked like she was going to respond, so I swallowed and cut her off before she could play the wounded parent.

“Fine, here it is. I am not sure that my relationship with Devin is working out, and it’s hurting more than I thought it would to be separated from him, even though we’re still in the same state. I thought I could handle being in a long-distance relationship, but he doesn’t contact me as much and I miss him, but I don’t want to intrude on him and make it feel like I’m needy. Happy now Mother?”

Mother looked back at me with a sad look on her face.

“Alex, you know I always want what’s best for you, right?”

I nodded.

“I don’t always show it properly, but I want you to be happy Alex. Devin obviously makes you happy, so why don’t you think your relationship will work?”

I sighed and pushed my plate away. “I just told you exactly why we’re not going to work out, were you even listening to me?”

At this, Mother actually started chuckling at me. I looked at her, incredulous that she would start laughing at me.

“Alex, you’ve pointed out problems that can be overcome, not reasons to break up with someone. Couples go through communication problems all the time, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other, and missing him is a perfectly natural thing that shows how much you actually do care about him. You should be more worried if you hadn’t been missing him, because that would have meant you didn’t care enough to miss him.”

Everything Mother said made sense, but I still had this feeling that things weren’t going to work out.

“So why do you really think it’s not going well Alex? It’s got to be something bigger than not texting each other that’s getting you worried.”

The thing is, I wasn’t sure what it was. But my mother isn’t someone you just say you have an unidentifiable feeling about and expect her to leave it alone. She’s the kind of person that makes you explain and defend what you’re saying. Must be the lawyer in her.

She looked at me from across the table while I struggled to come up with what I was thinking and how to articulate it. After a few minutes, she said something that caught my attention immediately.

“You think he’s outgrown you because he’s not a high school student anymore and you are.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly! He doesn’t talk to me about baseball or school or much of anything. When we talk it’s not about anything important anymore, it’s just like we’re two friends talking about nothing and I thought we were going to be deeper than that. It’s like he’s in college now and he’s got this whole world ahead of him, and Colfax is so small by comparison that he doesn’t want to come back and be reminded of it.”

I stood up and gestured around the room. “We have it so well here Mother, but there’s nothing here in Colfax. There’s literally one of everything we need, and if we want or need anything else we drive to Spokane. Now Devin’s in Walla Walla and he’s got the chance to see and do things we only dreamed about here. How can I feel like I provide him anything when he’s got all that to try out?”

“You provide him with love, just like he does for you. That’s worth it. I hope you think that way too Alex. Give Devin some time, Thanksgiving is coming soon and he’ll probably be back for the weekend. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see him then. Now go get your homework done, it’s getting late and you do have school tomorrow.”

I nodded and cleared the table. Once all the dishes were done I walked upstairs and headed to my room. I did have a lot of homework to do, and if I was ever going to be known for something here in Colfax I wanted it to be my grades, so that I was at least the best at something.

When Heather and I walked back up to the dorm, the door was locked and no one was answering from the inside. I unlocked the door and found that Vincente was nowhere to be found, and a lot of his stuff looked like it had been packed away. It looked like he was trying to transfer to another room.

“This is just great, he’s actually moving out because he can’t handle me being bisexual. Totally figures that college is going to be just like high school was.” I moaned, knowing I sounded like a child but hating that things weren’t actually getting any better. I put up with lots of crap about who people thought I was sleeping with last year, and I thought college students would be more accepting of people. Apparently all the recruiting posters were wrong, and there’s nowhere for people like me to go.

Heather looked in on me standing alone in the room when she heard me rant.

“Oh please, he can’t really think that he’s going to get a transfer. He hasn’t even come complaining to me yet, which he’s supposed to do in order to start any kind of complaint. Campus Housing is going to have him back here in a few minutes, and we’re going to get this all settled on, okay Devin? Don’t worry, everything will be alright.”

Heather got up to leave, and I panicked.

“Hey wait! Where are you going? I thought you said that we would get everything straightened out?”

“We will.” Heather replied. “But I shouldn’t even be in your room right now, it’s going to look like I’m taking sides and it has to be as impartial as possible to ensure that you both feel like it’s going to be a good solution. If Vincente thinks I’m forcing things to go your way because we’re friends then there’s a good chance it’ll just get moved to someone else who might actually consider having you move to another room or let Vincente move. When he gets back, come see me and we’ll get it all worked out.”

Heather left, and I was standing alone in my dorm room. It looked so much larger now that half of it was bare and devoid of Vincente’s belongings. It felt too big to be alone in, and I decided that I didn’t really want to deal with coming out and the consequences of being caught right now.

It was getting close enough to dinner now, so I decided to go for a run to the library and then to the residence cafeteria to grab whatever today’s dinner was going to be. I didn’t really need to go to the library, but it was a few minutes away and the run would help get my mind off things. Besides, I figured that in the late afternoon people would be leaving, so I might get some peace and quiet once I got there. Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to see if there was anything I could use for any of my courses once I got there though.

It was brisk and I was glad that I chose to wear my new team windbreaker to keep me warm. It was meant to be used during practices and pre-game warmups to keep everyone loose and to bond us over our new looks, but right now it was just nice to have something keeping me from freezing while I went from the residences to the library.

A lot of the people I saw walking on campus were still wearing things that reminded them of their old high schools. That wouldn’t ever be me. It’s not that I don’t miss Colfax or Alex, it’s just not who I am anymore so I don’t want to be overly burdened by it anymore. I’m a college student now, I should be thinking about my present and future instead of clinging too tightly onto the past.

As I was approaching the library I saw three guys walking towards me, all wearing fraternity clothes. As they got closer I could see they were all Phi Delta Theta boys, including Bryce. I waved at them and thought I would be continuing on, but when the two other boys both waved and Bryce called my name, I stopped on my run to see what was going on.

“Hey Devin, where you off to in such a hurry? You look like you’re trying to run away from a term paper… or run towards it if you’re headed towards the library.” Bryce called out. The three of them laughed at the joke, and I privately thought about how close to the mark he actually was.

I decided to respond and try to act like nothing was bothering me. They didn’t need to know, although Bryce probably would figure it out later on if I got a chance to talk to him in private.

“Nah, just like to keep active. It’s going to be freezing cold all day soon enough, may as well use the time we have to stay fit before it’s dark before dinner.”

“Cool. You should come up to the House tonight. Maybe not right after dinner, say eight pm?” Bryce said, not fully looking me in the eye.

I was intrigued by this. He wanted to see me, but didn’t want to look at me. Maybe Bryce wasn’t as out of the closet as I thought, and this was his way of saying we needed to talk without alerting the other guys to the fact that he was messing around with guys or that he had any particular special interest in me.

I nodded back at Bryce and the guys. “Sure, eight sounds good. I’ll see you guys there.”

The three Phi Delta Theta boys walked back in the direction of the frat houses, probably to waste time before Bryce wanted to see me. Interesting that he was setting a specific time, like there it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to show up any earlier or later than that. I shrugged it off, not wanting to overthink it and completed my run. I decided that I could worry about my school stuff later and jogged back to the residence dining hall to pick up some dinner.

Most people choose to eat in the dining hall because you’re already there, and it gets rid of most of the cleanup problems; you just throw your tray back on the rack and the college staff take care of it, but some people decide to eat in their rooms, and I’d done so a couple times. Today I was planning on taking my dinner upstairs if it was something that wasn’t going to make a mess over everything.

When I got into the food line it looked like there were a few different things to pick from. Usually there were burgers or other cafeteria standbys, and then there was always some kind of meal of the day. Today they were serving miniature steak pies, and when I got close enough to see them I could see that they had a pastry top sealing in the heat from within, so it was probably still cooking from its own heat when I picked it up. The pastry topping made it perfect to bring back with me to eat, so I grabbed some napkins and headed back to my room.

I didn’t want to be too far away in case Vincente actually did show up again. At least then we’d have a chance to talk, and preferably he’d have had some time to calm down and relax before I had a chance to explain what was going on and hear what was on his mind.

Unfortunately, he didn’t show up all through my dinner or while I was studying for upcoming exams. At around quarter to eight I got dressed and bundled up since it was even colder and I started to make my way over to the Phi Delta Theta house for whatever it was that Bryce had in store for me. I assumed it was just going to be another chance for him to speak with me and potentially hook up with me again. I was sort of hoping he’d want to talk, since we really needed to talk out what was going on between us and I needed him to know that we were hurting my relationship with Alex back home if we kept doing things here.

I got there right around eight and saw that there were a whole bunch of guys outside the House, most of them looked like they were freshmen like me, but there were one or two upperclassmen waiting outside, so I couldn’t figure it out. When I looked at each of the other fraternities, I could see other groups of men doing the exact same thing as us, and I spotted Vincente over at the Sigma Chi house, waiting impatiently for whatever reason it was that he was there. That explained why he didn’t come back up for dinner at least.

Right at eight, the door to the House opened up and a taller guy I hadn’t seen before walked out. He was easily more than six feet tall, with straight brown hair and a chiseled jaw. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place his name. He was obviously part of the fraternity though, otherwise he wouldn’t have been fully dressed in fraternity clothes.

“Alright pledges, you may now enter.”

As we all filed into the building, we saw that there were rows of chairs in the main living area of the House. The man who let us in gestured for all of us to sit in the chairs, which we did. When I looked around all of the other members of the fraternity were standing around the walls. I saw Bryce there, but he refused to acknowledge my glances. The man stood up in front of us and called for our attention.

“For those of you who don’t remember me, my name is Robert, I’m the president of the Washington Beta chapter of Phi Delta Theta, and you’ve all been selected by the fraternity to join us, if you are willing and able to continue meeting our expectations for our members.”

Several of the guys around me began whispering excitedly and high fiving each other. Robert and some of the other fraternity members frowned at this but said nothing.

“All of you are now pledges here. The process of becoming a full-fledged member of this fraternity have remained secret, and will continue to do so. If you choose to continue on, you will be sworn to secrecy for what you learn about our initiation rituals. Once you say yes, you will be in until we say otherwise, or you can leave now and no one will think less of you.”

A few of the guys fidgeted and looked like they might leave, but no one seemed eager to prove they weren’t interested. Robert continued on.

“Very good. We will begin next week, but for now you may consider yourselves pledging members of the fraternity. To that end, we’re hosting a party to meet and greet everyone who may also join you as a brother. Be sure to use the evening to your advantage.”

With that, Robert walked away and everyone started to get up off the chairs. A few of the fraternity members helped put the chairs back into whichever storage room they came from, and people started to break off into groups.

I went to go stand over by the side wall when I was tapped on the shoulder. Bryce was behind me, offering me his hand and looking to congratulate me on being asked to pledge the fraternity.

“After the party, we’ll talk okay Devin? I know that’s what you really want to do, but I had to figure out some way of getting you here, since you didn’t know you were otherwise supposed to be here. Now go meet everyone, don’t be anti-social at a party thrown at least partially for you.”

Bryce didn’t linger, he went to go talk to some of the other pledges. I figured I may as well do the same and see who else I might know. I didn’t see Tanner or any of the other boys from the baseball team or classes that I knew, so I was already feeling a little overwhelmed with things. There were so many guys here and it was weird, knowing that Bryce was the only guy that I really knew. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around, thinking it was Bryce again.

I was surprised to see Miles standing behind me, holding two red cups full of beer. I hadn’t seen him during the first part of the initiation, so I just figured that he wasn’t part of the fraternity. He looked pretty good wearing his fraternity gear, and he pressed one of the cups of beer into my hands.

“Hey there Devin, you looked like you could use a drink, and a friend. I didn’t know you were planning on pledging Phi Delta Theta, but congratulations! Now the fun part begins, so hopefully you’ll make it and be a full brother by the end of the year.”

I smiled and accepted the drink from Miles, happy that there was someone else here that I knew.

“Miles! I didn’t know you were in the frat! I’m still a little surprised that I’m here, but now that it’s getting into my system I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next. Everyone seems pretty cool, just nervous about getting up to introduce myself.”

“You should relax Devin. It’s a party, and everyone’s here for the same reason. Just go say hello.”

I spotted two new faces that I recognized, and piloted myself and Miles over so that we could go say hello and get into the mood of the party.

“Thomas, Grady, come in from the cold. The living room won’t eat you, it didn’t the last time you were both in here.”

The twins looked up and smiled, and the four of us walked around the house for a bit, just talking about baseball things and how exciting it was that all of us were going to be in the fraternity together. Eventually we all started to spread out and meet more people, and I lost track of names and how long I had been there. I was a bit surprised when Robert wandered back into the middle of the living room and called for everyone’s attention.

“Gentlemen, thank you all for coming, and I hope that you will consider staying as a pledge for Phi Delta Theta. However, this night is over, and you must all return to your residences. In the coming days, your older Brother will be contacting you to explain the next part of the process. Good night.”

I said goodnight to the three guys I had been chatting with. All of the pledges started to leave while the Brothers started putting the house back in order again.

When I got back Vincente still wasn’t there. There wasn’t any kind of note from him or anything. I didn’t worry about it. Thanksgiving weekend was this week, so I figured things would figure themselves out or that we’d at least get the weekend away from each other to think about what was really going on. After putting my stuff away and changing, I got myself ready for bed and set my alarm early. Dad was going to be showing up right at 8 to get me back for the weekend, and I didn’t want to oversleep and miss out on the chance to head home for the long weekend. I had a feeling it would be a weekend to remember.