Swimmer Boy

by Jay Argent

  Chapter 3

  “We’re having a party tonight!” Rick shouted, and the other guys washing themselves in the shower room joined in his excitement.

  Alex, who had stopped to talk to Coach Hanson, entered the room and took the shower next to Rick. He pressed the button casually and felt the warm water begin to massage his tired muscles.

  “I assume you’re taking your girl to the party,” Rick said, smiling at Alex.

  “Who are you talking about?” Alex said, playing oblivious.

  “Dude! The whole school knows that Sofia is drooling over you,” Rick said. He poked Alex on the shoulder. “Don’t be a dumb jock; I’m not buying it. You’d better taste the meat before it gets cold.”

  Alex rolled his eyes. He and Sofia had known each other for years, ever since Sofia and her family moved to Fairmont. They hadn’t been close until last spring, when she had taken the initiative to get to know Alex better. She was a pretty girl who had been surrounded by a lot of horny jocks, but she had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in them. Eventually, they had noticed the connection between Alex and Sofia and had dropped their interest.

  Everybody was waiting for the couple to start dating, but so far, it hadn’t happened. For months, Alex had felt pressure from Rick to make a move.

  “Yeah, she is kind of sexy,” Alex finally said, smirking.

  He thought she was nice, but he didn’t fully agree with the other boys’ constant praise of her looks. Alex had also started to realize that Sofia was rather impulsive and short-tempered, which made her sometimes even a bit scary. Sam quickly joined the discussion and thoroughly analyzed every part of Sofia’s body. His detailed and blunt description of Sofia’s valleys and hills made Alex uncomfortable, and he blushed slightly.

  “You’d better stop before you get boners!” Rick shouted at Sam and their teammate Patrick, who was a senior and a year older than the others.

  “Stop staring at my dick, homo,” Patrick said playfully, then laughed.

  Rick gave him an angry gaze. “There are no faggots on this team,” he said, emphasizing each word, and total silence settled in the room for a moment.

  “So, Alex has this hot chick. What about the rest of you?” Patrick asked, knowing very well that the others were involuntarily single. Patrick was dating another senior, and their relationship seemed serious.

  Patrick had told Alex about his plan to apply to the same college with his girlfriend. If they were lucky enough, they would share an apartment after their freshman year. Alex admired Patrick’s determination to get a good education and hoped that he could follow the older boy’s example, enrolling in a good college and eventually having a family.

  Rick and Sam were silent, thinking of how to reply to Patrick’s comment about their lack of girlfriends.

  “I guess I need to ask if Sofia wants to go,” Alex said, in an effort to stop the uneasy silence. Then the topic had passed, and the boys started talking about swim practice.

  Patrick had just improved his individual record in the one-hundred-meter medley. It was Alex, however, who was the unquestionable star of the team as he had won the most swimming competitions during his high school career. He would soon be seventeen, and Coach Hanson believed strongly in his chances of winning a medal in the next national championships, which would guarantee Alex an athletic scholarship to any college.

  The coach was proud of him, and his teammates encouraged and supported him even though it meant less attention on them. But no matter how much the coach and Alex’s friends cheered him, his biggest and most fanatical cheerleader was his father—not that anybody in his right mind would call Paul Wesley a cheerleader. The man was anything but pretty and flexible.

  Thirty years and eighty pounds ago, Mr. Wesley had been a decent high school boxer. Unfortunately, the short-tempered boy had been unable to keep his fists away from fights outside the ropes, and his promising career had ended. The sentence was only probationary, but in his rigorous Catholic school, it had been a serious black mark. Mrs. Wesley believed that her husband was re-living his athletic career through his son.

  Alex felt lucky that his father was so eager to pay for all of his training equipment, his gym membership, and his training camp costs. Despite how busy his father was at work, Alex couldn’t remember a competition during which Mr. Wesley hadn’t been watching and cheering him from the stands. Thanks to sports, there had always been a strong connection between father and son. Recently, however, Alex had started to feel that something unexplainable was pushing them farther and farther apart.

  Alex, Rick, Sam, and Patrick left the swimming hall and drove to a park near their houses. Fairmont wasn’t a big town, and the boys knew that they could walk home if nobody was in a condition to drive after the party. A couple of their friends from the swimming team had joined them, as had Patrick’s girlfriend.

  “I called Sofia. She and Rosa are coming soon,” Rick announced to Alex.

  “Thanks, bro,” Alex said sarcastically, not sure whether to be happy about his friend’s efforts to pair him with Sofia. Rosa was Sofia’s best friend and went to Fairmont High as well.

  Twenty minutes later, Sofia and Rosa arrived, and Sofia’s face beamed when she saw Alex. “Hi, darling,” she said to Alex as sweetly as she could. She was obviously putting on a show for her friends, earmarking Alex for herself.

  “Rick, would you get Rosa something to drink?” Sofia said, organizing company for her friend.

  “Anything, milady,” Rick said to Rosa.

  It was a warm evening, and a light breeze was blowing from the south. The sky was clear while the sunset made the horizon glow yellow and red. The idyllic beauty of the moment was counterbalanced by the fact that the teens were getting wasted.

  It didn’t take long before Sam was laying on the grass and puking up his lunch. The seniors laughed at him, telling him that he should practice more. Alex disagreed. He wished Sam would drink less but didn’t believe it would happen.

  The early autumn darkness became deeper and deeper, and Alex and Patrick decided to build a fire. They had collected wood earlier when it was still bright enough to find some in the nearby forest. Sitting around the flames, the teens drank the evening away.

  “I fucking love this park,” Sam stammered sometime around midnight. He curled up in the warmth of the campfire—five minutes later, he was snoring.

  “Maybe we should’ve asked Coach Hanson to the party,” one of the seniors said as a joke, and the whole group laughed.

  “Okay, boys, I will teach you how real men drink beer,” said another senior, imitating the coach.

  “We ain’t no fairies!” Rick shouted and raised his bottle. Alex scowled at his friend but said nothing because the other guys started to cheer.

  Half an hour later, the jocks got tired of ranting about the hard time that the coach gave them in practices. Alex took another beer from the bag. Actually, it was only his second, but he didn’t want the others to notice that he wasn’t keeping up with their pace. He sat on a stone close to the fire, and Sofia immediately joined him.

  Rick and Rosa found a place for themselves a little farther from the campfire. Alex watched how Rick took Rosa into his lap and stroked her hair. The horndog is definitely falling for Rosa, Alex thought but couldn’t remember Rick showing any interest in Rosa at school. Maybe his friend was just too shy to do so.

  Alex saw them kiss, and they looked like they were trying to eat each other. Definitely not too shy, he thought, smiling to himself.

  “Do you like me?” Sofia asked out of the blue.

  “Um … yes,” Alex stammered and felt himself blushing.

  “I like you, too,” she confessed.

  She moved her face close to his and stared at Alex with her big, beautiful eyes. Her smile was sweet and irresistible, and then their lips touched. Alex was tense and felt clumsy. He didn’t know what he should do next, but it felt oddly good to kiss. Just as he started to relax, he felt Sofia�
�s hand on his leg, moving toward his crotch.

  “What’s happening here?” Sam shouted, staggering toward the stone where Alex and Sofia were sitting. He had finally woken up, and his clothes were dirty from sleeping on the grass.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Sam continued.

  He sat between the lovebirds, ignoring Sofia, who looked beyond angry. Alex casually took his cell phone from his pocket to check the time.

  “Don’t worry, you didn’t interrupt anything,” he said. “Besides, it’s late. I’d better go home.”

  Alex caught Patrick’s eye, indicating that he wanted to talk with him privately. He left Sofia sitting on the rock and met Patrick just out of hearing distance of the others. “I’m worried about Sam,” he said when they were alone.

  “Me too,” Patrick said. “But don’t worry about tonight. I’ll make sure he gets home.”

  “Thanks, I hoped you would,” Alex said, smiling at his friend. Patrick was always the one he could trust.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sam said, slurring his words when Patrick offered his hand to pull Sam up.

  “Yes, you are,” Patrick replied, indisputably.

  Patrick took decisive hold of the drunken boy and led him from the park. Sam had no choice but to follow. Alex felt grateful that his friend was in good hands.

  “I need to pee,” Rick announced to everybody.

  “Need me to hold it?” joked a senior, who was amused with Rick’s announcement.

  “Keep your faggy little fingers off my dick, homo,” Rick answered.

  Looking annoyed, Rick marched behind the bushes to empty his bladder. When he came back, he kissed Rosa as if to prove something to the other boys. Nobody paid attention.

  “Will you walk me home?” Sofia asked Alex. She was clearly disappointed that Alex was leaving but did her best not to show it.

  “Um, sure,” Alex replied, trying to hide his intention to walk alone. Happily, she took Alex’s hand, and they began to walk toward the center of Fairmont.

  It was a silent night. Alex could hear only the occasional sounds of distant cars while he was thinking of Sam. They had been friends for years, but Alex had started to have concerns about their friendship. Sam was regularly late to classes and hardly did any of his homework. Still, it was his badass behavior that disturbed Alex the most.

  “Thinking of something?” Sofia asked.

  Alex had hardly said anything since they left the park. “Just worried about Sam,” he said without elaborating.

  “Don’t worry. Patrick will take him home,” she reassured.

  “Yes, he will,” Alex said, and they continued walking on in silence.

  Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Sofia’s house. They stopped and looked at each other, and Alex didn’t know what to say.

  “Goodnight,” Alex said finally, in a soft voice, which caused Sofia to roll her eyes.

  “You’re not going to give me a goodnight kiss, are you?” she asked, smiling innocently.

  Alex did what was asked and then walked Sofia to the front door. They kissed one more time before Sofia went in.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Paul Wesley roared when Alex opened the front door five minutes later.

  Alex winced with fear at his father’s tone. He switched on the lights and saw Mr. Wesley standing in pajama pants in the hall. He didn’t look happy.

  “I … I was in the park with a couple of friends,” Alex answered, unsure how his father would take it.

  It didn’t go over well, but before his father could unleash the next wave of his anger, his mother walked into the hall.

  “Alex, we haven’t agreed that you can come home after midnight,” his mother said with a disapproving look, “and I don’t like you spending time with those boys. You were with them, weren’t you?” she continued, clearly referring mainly to Sam.

  Alex didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be a theme that night with all the females he spoke to. “Sorry, Mom,” he said, finally, feeling defeated.

  His father took a couple of steps closer but looked a little calmer. Most likely, this was because of his wife’s appearance. “Have you been drinking?” he asked, staring relentlessly at his son.

  “No, Dad, of course not,” Alex lied quickly.

  The look on his father’s face became milder. “My boy. I knew I could trust you,” he said with a pinch of pride in his voice. Alex felt his conscience tugging at him as he smiled, cautiously, at his parents.

  “Okay, let’s go to bed,” his father said, and the crisis in the hall was over.

  Alex was relieved. His father was hot-headed. Though he normally calmed down pretty quickly, this incident had been unusually short. Alex had been lucky this time and made a mental note not to push his luck again any time soon.

  When Alex was a baby, his father had hit his mother as a result of some stupid argument. Thanks to plenty of therapy sessions in which his father had “volunteered” to participate, Alex’s parents were still together. Maybe the newborn Alex also had something to do with his mother’s decision not to leave her husband. Whatever the case, Alex’s father knew that he couldn’t repeat that mistake ever again.

  Rolling in his bed, Alex heard the echo of his mother’s words: “I don’t like you spending time with those boys.”

  Who is she to decide my friends? Alex was tired of his parents always believing that they knew what was best for him. Without an academic degree, his mother would never give him her full approval, and it was evident that his father’s dream was for Alex to become an Olympic champion or something.

  Why isn’t it enough to just be me? Alex thought, feeling the pressure of his parents’ expectations.

  His thoughts moved to Rick. It was now evident that Rosa had taken an interest in Rick, and it seemed mutual. Alex felt jealous and feared that his friend might have less time to play video games with him. Also, he was worried that his friendship with Sam had started to fall apart. Why couldn’t everything just stay as it was for a moment so that Alex could enjoy what he had?

  Finally, the sound of Alex’s light snoring filled his bedroom. In Sofia’s bedroom, half a mile away, a pink pen was smoking as she wrote about Alex in her diary.