Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 01:04:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: tylersaysgo@yahoo.com
Subject: The Jock and the Fool Chapter 1

Authors note:

This story is based on real events. However, some details will be stretched
and embellished for the stories sake. I will be changing names of persons
and places, except my own. Any similarity to actual persons, besides the
people whom these characters are modeled after, is completely coincidental.
If it is not legal to read this material, you probably shouldn't. Legal
fees are expensive and a pain in the ass. I hope you enjoy it.  I am 20
years old. I tell you this because Nifty says I have to. This is about my
high school career and goes into college.

Reviews are awesome. Good ones, preferably. Please send all questions,
comments, concerns and nude pics (just kidding)
to Tylersaysgo@yahoo.com  I will try to respond to all emails as
quickly as possible
- J


James.  That was the name my parents decided to give me when I arrived in
this world.  Possibly, in my opinion, the most painfully boring name in
history. Growing up, I was an only child. I was the son of Dr. James
Collins and Dr. Laura Smith -- Collins. I had only one childhood friend,
Mitchell Reign Spake. We were inseparable all throughout grade school and
middle school. We started high school, and that's when my world, as I knew
it, would be turned upside down. However Junior and senior year is where
the majority of the story will take place. But first, we must start at the
beginning.

Waking up at 6:30 should be illegal. What normal person functions that
early? I drug myself out of the comfort of my warm bed to shut of my
incredibly shrill and annoying alarm clock. I don't even know why I set the
damn thing, all it does it make me angry and remind me that the next eight
hours of my life will be dedicated to school. After getting better
adjusted, I walk into my bathroom to start my morning routine for my first
day of freshman year at Northwood High School. After brushing my teeth I
grab my grey cargo shorts and a plain black tee and put them on. After
tying my puma's I grabbed my backpack and walked downstairs to the
kitchen. Like clockwork, my mother was sitting at the bar drinking her
coffee. Every morning at 6 a.m. She gets up and makes her coffee and reads
the paper.


"Good morning, grasshopper," she says in her mock Asian voice.


The thing I love about my mom is the fact she is incredibly peculiar and
quirky. She is a beautiful woman. She stands 5'10 and weighs around, if I
had to guess, 130 pounds. Although, I've asked her for years her true
weight, but always get the same answer. She storms off screaming something
about how she should have sold me to that Columbian drug lord when she had
the chance. She has mid-back length golden brown hair that she wears mostly
over one shoulder, and beautiful olive skin. Which I mostly think is
because she is a dermatologist.  That's why it looks so good.

"Good morning, Bruce Lee," I respond getting the orange juice out of the
refrigerator.


She chuckled and returned to her newspaper. As I was making my toast, my
father sluggishly drags himself into the kitchen. He kisses my mom on cheek
and sits down beside her.

"Morning buddy," he says in a groggy tone.


My father, like myself, is not a morning person. If it wasn't for his
practice opening at 8 a.m. he probably would sleep until about noon. My
father is a stern looking man. He stands at 6'2 and weighs 175 pounds. He
has jet black hair, and pale skin. He stays in good shape, visits the gym 5
times a week. I take more after my dad in the looks department. I have
black hair that I keep pretty short in an Ivy League style. Currently, I am
5'9 and weigh about 120 pounds. I'm only in ninth grade. Every year for my
birthday I always wish to gain weight so I can put on muscle.

"Morning Dad," I respond. After chatting with my parents for a bit and
finishing breakfast, the time to go to school approached. I grudgingly got
up and put my dishes in the sink and got ready to leave.

"Leaving already bud?" My dad asked.


"Yeah, I am meeting Mitch at his house to walk to school.  Love you guys,
bye" I say in a rushed tone heading out the door to start my walk over to
Mitch's house.

It took about 25 minutes to walk to Mitch's house.  Upon arriving, I walk
in the front door, say my good morning to Mr. and Mrs.  Spake and head up
to Mitch's room. As usual, he is still asleep. I walk over to his bed and
turn on his stereo. Knowing my best friend has a, let's say, loud taste in
music, I turned it on and some scary screaming band came on immediately and
at an ungodly decibel. Mitch groaned and put his pillow over his head and
mumbled something about murdering me. I turn the, what I'm sure is a Grammy
nominated song off, and start to pry the pillow out of Mitch's hands. As I
am pulling the pillow he grabs my waist and pulls me down onto the bed.

"Mitchell, we are going to be la-," I try to say but was cut short when a
pillow covered my face.

I tried to get free from his grasp, but it was no use.  He was much bigger
than I was. I waited patiently until he removed the pillow from my face,
and finally he started getting up. I sat up on the edge of the bed and
watched him. Mitch and I grew up together. I was always at his house or he
was always at mine. We had a very unique friendship. He was a jock and I
was in orchestra. He played football and I played the piano. He was
muscular and I was skinny. We were pretty much opposites in every way. He
had a very goofy playful sense about him and I was much more serious. He
was outgoing and I was shy. We were polar opposites, but we fit. Mitch was
taller than me, standing at about 6'0 and weighing about 180 pounds of
solid muscle. Mostly thanks to his dad, his dad was incredibly
muscular. Almost to the point of those disturbing images in men's muscle
magazines. Mitch had short dark blonde hair that always looked perfect,
even though he does nothing to it. He had amazingly blue eyes that could
drive you insane. If you couldn't tell, I was madly in love with Mitchell,
but he had no idea. He didn't even know I was gay. No one did.


"We have 13 minutes, plenty of time to get there," he said while getting
dressed. I had to avert my gaze from his boxer clad body until he was fully
dressed.


"How do I look?" he asked after a few minutes of stumbling around in his
closet.

"Great. Now let's go." I respond getting up from the bed and heading
downstairs.

After saying goodbye to his mom and dad, we headed over to the school,
which was about a two minute walk thankfully. We walked in the door right
as the 8 o'clock bell rang signifying that you had five minutes to get your
ass to class or you would be getting detention. We received our class
schedules over the summer, Mitch and I didn't have any classes together
this year, but we did have the same lunch period. I started off in
orchestra 1st period.


After introducing ourselves, which we really didn't need to because it's
the same students every year as orchestra is separated by years, but we did
it anyways. Our teacher, Mrs. Freeman, requested to hear a bit of each of
our playing. She wanted to get a grasp on what each of our style was. Some
students played better than others, mostly due to private lessons. I was of
the group that had taken private lessons. My mom put me in private piano
lessons when I was 3, and I have been playing ever since. I am a pretty
quiet person, but if a person is receptive enough, they can always tell how
I am feeling by the way I am playing.


After orchestra, the day got increasingly more boring. When lunch arrived I
was thankful as it saved me from a near comatose state in Earth Science. I
headed down the stairs with the other mass of freshmen to the cafeteria. I
waited for Mitch, but didn't see him. After a few minutes I felt a strong
hand grab my shoulder and I turn around to find him and some of his
football buddies behind me.

"Oh, hey guys. Ready to eat?" I asked tilting my head to the direction of
the cafeteria.

They all replied at the same time in a mass of words, I'm pretty sure I
heard something about eating a wombat, but I can't be sure. We head toward
the cafeteria and wait in line to get what they are trying to pass as
food. Mitch and his buddies were carrying on about how they were excited
about being starters for the J.V team this year and that they were sure if
there wasn't a rule banning freshmen from being on the varsity team, they
would be on it. I tuned them out and got lost in my thoughts. Mitchell's
football buddies were nice enough to me, but we really weren't
friends. Their lives were consumed by sports, and mine was not. So we
didn't have much in common. Chris Lackey was Mitchell's 2nd longest
friend. They had met at football camp back when they were on a peewee team
in elementary school.  Chris was a pretty decent guy. He was about 5'7 140
pounds. Short brown hair that he wore in an Ivy League cut. He was
definitely going to grow up to be a handsome guy. He was never mean to me,
but he didn't go out of his way to be nice to me either. Mostly he ignored
me when I was around. Then there was Andrew Page. Andrew was one of those
guys who looked way older than he actually was. He stood at about 6'1 and
weighed about 180 pounds, in the ninth grade. He started shaving when we
were in the 6th grade. He spoke to me occasionally, but it wasn't ever
anything that had merit. Mostly when Mitch and Chris were wrapped up in
their own conversation about football. While Andrew played football, he
also was incredibly smart, especially in biology. We talked about our
homework a lot. Lucas Cole was another member of the team that Mitch hung
out with. Lucas was about 5'6 and about 120 pounds. He was the shortest of
the guys, but I'm pretty sure he had a Napoleon complex. Lucas was the
kicker for the team, and didn't like anyone outside of his sports or
motocross friends. Seeing as I did neither of those, he didn't really like
me.


As we sat at the lunch table, the guys got into a heated debate about who
was going to win the game between our two rival schools. I pulled out my
sheet music and put in my iPod and started marking flats and tempo
changes. I was playing the song in my head and completely zoned out when I
felt Mitch elbow me in the arm.

"You ok?" he asked in a hushed tone. I just nodded and pointed to my
music. He gave me a half smile and returned to his conversation.

The school day finished out, and I had already determined between learning
about rocks and invisible numbers that this semester was going to drag
by. I walked down the hallway to the music room, consumed in my thoughts. I
thought about Mitch. I always did. It killed me that I couldn't tell him
that I was gay, even more so that he had been on my mind every day since I
found out what a crush was in the 3rd grade when Emily King explained that
she had a crush on me because she liked my shoes.


I wanted to tell him, but I could never gather enough courage. I'm always
hindered by the fact I'm not sure how he will react. I know it's a cliché
plot of boy falls in love with his best friend but it is so much more than
that. Mitch was the sweetest guy I knew, despite his jock image, which is
probably why I'm in this situation to begin with. He was incredibly
thoughtful. He always remembered everything I told him, even things I
mentioned in passing. Like on day in May our 8th grade year I said I always
wanted a telescope when we were in science class, and that year at
Christmas, he gave me a present and told me we had to wait until night to
open it. Perplexed, I agreed. I opened it not expecting to find a
telescope. He had saved up his allowance all year just to buy me that
telescope. It was the most romantic nights of my life, hell the only
romantic night of my life, and he doesn't even know it. That was the night
I knew I was in love with Mitchell Reign Spake.


There have been other things throughout the years that have made me want to
tell him. Mostly due to the fact that I have deluded myself into believing
that he will feel the same way. Deep down I know he is straight, but I
don't want to believe that. I want to believe that when we wrestle around
that it means more to him than just friendly horseplay. I want to believe
that we are close as friends because he feels the same way. I know I'm
living in my own fantasy, but it helps me get through the day.

I sat down at the piano in the music room waiting on Mitch to finish
football practice so we can go to his house and do our homework. I pulled
out my sheet music for Consolations No. 3 by Listz. It was an incredibly
difficult piece that requires a lot of emotion to play. Seeing that I had a
lot of those, I figured it was a good way to channel my thoughts. It
expressed my longing and desire that I had built up toward Mitch, and how
much it pained me to go through every day knowing that I'll have to go
through this because I'll never work up enough courage to tell him. In the
middle of the piece and the middle of my thoughts, I hear his voice. Great,
I've fantasized about him to the point where I'm hearing his voice. I
continue playing, but louder now, and I hear it again. I suddenly realized
it was really him and open my eyes and stop playing immediately.

"What's wrong?" he asks concerned.

Damn. I hate that he knows just by listening. Am I that painfully obvious?

"Nothing," I lie.

 "I'm just trying to get the emotion right on this piece. My private
instructor is riding me pretty hard about it." I say nonchalantly.

He looks at me for a long moment and I avoid his gaze pretending to be
distracted by the sheet music. He walked in the room further, still wearing
his practice jersey with his number, fourteen. The number fourteen was my
favorite number. Back during the summer at football tryouts Mitch had
psyched him-self out about the try out and convinced him-self he wasn't
going to make it as the quarterback. Remembering that day always brought a
smile to my face.

"I can't do this James. I'm going to be sick." He said fear evident in his
voice.

"Mitchell, yes you can. You are the best out there on that field. I've seen
you play Mitch; I've been to every single one of your games since grade
school. You don't just play football because you like it Mitch.  Football
is your life. You put your heart into it and it shows. You are the best
damn quarterback this school has and will ever see." I said in an
affirmative tone.

Mitch looked at me and gave me that half smile that makes me weak and gave
me a quick hug and said

"Thanks buddy," before he left for the field to try out.


Of course he made it, and as a way of thanking me he chose my favorite as
his jersey number.  As I thought about the events of that day, I realized
Mitch had sat down beside me on the piano bench. He put his arm around my
shoulder and said,

"James, How long have we been friends?"

"About twelve years now, why?" I ask.

"You should know that I can tell when you are lying.  Something is
bothering you, you can talk to me about it buddy." He said in a gentle
tone.

"I appreciate it Mitch, but it's nothing. Really." I say half-heartedly.

"The way you were playing that piano doesn't tell me that it's nothing."

Fuck. Why does he have to be so intuitive? I couldn't tell him the truth. I
can't risk it, but I don't want to lie to him. He deserves better than
that, but I just can't tell him.

"I'm just worried about the next couple of years. College and stuff. I got
to thinking about it earlier, and you know how thinking about the future
always bothers me. I don't like something that isn't concrete." I say. He
believes it and lets the subject drop.

"Ok, well I don't really have any homework from my classes, so you don't
have to come over later. I know you do with all of your advanced placement
nerd shit." He says jokingly trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah you're right. I'm swamped and it's only the first day."  I said
expecting pity.

"Well that's your own fault. Later loser." He said light-heartedly and
jogged over to the door and stopped before turning around,

"I'll text you later, okay?"

"Sounds good." I reply.

"Sweet."

I watched him jog off down the hall before turning to walk toward the front
of the school to head home. I knew I had to tell him, he had a right to
know his best friend was gay, but I just didn't know how to tell him.


That's the end of the first chapter. This is my first time ever writing a
story, so be gentle with the reviews. Like I said most of this is based on
true events, so bear with me. I'm trying to condense what took months for
me to do in real life into a few chapters before getting to junior and
senior year.