Victoria's Secret

If you've read the first chapter, go read the last paragraph of it again. It's changed

“Victor, Victor, he’s our man! He can beat you, yes he can!”

The voices of the overly peppy cheerleaders floated down the court, seemingly following me as the ball bounced under my hand. I could not only hear, but feel the members of the other team following me as well, trying to catch me off guard or make me fumble, and hoping I’d lose control over the ball. I saw an opening as I got closer to the net, and faked out Greenwald’s number thirty, passing the ball to Gage Wilson instead of shooting like he thought I would. I ran farther toward the net and got as open as possible, knowing Gage would soon throw me the ball again. He did just that, and as I went for a layup, that damned number thirty reached for my arm and accidentally brushed his hand across my chest.

“What in the hell?” that little blonde bastard screeched. He did what he’d meant to, but not in the way he wanted to. He didn’t get my arm, and didn’t knock the ball out of my hands, but rather freaked me out so much that the ball simply fell out of my hands. He reached once more for my chest, as if to make sure, and I ducked out of the way before he could touch me.

“Hey man! Not cool,” I yelled, looking around to see Coach Genson sighing and the referee blowing his whistle, calling a foul.

“Yeah, foul is right!” Thirty yelled. “This…thing is foul!”

“Hanley, what in the world are you going on about?” Greenwald’s head Coach screamed down the court at the boy. I cursed under my breath, knowing what was about to happen in this situation.

The whole gym had their eyes pinned on the two of us, curious looks plastered on the majority of their faces, wondering what was going to come of this.

“That’s not a guy!”

“Of course he is, Theo. You can see him plainly,” another kid on Greenwald’s team told him, giving him a stupid look.

“That’s no ‘he’, Aaron. It’s a she; there are boobs,”

“What? No there aren’t,” the Aaron kid scoffed.

“I know what I felt, Aaron,” Theo spat. “He’s a she.”

“No I'm not,”

“Fourteen, get ready for your foul shot. Thirty, you’re causing a disruption; you’re benched,” the ref told us, giving me a sympathetic look. He knew me well enough, and knew that the other kid was right, but either way, the kid was out of line and needed to sit out. ‘Theo’ groaned and sulked his way over to his team’s bench as his coach smacked him upside the head and scolded him for causing a scene. I took a shaky breath to try to calm myself, telling myself that nobody believed that kid.

Brett Johnston, our number twenty-two, came up behind me and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Hey man, don’t worry ‘bout that. I heard some of the crowd talking; they think that guy’s nuts. Nobody’s listening to what he’s saying and his coach is ignoring anything coming outa his mouth. You ain’t got nothing to worry ‘bout.”

“Thanks man,” I nodded, sighing a breath of relief. I looked over at our bench quickly and saw Shawn looking at me. He made his hand into a fist and tapped it on his chest twice, holding up two fingers as a peace sign after that. I laughed and shook my head at him. I knew the only reason he did that was to make me laugh, and I'm glad he did.

I took my free throw (I made it) and continued out the rest of the game like normal, very happy to not see that green number thirty jersey back on the court. I don’t think any of his teammates believed him, and even that Aaron guy who was talking to him about it told me he was sorry for his “idiot friend”, as he put it.

We won the game and when we went to shake hands with the other team, Theo scoffed at me, retreated his hand so that he didn’t have to touch mine, and muttered under his breath, “Fucking freak,” before shaking hands with the rest of my team. I sighed and continued shaking everyone’s hands, receiving another ‘sorry’ from Aaron.

Back in the locker room, we did our usual after-game ‘rah-rah’ thing and separated to change clothes and leave. I was about to head into the bathroom to change, but Coach Genson pulled me aside before I could. I didn’t really know what to expect when he looked down on me like he was. He just stood there with his arms crossed, waiting for me to speak first.

“I'm sorry, Coach,” I sighed.

“Why are you sorry, Victor?” he asked, shrugging slightly.

I looked behind him and focused my eyes on a poster about sportsmanship, not exactly wanting to meet his eyes. “It’s my fault that guy caused a scene.”

“How is it your fault? He fouled you, fair and square. The only difference is that he found you out while doing it,”

“But that’s exactly it. He found me out and I shouldn’t have let that happen,”

“Vic son, you couldn’t have helped that, no matter what. Not unless you were on the bench, and this team cannot afford you being on the bench,” he said, shaking his head. “I did not pull you aside to scold you over this. You are the best player we have and we can’t have you benched any more than necessary. I don’t care who finds you out; there are no rules or regulations that say that you cannot be on this team. You’re part of this team no matter what anybody says, and I just want you to know that.

“That’s why I pulled you aside to talk. I want you to know that we all want you here; I haven’t had anybody say one negative thing to me about you being here, but I've heard plenty of good things about you. If you take what that shit-head said about you to heart, well, just don’t. I don’t want you thinking you don’t belong here, because you definitely do, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re an amazing player. If you were the worst player on the face of the Earth, you would still belong here.”

“Thank you, Coach,” I smiled, a slight chill running down my spine as I thought about how lucky I was to have him as a coach. “I'm glad everyone’s good with me here. It’s nice to know that you all want me here as much as I want to be here.”

“Now go and change,” he chuckled, patting me on the back. “Your brother’s probably waiting for his ride.”

I did what he told me to (it’s not like I wasn’t going to do it anyways) and met up with Shawn by the locker room door, our duffle-bags slung over our shoulders. He gave me a sweaty hug and just smiled at me on our way out of the school lobby. No words were really needed between the two of us.

“Hey! Victor!” I heard a voice call out from the side of the building. It was dark outside, so I didn’t know who was calling for me, but I knew that I recognized the voice. I turned around to look through the barely lit darkness and saw a lot of people, having no idea which one called for me. “Vic! Over here!” I followed the voice and saw Jeanette Mathews running towards me, her black, curly pigtails bouncing along with her. She was one of the head cheerleaders during the basketball season and I’d seen her watching me on the court every game we’ve had that year.

“Oh, hey Jean,” I smiled, waving at her as she stopped right in front of me. She had a huge smile on her face and her cheeks were slightly red, probably from the cold wind of the night. “What’s going on?”

“I – uh, well…” she stammered, an air of nervousness circling her. She bit her lower lip in an adorable fashion and looked down at her sneakered feet. I heard Shawn snickering behind me and before I could turn around to ask him what he was laughing about, Jeanette grabbed my head lightly, bringing it down to her level so she could kiss me.

“Mm,” I mumbled against her lips, not exactly aware of what was going on. Once I gained my senses, I kissed her back, blood pooling in my cheeks in a roaring blush. She let go of my head after a while and I looked down on her, my eyes wide with surprise. “What…was that?”

“I like you, Victor,” she giggled, rocking back and forth cutely. She came across as a bit ditsy, but I knew that she really wasn’t.

“But I'm…you know,”

“Yeah, I know, but I don’t care,” she said softly. “I look past the skin when I look for what I like in people. I don’t care that – at this moment in time – you’re not exactly normal, because I know that you’re a great guy and you will be normal some time. I don’t need to know that you’re a man, if you get what I mean, because I know that I like you and I know that I’d like to be with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,”

“But what about what people will say?”

“I don’t care what people will say. You don’t care what people will say, and we all saw that firsthand tonight. That’s what made me realize that I need to do something about my feelings for you. Because I really do like you; a lot, actually,”

“I like you too,” I said a little more shyly than I’d wanted to.

“So, are we dating now?” she asked cutely, smiling even more than before.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” I nodded, wrapping an arm around her and leaning in for another kiss.