Swimmer Boy
Copyright 2016 Jay Argent
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
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About the Author
Prologue
Lying in his cozy bed, the teenager opened his eyes. Yawning, he stood and looked out the window. These were the last days of summer, and the sun was shining in the clear, blue sky. As a large red truck turned onto Maple Street, a group of teenagers walked along the road, carrying their sports bags as they headed downtown. In his room, the boy picked up a t-shirt from a pile of clothes on the floor and pulled it on absently while he gazed at the teenagers, especially the blond one in the middle. They were laughing and looked happy.
The boy winced as the brakes of the truck produced a loud hiss. Two older guys jumped out of it and opened the back doors. Sincere joy came onto the boy’s face when he saw his beloved friend: his Yamaha Celviano electric piano. This could be a good day, the boy thought and began to hurry, looking for his sheet music in the plastic containers stacked in his small bedroom.
Later, he sat at his newly arrived piano and sang Bert Kaempfert’s “Strangers in the Night” in his angelic voice. His petite fingers glided lightly across the keyboard of the piano. “Something in your eyes was so inviting. Something in your smile was so exciting. Something in my heart told me I must have you.”
In the next room, his parents were folding their clothes and placing them into a big, dark wardrobe. Listening to their son, they looked at each other and smiled. Moving to Fairmont seemed like a better and better decision every day.
Chapter 1
It had rained, and the air felt fresh when Liam left his home on Monday morning. The autumn sun was shining, warming the excited boy. It was his first day at his new high school, and since the school was nearby, he decided to walk; he didn’t have a car, so his options were limited. Liam enjoyed the voices and the sounds of this relatively small town in the countryside. On his way, he saw many houses with happy families inside, nicely decorated gardens full of beautiful flowers, and easygoing people driving to work. Liam dreamed of someday having a house of his own with white roses growing in the backyard.
He was in the middle of his dream when he saw the massive main building of Fairmont High School in front of him. Two boys were walking to the red brick building from the parking lot, and Liam assumed that they were students. Who else could they be? One of them, tall and slim with blond hair, glanced at Liam as they passed. Liam couldn’t help smiling as he looked at the blond boy’s handsome face and athletic body. He followed the boys from a safe distance and continued to gaze at the blond one. Unfortunately, their paths diverged when Liam entered the administration building.
Liam knew that he was gay. He had realized it some years ago but had never told anyone. Most likely, no one suspected it, but his last year at his old school had still been lonely. He had hardly had any friends after his former best friend, Matthew, had moved with his parents. What was odd was that Matthew had never spoken to him after that even though they had been close friends for the entirety of their young lives.
Liam didn’t understand why Matthew had cut him off so completely. Nothing had happened between them that would have explained the sudden change in their friendship, and Liam was sure that Matthew wasn’t aware of how attracted Liam had been to him. He had never dared to say it, not to Matthew and especially not to Matthew’s deeply religious parents. Since Matthew left, Liam hadn’t stopped worrying about him. He was not angry, but rather concerned that something had happened to his best friend.
Liam opened the door to the principal’s office. The secretary asked him to sit down and wait while she informed the principal that he had arrived. The room was old-fashioned and oddly scary. The furniture was dark wood and decades old, and the pungent smell of stale cigarettes wafted everywhere. One of the walls was full of paintings portraying elderly males whom Liam assumed to be the former principals of Fairmont High.
Suddenly, the figure in the rightmost painting opened the office door. “I am Principal Summers,” the man said. “Mr. Green, would you follow me into my office, please?” Liam stifled a grin before the principal could see it. The man was as formal as he had expected.
“Mr. Green,” Principal Summers began, looking at Liam before he continued, “welcome to Fairmont High School.” His greeting wasn’t enthusiastic or welcoming, but formal and clinical.
“Thank you, sir. It’s nice to be here,” Liam replied, though the principal was probably not expecting an answer. Principal Summers raised his head from his papers, looking surprised. He nodded quickly before focusing his attention back on the documents.
The meeting was over in five minutes, and Liam found himself in classroom A221, on the second floor of the main building. The timetable that the principal had given him indicated that his first class in his new high school was about to start.
His old school had been much smaller than this one. Liam remembered the many times he had played board games with Matthew in the cozy library in the school’s basement where the old librarian had always smiled at them—maybe because they were the only boys who ever visited the library. Even more than board games in the library, Liam had enjoyed playing Twister with Matthew when Matthew’s sister was kind enough to let them use the game. It had started as innocent play, but pretty soon Liam began to enjoy the physical closeness with Matthew. Oddly enough, Matthew had never declined when Liam wanted to have a round of Twister with him.
Since Liam didn’t know anyone from his new school, he picked a random desk in the second row. Sitting near the front could make him look like a nerd, but he didn’t feel like one. He excelled in most classes and wasn’t too interested in sports—both characteristics that he considered stereotypical of a nerd—but he washed his hair daily, wore nice clothes, and was lean and kind of good-looking. Maybe his gayness concealed some of his geek characteristics.
As Liam was trying not to overanalyze his behavior and looks, the blond jock that he had seen that morning entered the room. Liam stopped breathing and carefully followed the boy of his dreams with his gaze. The jock had a confident but friendly smile on his face. Sadly, he wasn’t smiling at Liam. The jock scanned the classroom, looking for an empty desk. Liam’s heart stopped when he saw an empty desk next to Liam’s and started to walk toward it. But it was too good to be true; a shorter boy and a girl in a pink sweater, both of whom had entered the class with the blond boy, led him to the back row. Liam’s sad heart started to beat again as he exhaled heavily.
The class was rather uneventful. The history teacher, Mr. Timothy, gave an introduction to the course, and the only interruption to his monolog happened when the classroom door suddenly opened and a red-haired boy walked casually in.
“Well, well, Mr. Taylor has finally arrived,” the teacher said with a fair amount of irritation in his voice.
“Yeah, sorry. My alarm clock wasn’t working,” the boy said as he walked toward the last row, where his friends were waiting for him.
“Sam, make sure that this is the last time,” Mr. Timothy replied, trying in vain to take some control over the situation.
“Whatever,” Liam heard Sam say. Evidently, Sam Taylor was a troublemaker. To his horror, Liam noticed that Sam sat next to the blond jock and that they said hello to each other.
/> Later the same day, Alex and Rick were standing in front of the Fairmont High School Swimming Hall. It was a brand new building located half a mile from the campus, next to the baseball arena. They were playing with a shabby baseball they had found a moment earlier, and there seemed to be some excitement in the air that wasn’t coming from the ball game.
“I wish he’d get here already,” Rick said as he kicked the ball anxiously. It hit the door of an old car parked in the shadow of a big basswood. “Shit,” he cursed. Luckily, nobody saw or cared.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Sam can manage it,” Alex reassured his best friend.
Sam, their teammate, had stopped at the store to get beer for their end-of-summer party. He wasn’t old enough to buy it, but it was hardly difficult to convince Maggie Pearson to buy him some. The old granny had nothing better to do than spend her leisure time at the mall, and to the elderly woman, the red-haired, bad-tempered jock could be quite intimidating.
Alex liked Maggie and felt bad that his teammates were exploiting her kindness and, most likely, her money as well. When Alex was younger, he had often helped Maggie carry her groceries to her beautiful mansion near Freeborn Lake. The Pearsons were clearly wealthy, and no matter how hard Alex tried to resist taking money for such a simple task, he had always been generously rewarded for his help. Some years later, Mr. Pearson had died, and Maggie was left alone.
Rick and Alex were both sixteen, and they were juniors at Fairmont High School. The school was well-known for its baseball team, the Fairmont Predators, but the swim team was pretty okay, too, with plenty of talented athletes. Alex was definitely one of them. Actually, the athletic director considered Alex to be his top swimmer, and he was sure that Alex would earn an athletic scholarship to one of the best colleges in the country.
The boys heard loud music and turned toward the parking lot. Coach Hanson parked his black BMW and switched off his horrible Europop.
“How can he listen to that crap?” Rick whispered.
Alex nodded, though he didn’t agree. Alcazar wasn’t that bad; he even had some of their songs on his iPod.
A couple of years ago, Coach Hanson’s BMW had been maybe the coolest thing the boys could think of. Now, the aging car didn’t look that appealing. Still, the jocks had decided not to joke about the car or the music. Coach Hanson was in his early fifties and not a person one wanted to irritate. There wasn’t a single swimmer on the team who didn’t respect and fear the strange old man, who was also fatherly and safe in his own way.
“Three laps around the baseball court and then hit the showers,” the coach roared as he walked inside the swimming hall carrying a big bag full of equipment for practice.
“Yeah, nice to see you, too,” Rick muttered as the boys started to run.
“Catch me if you can!” Alex shouted to his friend and sprinted with all the power that a sixteen-year-old jock had in his muscles. His body was in good shape thanks to hundreds of training sessions. Rick didn’t have a chance.
After the first lap, Alex slowed down and waited until Rick reached him. The boys, who had been best friends since the first grade, ran the second lap together.
“Why is it taking so long? I wonder if Sam managed to get the beer,” Rick panted.
“Sam can be quite convincing,” Alex said sadly.
Rick missed the tone in his voice. “Good old Maggie, the one we can always trust,” he said with a smirk. Alex felt another wave of guilt as he smiled back at his friend.
Speak of the devil; Sam entered the baseball arena and joined Alex and Rick. He was grinning widely, and the other boys knew the mission had been accomplished.
“Party on Friday!” Sam shouted, so loudly that, had the arena been full, everybody in the stands would have heard the good news.
The original plan had been to celebrate on the last weekend of vacation, but Sam had his cousin’s wedding ceremony in Mapleton, and the boys had delayed their party to the end of the first week of school.
Alex looked at his friend and smiled again. The trio had gone through several practices and training camps together, and they had become best buddies. If baseball players were the alpha males in the high school social hierarchy, these three swimmers stood firmly on the second podium. Besides, they were better looking than the baseball players for sure, which made them popular among the girls. Alex didn’t want to admit it, but he enjoyed his popularity. Shallow or not, it felt good and fostered his self-esteem. He was proud of his athletic achievements and his friends on the swim team.
“Summer vacation feels so short,” Sam complained as they were about to finish their last lap.
Like Alex and Rick, Sam was a junior at Fairmont. Some of Alex’s closest friends on the team were already seniors, planning their futures at reputable colleges, and Alex wanted to follow their example.
Alex’s mother was a lawyer who had high expectations for her son’s academic career. Luckily, he was also interested in studying law. Had he been planning for a career at the local Burger King, like some of his teammates, his mother would have kicked his lazy ass out of the house already. Sara Wesley had high standards for her son.
The boys jogged back to the swimming hall and changed their sweaty clothes in the locker room. Soon, Coach Hanson entered and checked that all his athletes were present.
“Okay, guys. We have a two-hour practice today. We start in ten,” Coach Hanson shouted. “No speedos in the showers. I want to keep my pool clean,” he added and left.
Following the order, Alex hung his trunks on the rack, stood under the first free shower and felt the refreshing water stream down his sweaty back. As he had done hundreds of times before, he soaped his body and let the water rinse him clean. Then he got dressed in his red speedo and headed for the pool. The others followed him obediently.
The coach didn’t spare his whistle, and the boys swam back and forth down the fifty-meter lane more times than any of them could count. After two hours and fifteen minutes, the group of exhausted but happy teenagers climbed from the pool. The practice had been successful, and Coach Hanson had even said some encouraging words a couple of times. Alex beamed because he had just broken his old record in the two-hundred-meter freestyle.
Rick and Alex walked to the showers, removed their swim caps, and washed their hair. “Wanna play some Call of Duty?” Rick asked.
“Absolutely! You are so dead already,” Alex replied confidently and pushed Rick’s arm.
Almost as much as he loved swimming, Alex enjoyed playing video games with his best friend. The Donovans had spent three weeks traveling the country during the summer, and Alex was happy that Rick was back.
They finished their showers and agreed to meet at Rick’s house in an hour. Alex looked at his watch and realized that dinner would probably be ready soon. His mother was a better lawyer than a cook, but she did her best to gather the family together every evening. It wasn’t a big family; Alex was the only child of Paul and Sara Wesley.
“See you soon!” Alex said to his friend and left the dressing room.
Alex was opening the front door of his Mustang when he heard Sam running toward him. “Hey Alex, um … I don’t have enough room for all these. Could you take some of the beers and keep them in your fridge until Friday?” Sam asked, offering a plastic bag to Alex.
“Huh,” Alex replied uneasily, “I can’t.” He paused before finally admitting, “My parents would kill me if they found them.”
“No problem, church boy. Later.” Sam smirked and walked to his truck.
Alex sighed. He hated to disappoint his friend, but he didn’t want to be cut loose from his family. The car, the clothes, and all the other financial support from his parents were too important. Besides, he liked his mom and dad, at least as much as a typical teenager did.
Unfortunately, his friendship with Sam was a constant source of arguments with his parents, who thought of Sam as a bad influence on their son. Alex had always disagreed with his mother on this, b
ut recently he had started to suspect that there was some truth in her motherly instincts. He made a mental note not to admit that to her.