Winter was alone in the room for the most part. Thom was as jock as jock can be, and except for that one scare the first morning, things were pretty easy for Winter.
After passing for a few days, he felt more calm about the situation. Before, he only logically felt like this was the right decision, but now the emotional feelings had caught up, and he truly felt like this was where he should be.
One day, Winter was in his room with Thom being on his computer.
“Hey, Winter. Take a look at this” Thom called from the other side of the room. Winter went over to look.
“Oh.. That’s some very nice… Eh…” Winter said, trying to figure out what exactly he was looking it. He could see from the theme of the page it had something to do with sports, but as he was only shown a picture and no descriptions, he couldn’t really guess what it was. It looked like a large pouch of some sort, but it also looked hard, and it was just weird, Winter thought.
“Dude, it’s a jockstrap!” Thom said, looking like a little kid that was about to get a new toy.
“A jockstrap?” Winter asked, hating to feel stupid.
“It’s for protecting your crotch when doing sports” Thom explained excitedly.
A pang of pain hit Winter out of nowhere. A little comment that reminded him of what he should have, but didn’t was enough to throw him slightly out of balance.
“Ah. Right” He said, not really being in the situation more. He didn’t want to talk about it further, and he was afraid of saying something wrong because of the lack of knowledge.
He had observed toilet manners from the ‘friends’ he hanged out with when he was escaping his parents, but there was still a lot of things he didn’t know, which should be common knowledge. Actually, not even knowledge, it should just be second nature.
“Hey Winter, I heard from Max you are thinking about joining the sewing club?” Thom changed the subject, not noticing the inner turmoil Winter was currently having his hands filled with.
“Ah, yea, no, maybe” Winter said, not being sure of the question.
“Before you decide, what about giving one of the sports teams a try first? Moving your body is a great way to get out of your head” Thom smiled, ruffling Winter’s head a bit to Winter’s surprise. Was he patronizing him? Or did he have a hunch that Winter had some problems? Well, the first thing they bonded over was family problems, so that wouldn’t be too weird.
“I’ll give it a try” Winter said, calming himself a bit.
“Great! What would you prefer? Football? Basket? Running?” Thom asked, being even more excited.
But was sports a good idea? Was he supposed to shower with others? What if they came too close and noticed the binder? The lack of other ‘parts’? Winter panicked.
“On second thought, I might actually just do the sewing club. Coach seems like a cool guy” Winter found himself saying in a hurry. Yea. He shouldn’t do anything that would put him in a risky position. He had had enough of risky business for a lifetime already.
“Oh…” Thom let out in a dejected tone.
“But we can run together sometime!” Winter found himself letting out to the surprise of both of them. Winter was surprised at the effect of Thom’s dejected tone, and Thom was surprised at the impulsive suggestion. But both boys just nodded in agreement, and decided to go ahead and do it.
And so, they went for a run, just because none of them wanted to admit that ‘sometime’ wasn’t a real plan, and because ‘now’ was as good of a time as any.
“Hey! Thom! Winter!” A voice called behind them desperately as they kept trying to go faster than each other, making this a competition as well, with both of them being severely bad losers.
“Sorry Coach, I’m about to beat Winter’s ass” Thom shouted behind him to the owner of the voice, Coach.
“Sorry Coach, Thom is just saying things since he’s exhausted. I’m about to beat HIS ass” Winter yelled behind him as well, because he couldn’t let such a comment slide.
After running far away, where just running was the main objective, Winter and Thom fell down in exhaustion.
“How…” Thom breathed hard and had a even harder time talking.
“How come you are in this good shape?” Thom breathed out, looking confused.
Winter, who also felt like dying and had a hard time breathing, wondered about what he should say.
“Genes” He said with a smirk. He couldn’t really tell Thom the truth after all. That he had been literally running away from his problems in all forms and shapes.
He hadn’t kept it up since he started school, but it was nice for Winter to see that he still had it. He made a mental note to keep it up.
“Winter, why you gotta be like that?” Thom smiled, still breathing hard. After a break and some chit-chat they decided to run back.
“Last one in the dorm has to clean the toilet” Thom said, running ahead. Winter was right behind as they once again entered the school area. Just as Winter was about to overtake Thom a voice right beside him ruined his focus.
“HEY WINTER” Coach yelled more desperately than before, pulling Winter’s arm as he ran by.
“I’m sorry. But it’s important, okay? Have you seen Max? I wanted to ask that earlier too, but you guys just ran by with me having no chance to catch up” Coach rambled incoherently, feeling very off. He looked worried, with blank eyes.
“I haven’t seen him. Did anything happen?” Winter asked, having gotten a bad feeling about the situation.
“Max is gone. He was in our room when I went to bed yesterday, but he was gone this morning, and hasn’t been around the entire day. He didn’t go to any of his classes either…” Coach said, letting the feeling of dread overtake both of them.
Winter didn’t know what to do, but he knew what not to do. He should take the toilet cleaning he had lost as a man later, while he should help Coach look for Max now. What could have happened?
And thus, the second secret kept going, but with the worries switching to a new secret…
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