Thursday, evening

While he mainly already regretted agreeing to Julia to come and watch Layne and Santino’s hockey practice, he was also pretty happy with the fact not just Layne, but Julia too turned out to become a good friend, real close.

While he was shivering, Julia didn’t seem to feel bothered by the cold. She was focused on following their practice on the ice below, while Noah had a hard time ignoring the fact his fingertips felt dead by the time practice was nearly over.

Still, it was pretty fun to watch practice. Back in Pine Hill, once he publicly started dating Colin, he had watched his practice and matches more often, and it reminded him of the few moments Colin seemed completely in his element and wasn’t being boring. In fact, Colin was one of the better players in their team, and it made Noah kind of proud to be his boyfriend whenever people would chant his name.

“You know, I wonder…” Noah started when the group huddled together around their trainer, “did they ever play against Pine Hill?”

Julia frowned as she was overthinking her answer, before she slowly nodded her head. “I don’t think they’ve been in the same league. Though the name does ring a bell. But that’s probably because you used to live there.”

“Right, I can’t remember ever watching them play against South Cedar either, but I wasn’t good at keeping up with which opponent they used to beat.”

“So, good team?”

“Pretty good, yeah. But they started only a few years ago so maybe that’s why they’ve never played Cedar.”

“Ah, working their way up, hmm?”

Noah nodded, with a wry smile on his lips, missing the times he sat there, watching Colin, in the company of his former best friend Simon. He did miss hanging out with Simon, but that was before he went behind his back and outed him to the school. Though Simon did apologize, their friendship was never the same again. Mainly because Noah wondered about his motives all the time.

Simon had outed him in hopes of becoming more popular by making him less popular. Not that he belonged to the group of popular kids. No, Noah had always been a background character. What Simon couldn’t accept, though, was the fact more girls seemed interested in Noah. What stung him even worse was the fact that he knew Noah was in no way interested in them, while he longed for more female attention.

It truly was a shitshow, and Noah still wondered how he had been so lucky for it to backfire in Simon’s face.

“Good memories?” Julia asked, sending him a worried look. “Though I’m guessing no, because you look like you want to kill.”

“Remember when I said it was a shitshow when I came out in Pine Hill?”

Julia nodded, and probably in a way to reassure him this wasn’t going to turn into a shitshow, she immediately placed a hand on his and squeezed it gently.

“It’s not that  bad. My old best friend, Simon, outed me. He hoped I would become less popular, and that the cool people would want to hang out with him more. He just didn’t realize the cool kids had morals, and took my side. It’s actually how I got to know my ex. How we started dating.”

“Doesn’t sound like a total disaster.”

“Well, I got a lot of hatred. But Colin never seemed to care what others thought of him, so he kinda made me care less. But I lost most of my friends, and Simon, who I had been friends with since kindergarten.”

“Ah, yeah, that must have really sucked,” she nodded her head and then shrug a shoulder. “We have tons of haters in school too, so I totally get why you don’t want to come out. New kid, not that many people you know, yet, and coming out?”

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it?”

Julia chuckled and nodded, before she focused on the boys below them for a while. After a silence in which they both watched them, she sucked in her breath, turned to him and rolled her eyes before she spoke again. “I’m not gonna tell you any names, because my name is not Simon. But you’re not the only closeted in our group. Thought you should know.”

“Really?” Noah really wanted to know who  was closeted. One of the guys? Layne seemed way too into girls and everything they did to have doubts, let alone certainty. Santino screamed masculinity and Noah knew that he used to see a lot of girls before Karen tricked him in a relationship. Alan and Jackson ware unknown territory to him, and so were all the girls. Karen and girls didn’t really seem to fit, but neither did Lori or Julia.

And still, Noah knew very well how easily people could be deceived by false pretense. Unless your best friend decided to out you to everyone, there really wasn’t a lot of ways for strangers to add the numbers and come to the right conclusion.

Sure, some people just had their traits, but most were just guys and girls like him; pretending not to be on the LGBTQ spectrum.

“It’s not you, huh? Because I feel like you would’ve told me as soon as you discovered it about me.”

Julia chuckled and shook her head, “not that I know. I mean, my brother was the epitome of masculinity, and he was sleeping around all the time, until he suddenly fell for a guy. Took us by surprise. So, who knows?”

“If I wouldn’t know any better, I would think Sonny and you were dating. Especially with how well you know each other and how comfortable you seem around one another.”

“Oh, we’ve hooked up quite a few times in the past. I’m not ashamed to admit that I too fell for his charms at one point. But he started dating Karen, so we stopped seeing each other that way. Thankfully, we stayed best friends despite all that.”

Noah looked at her, and saw the same pain in her eyes, he could find in his whenever he looked in the mirror and allowed himself to think of Colin. “Sounds like that wasn’t all that pleasant.”

Julia shrugged and smiled sadly at him before leaning her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “Shut it,” she mumbled, “I fell for him somewhere along the way. I just don’t get why he would ever pick someone like Karen over me. We were so close, and we saw each other every day and we’ve been the best of friends since I moved here years ago. He knows all about me, I know all about him. I told him I was developing feelings for him and he said it wasn’t mutual in the romance department. Then he suddenly starts dating Karen. Makes me wonder what is wrong with me, really.”

“Nothing, Julia. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Thanks, Noah, this means a lot to me.”