Page 37 of Brat on the Ball

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There were times recently when my life had felt oppressive and closed off, like I was against the world, despite everything that life had given me. Despite the money I had in my pocket, and the fame and fortune, things had been…weird. But not now. Now I had George, and that feeling of safety in his arms I hadn’t even realised I had been craving.

I crept out of bed in the morning and tried to work George’s coffee machine with zero success. In the end, I heaped two spoons of instant coffee into some mugs, and popped some toast in the toaster. I could have brought it all in to George, but I left the toast and coffee on the side. He’d be up early enough for training, and I felt there was no need to disturb him. I walked over to the living room and slumped on the sofa, feeling completely at home in George’s little space yet completely at odds as to what to do whilst he was sleeping.

He’d left a folder on the coffee table labelleddissertation research.I picked it up and looked at the first page.We’re Coming Out: A History of Attitudes to Homosexuality in Sport.

I smiled at the title and turned the page absently as I took a bite of my toast. Rather than an essay, he had copied and pasted research into the little folder. The first few pages made me smile. There were even clippings of papers when he had first been outed, and then his continued career success afterward. Then I read on, to Rhys, and Finn, and even to the trailblazers who had allowed them to come out so freely and play at the peak of their game.

My smile faltered a little on the next page. Stories of athletes who had come out to waves of public support, but whose careers had stumbled afterward, either because the media scrutiny had impacted their play or…just because, sometimes. It seemed being gay, just by itself, was enough to ruin the careers of some sportspeople.

Then I flicked over the page again, and I saw exactly what I’d been afraid of seeing without even knowing it. I read through the notes George had compiled on a player from the 90s who had come out, and everything that had happened to him afterward. And how his life had ended.

I pulled my phone from my pyjama pocket and Googled him with morbid curiosity. There were hundreds of articles on his coming out, his troubles and eventual death. In amongst the memorials and remembrance posts, there were still people mocking him for his sexuality and for taking his own life. I didn’t realise that I had started crying until my tears dripped onto the screen.

I wiped my eyes with my sleeves and put the phone down, and took a deep breath to compose myself.

“Ol? You OK?” George had entered the room, a pair of chequered pyjama shorts slung low on his hips.

“Yeah,” I muttered, my sniffles doing nothing to convince anyone that I was remotely fine.

His eyes dropped to the open folder, and my phone in my lap. “Oh, Ollie,” he said, and crossed the room to hold me in his arms. “Everything is going to be OK.”

“Is it?” I asked. What had seemed like a barely surmountable mountain was now more than that. It was a cliff, thousands of metres high with no handholds to assist me. It was a pit of lava with a little sign that saidNo Swimming.

“Yes. It was OK for me, it’s been OK for so many people,” said George.

“Does it ever stop? All of this?” I handed him my phone. An article from just a year before where the footballer’s actions were still being questioned.

“No,” admitted George. “But it gets easier.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. I just…learned to see past it, I guess.” George took my hand in his. “When you decide to come out, I will be with you every step of the way. As your boyfriend, or your friend, or your mentor. I am here for you.”

That brought out another sob. “I want to come out…I just don’t know when.”

George’s hand stiffened in mine, but he didn’t move it away. “We need to talk about that, Ol.”

I felt my heart sink. “Why?”

“Because we need a plan,” he said. “I need to know where we’re going. Right now, we’re flying. At some point, we have to land at our destination, and I need to know how that’s going to look.”

“But…I don’t know how!” I was so frustrated that he couldn’t see my dilemma.

“You know how. You’ve asked me to blog for you. And I can do that. I just need you to tell me when to pull the trigger.”

“I’m not…brave, like you,” I said to George. “I know what I am. I know that I…that I have feelings for you, and they’re getting stronger every day. But I am not. Every day, this scares me more. Something new happens that makes me feel like Icannotdo it, George. I know what I am, but I can barely say it to you. Let alone myself.”

“But you can.” George implored. “I believe in you. I just need to know when I can expect it, love.”

I pulled myself out of his touch. At that moment, it felt oppressive. “I wish I could give you an answer, George. But I just don’t know.”

“OK. Then I think I need to give you some space,” George said. I felt my heart slip even further away.

“Are you ending things?” I asked.

George hesitated. “No. I’d follow you to the ends of the Earth. But I need you to do as I’ve asked, and think about what you want next. If it takes five weeks or five years, I am here for you. But I can’t live in uncertainty, and I don’t want to be the voice in your ear that pushes you before you’re ready. So take a week, think about what you would like to do. Because I can’t not know who we are.”

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