Hamilton Prep

Chapter 7: Caldwell- You Bring All Them Gay Boys to the Yard-

“Coach!” I hear someone call as I come up for air which snaps me out of my thoughts. I need to stay focused. I chant my movements through my head.

Push forward with arms, kick with legs, breathe.  Push, kick, push, kick, breath, push, kick, push, kick, push, kick, breathe.

Feeling as if I had barely been in the water, I finished my exercise and pulled myself out of the pool. Coach Acks walks over to me and records my time on a clip board.

“Good job, Irvine.” A few other people finish and begin to pull themselves out of the pool as well. Coach went to record their times too. Princeton was the sixth person to finish. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t super happy about it.

When the bell rang I asked Coach if I could stay and swim a little longer. He only agreed because I am one of his favorite students. The room started to empty and the only thing that could be heard was Coach Acks in the back room doing some teacher stuff I didn’t care about. The water was so inviting. When the room was completely empty I took a few deep breaths then drove into the pool.

As my mind begins to clear of every unnecessary thing like school, family, friends, one thought suck in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to forget. That thought was of Vitale Nova. I can’t get this kid out of my head. I know that he is gay, and I know that he likes me, but I don’t know what I feel. I feel something, but is that feeling real or not? I could just be yearning for more affection and attention. I could just be yearning for Vitale. I could just want someone, anyone, to hold me and say they care about me. I might just want Vitale to do that. I could want to do that to him. I don’t know what to think anymore.

That’s when I started thinking about my family. Just the thought of them made me swim harder.

My parents hated me. Well, hated was a bad word for it; hating is an emotion that requires passion. My parents have never been passionate about me, they have no emotional attachment to me. All I have ever wanted was for them to feel something about me. I wanted them to be proud of me, angry at me. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded utter disappointment. But the thing is, I wanted them to feel something about me, as in past tense. I don’t want them to put in the effort of parenting and caring anymore. I don’t want them to fake love me. What I want is for them to stop pretending. At least if they admitted to their lack of compassion, it would be real.  It’s really irritating having to deal with my mother’s feeble attempts of trying to trick me into thinking she loves me. My dad doesn’t even care and doesn’t try to hide it. My mother, I think, is trying to make up for my crappy childhood, but she can’t. She can’t make up for all the times as a child I was put second. All those times that my parents wouldn’t even acknowledge the things I did. They never scolded me for cutting the maids hair, never smiled at the family stick figure drawings I made. I was never really their child. I was more of a thing that got in the way all the time.

I still haven’t quite figured out why I was born in the first place. Maybe someone to give the business to, make them seem like better people, spir of the moment thing, or my parents were good people before I was born. I really doubted that though. I mean how could they change so greatly over a nine month period of time? I was a good child to them, too. I did everything I could to make them love me. Then I did everything I could to make them hate me. I got the same reaction to both. Nothing. That’s when I gave up trying. I gave up on trying to make them care when I got nothing from them. They would always just wave their hand at me to signal for me to leave the room.

When I was younger I had to get use to my comic books being my friends. I believed at the time that the characters in the comics would protect and care for me because my own parents wouldn’t. This was, of course a load of bullshit, but for a little eight year old boy it was all he had to hold on to. The little villains vs heroes that would always rise to the top.