Only the pounding of my heart interrupted the silence between Adam and me.

Immediately, I felt the rush to run back to safety. To be normal. But, I also sensed what was to come.

From the look on Adam’s face, I knew this wasn’t some elaborate ruse or hazing ritual. He looked genuinely concerned, and not surprised.

Several more moments passed, and none of us said anything. Adam looked like he was biting down hard on his lip. Whatever outer layer of macho energy he dressed himself with each morning had washed away. He looked like a person.

He looked like me.

“Adam,” I said again. “We need to go. We need to tell somebody!”

He threw his hands up to his forehead and aggressively rubbed his temples.

“Adam?”

In a snap movement, he broke out of his episode of overwhelming anxiety and faced me.

“You need to know something,” he started to say.

“It can wait!” I argued back with him. “Some serious fucked up shit has happened here!”

Hesitation stretched all across his face. The tension in his lips recoiled in preparation of his next words. I got up in his space.

“You are impossible!” I told him, sharply poking at his chest. “We’ve got to go, NOW!”

I couldn’t believe the same guy I’d seen bossing half the campus around earlier that day was now stricken with so much pause and indecisiveness. How could he be so unhelpful?

“Somebody needs our help!” I finally spat out at him.

“YOU DON’T KNOW THE FUCKING HALF OF IT!” He started to yell back at me, but cut the climax of his anger short, and yanked my arm. He took me closer to the edge of the bank, overshadowed by an oddly-shaped tree growing sideways toward the creek. The full force of his strong hands shoved me to the ground, out of view. He crouched down next to me.

“I know,” he said in a softer voice. “I know, somebody needs our help. But, you need to trust me.”

“Really? Trust the same guy who’s been playing mind games on me all day? No, thank you.” I reached for the book and started to climb back up the bank.

That wasn’t the wisest decision, because suddenly a muscled mass tackled me from behind, wrapping around my legs. My arms flailed like noodles, and instead of breaking my fall, I smacked head first into the rocks. I tried to shake him off, but his grip squeezed like steel pliers. Something salty started to run between my lips. I ran a finger across my mouth, and realized I was now bleeding.

I didn’t have much leverage to hit him with my arms. He was straddling me. So instead, I jerked up my knee and hit him as hard as I could in the balls.

“Fuck, man!” he screamed and started to fall sideways, but his feet were still wrapped around me. As he toppled down the side of the bank, he pulled me with him.

We both grunted as we got mouthfuls of rocks and dirt. And then came the splash. His weight landed me face down in the creek. Bubbles sputtered out from my mouth, I couldn’t breathe!

My feet and arms were swinging as fast as they could to get up. Panic shook inside of me.

After a couple seconds, my waterboarding experience was over. His weight turned off of me, and I flipped my body. A deeply embarrassing gasp for air came out from my mouth. Despite the wetness of my entire body, I knew some of it was tears.

Adam wasn’t sounding much better; he was gripping his balls and wincing like a terminally-ill animal.

We both were stretched out on our backs, unable to stand or move. I craned my neck to see him.

“That was fucked up! You’re fucked up!”

He sorted out the kinks in his neck to look back at me after my verbal ambush at him.

Then, he just burst out a laugh.

“Are you laughing?”

“No, no.” He tried regaining his composure, but another giggle escaped his mouth. “It’s just, you, you’ve got something on your face.”

I felt for my face and discovered what seemed like a cake of mud rubbed all over me. I could only imagine how I looked.

“Thanks a lot,” I said back.

I threw my left leg over my right and started to twist myself to roll to where Adam was. I army-crawled near him, meanwhile he still nursed his bruised ballsack. Any defensive wall either of us had was now gone, for the moment.

“What’s your problem with me? And don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not the one who has a problem with you,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was trying to tell you that right before you surgically transplanted my dick to the inside of my stomach.”

“Sorry about that.”

He tried to compromise his position and meet me halfway in our situation. “I can help you,” he said.

I shot daggers of distrust with my eyes right back at him.

“I know you’ve been through hell,” Adam continued. He kept scooting a bit closer. “I have too.”

There’s a fat chance any of that is true. Still, I finished coughing up a lung full of creek water and stood up. I reached out a hand, which he took to get back on his feet.

“I promise I will answer your questions,” Adam said. He was still walking a little funny, but stopped in his tracks and turned again to look at me. “But if we’re not back to the field soon, they’ll know we know.”

His words got hung up inside my head. He reverted his face back to his scared look. I don’t know that I trusted him.

“We can’t take that with us,” he said, pointing at the book. “But, I know where we can put it.”

Out of other options, I quit my protest.

In a broken march, we returned the way we came. Coming out of the woods and seeing the practice field again was like stepping between different worlds. For a campus full of incredible minds, everyone here absolutely lacked any sort of awareness or observational skills.

But instead of going straight for the rest of the squad, Adam revealed a detour we would take.

“The old shed in the back corner is locked,” he said, motioning toward the other end of the field. “But, I can get you in.”

We ran along the outside of the fence. Adam still limped like he was escaping an active warzone.

Where we ended up was overgrown by weeds taller than me. There was no doubt the shed hadn’t seen the light of day since the last century. Most of the paint was peeled off, and moss grew up across the walls to compensate for the lack of detail. Rotted plywood criss-crossed some of the dilapidated holes which suggested imminent collapse could be coming any second.

Yet, there it stood.

“Stand here,” Adam said, pointing toward a concrete slab next to the shed.

A rusty padlock tied the backdoors of the shed together. Luckily, there was some give in it. He strained himself as he tugged on the chains. The doors bowed open. Slowly, a narrow gap less than a foot wide emerged down the middle.

I hesitated for too long, because then his foot graciously kicked me in the ass. My feet stumbled inside.

At first, I couldn’t see anything. My nose filled in the picture, as odors from years of sun-baked sweat assaulted me. When my eyes adjusted, I saw that nearly all color had been drained from inside. Cobwebs were proof of the only sign of life.

As I scanned what little I could see, the shapes of rows of shelves and stacked boxes repeated endlessly in front of me.

“MATTHEW,” Adam urged from outside.

After taking in my surroundings, I noticed a barrel filled with old practice jerseys. I carved out a path with one hand and guided the book down to the bottom with the other. It’s the best I can do right now.

When I came back out, Adam was anxious. Without saying anything, he started to move again, completely ignoring our situation.

“Are you being for real?” The veins inside of me twitched from how fast my heart was pumping. I pulled him back by his shoulder. I think his sense of cockiness stayed with him always. But as he lowered his chin to speak down to me, his muscles became tense and he seemed like he lost some of his confidence.

“We can’t do this right now,” he said.

Before I had the chance to push him further, a loud voice came up on us.

“There you fuckers are,” the person said from somewhere. “Is this where the losers hang out?” I immediately dropped my hand off of Adam, and we both turned to meet our company.

Derek was calling out to us from the other side of the fence.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Did you guys just finish fighting a grizzly bear?”

“Got to make sure the kid is broken in. He’s pretty tough,” Adam replied. I felt oddly complimented.

“Don’t sell me any of that bullshit,” Derek said. “I bet you’re just two queers locking hands and picking daisies, aren’t you?”

Derek shot a look at me during the last part of what he just said. I glanced toward Adam, but he was unfazed. Well, except for one of the veins in his neck, which looked like it was juiced up with rage. Or steroids. But, probably rage.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“You sound jealous,” Adam said, smirking his way toward Derek. I watched as his posture grew, and he made himself big like a predator. “Envy is the sign of a sinful man.”

If it weren’t for the fence between them, I swear they would have actually butted heads with each other.

“It’s not worth it,” I said to Adam, finally interrupting the nuclear tension about to take us all down. “Let’s go.”

“You should listen to that pathetic boytoy of yours,” Derek said.

Clearly, my attempt to diffuse the situation only fueled his fire. He knew he was poking a bear. And judging from the way Adam snapped and reached through the fence, those words had the chance of being his last.

“I will pay this whole league to break your fucking legs,” he said, while gripping a fist full of Derek’s jersey. Adam showed no signs of letting go. Derek’s face had started to turn some shade of red. He tried to fight back through the fence, landing only a childlike slap to the side of Adam’s face.

“You’re lucky this fence is keeping me from bashing your faces in,” Derek said, taunting us.

When Derek tried to land another hit, I noticed the gravel rash on his hand. I stared down at my own hands, which looked the same.

I ran up to Adam and nudged him in the side. With some reluctance, he shoved Derek back and let go of his grip. We darted off to the locker room.

Even behind my back, I knew Derek’s eyes followed us all the way on our retreat.

I felt broken. The heat beat down on my neck, taxing me of all my energy and ability to focus. It also hardened the film of mud which covered me.

Back home, I never cried. Even when life got difficult. It wasn’t an option. Especially in front of my family. But also, I didn’t need to. I expected all the troubles which made me sad and depressed In Texas. Everyday was a practice of holding back my true feelings.

But when you’re broken, everything inside of you breaks. No part of your body is left untouched.

When Adam and I reached the doors of the locker room, that’s when I broke.

Muscle spasms shot up through my entire body. What was left of my tears rolled down my face. A pit inside of my stomach opened up, and started gnawing at all of my thoughts. Tightness spread across my chest, and my ears started ringing.

For as loud as my feelings felt, it was entirely silent to anyone else.

“Adam,” I wheezed.

I felt numb all over. My skin color drained and became paler than the pale I already was. My rapid panting couldn’t draw in the air I needed fast enough.

My vision started to cloud and my head was losing its sense of weight.

Everything in me went limp. Even my remaining teardrop seemed to freeze right before it planned to curl over the top of my lip.

Right as I began to fall, I was caught.

I couldn’t see or hear anything. But I felt.

I felt his hands cradle me. I felt our bodies cut through the air. I felt him lay me down along the cold tile floor.

I felt my shirt lifting away.

I felt the cool water rinse across me. A damp towel held against my face. The strong hand cushioning my head.

Over the course of however many seconds or minutes, he made me whole. The cloudiness in my eyes was clearing. My ears stopped ringing. Now, all I heard was the sound of the shower and the pumping of my heart.

But, I still whimpered and shook.

“You’re alright,” he said. “Just a panic attack.”

I stared into him, exercising my jaw, trying to share my thanks. All of my words were backed up somewhere deep inside of me.

Softly, he took a corner of the towel and began to wipe away the blood, sweat and tears. His nursing drained away all my apprehension.

With each touch, my heartbeat went from thumping to fluttering.

“I’m sorry,” is all I could say. I felt so embarrassed.

“Nah,” he smiled. His confident, sometimes cocky, but reassuring attitude had come back to him. “Don’t be.”

When he stood up, I was left on the wet floor staring straight up at him.

With the sleight of hand, he turned off the shower water. The drops of water which pooled off his body continued to rain on me.

In the next breath, he bent back down and gave me a hand. As I took it, he pulled me up. All the blood rushed right back to my head, and I swayed a bit too hard for his comfort.

“Woah there,” Adam said.

While I tried to tell up from down, Adam grabbed my hips and centered me.

“Got your legs back?”

“I think so.”

“Good. You were headed south there, just for a second.”

My hands gripped the sides of the shower stall, but he still held onto me. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’ll go dry off,” I said.

The innocence in his eyes fell back inside of him. “Right,” he said.

He swung open the door to the shower. My shorts were sopping wet, and Adam hadn’t taken off any of his clothes.

He tossed me a towel from a stack. I felt obligated to turn my back to him, even though neither of us had another change of clothes we planned to get into.

I threw back on the shirt Adam had removed. The rest of the clothes we still wore were now only damp at best. A few minutes outside would take care of the rest.

When we walked back out, we were in for an upset.

Coach was waiting for us. Derek was there, too.

“Good on you guys to join us!” Coach started strong with his healthy bout of sarcasm. “Funny thing, usually the team captains lead by example. And that includes not disappearing for a GODDAMN HOUR!”

Derek scoffed, but a bit too loudly. It only set coach deeper into his warpath.

“And where the fuck do you think you were?” It was a rhetorical question. “Both my captains disappeared for almost an hour!”

Silence.

“Drop and give me push ups until I tell you otherwise.”

And then there was me.

“And then there’s you.” Coach looked at me squarely in the face. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the politics it took to get you a spot on this squad in the first place. It’s a good thing you’re smart, otherwise this place would want nothing to do with you. And I don’t care if your daddy is some major donor.”

I wanted to defend myself.

“Coach, we heard something. I —,” he cut me off after that.

He stepped right into my personal bubble. I could smell the chew coming off his breath. His untrimmed nose hairs were nearly brushing my face.

“You heard something? You know what I heard?”

I didn’t dare answer what was another rhetorical question.

“I heard a bunch of men acting like fucking men. Sweating their asses off. Busting their balls. Not taking a mini-vacation, like you three.”

His face hung in front of mine for several more seconds, for dramatic effect.

“Drop,” he said.

I joined Derek and Adam on the ground. Both of them were ripping out push-ups without any effort. I got five in before my arms started trembling.

I hit six. I went back down for my next one, shaking with hardly any strength in me. Suddenly I felt a foot push down on me.

“COME ON,” coach said. “MY LITTLE GIRL DOES MORE PUSH UPS THAN THAT.”

I tried pushing up against the force of his shoe, but it was impossible. I winced and groaned and pushed up as hard as I could.

I got about halfway up to the next rep before my face smacked back down into the asphalt.

“Coach, give me his,” Adam said. “I’m the reason we were missing.”

When I looked up, Adam reaffirmed me with a head nod.

“Kindness just warms your heart, doesn’t it?” Coach said, then looking back down at me. “I suggest you learn how to survive, son. He’s not going to be able to save you in every situation.” He redirected his attention back to Adam again, “You’ve got 80 more.”

“And you, you’re coming with me,” he said, pointing at Derek. He wasted no time jumping up from his misery on the ground and joining him back on the practice field.

It was, again, just the two of us. I could hear Adam quietly counting his reps out loud.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said.

“You’re right,” Adam grunted through his umpteenth push up. “I wanted to,” he said as his breath exploded out from him and he busted out several more reps.

“I have to learn,” I said.

A few more push ups.

“And you will,” Adam said.

He showed no signs of quitting. Coach wasn’t even watching at this point.

There was nothing left to say. So, I sat there. The least I could do was be there with him as he accepted my punishment.

It took him hardly long at all to finish. When he did, he sat up and spent just a few seconds catching his breath.

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s get back out there.”

We still had about an hour of practice left. As we hustled back, a sense of urgency burned through me. What was I involved in?

And could I trust Adam?

From the look of the rest of the squad, there was also a deepening sense of frustration.

Not surprisingly, coach had made them run sprints until we rejoined them.

That’s a quick way to make some enemies.

Once we got back to the practice field, Adam immediately broke off from me without even a heads up. He ran off to another end of the field with one of the assistants.

That’s when the other assistant I was with earlier slapped my butt.

“GOODWIN, LET’S MOVE.”

I ran with him. But my mind stayed behind. It was impossible to focus. Everything after what I just experienced was a blur of emotions. I was on autopilot.

I’ve always faced threats head on. In fact, I’ve never felt safe.

I didn’t expect things to be any better at an all-boys college, but I also wasn’t prepared for what the past 24 hours has brought me.

I might be smaller, but I will survive.

The core of who I am is a survivalist. That’s why I thought I would be fine. I almost took offense to the coach suggesting otherwise.

But now more than ever, I needed to focus.

I snapped out of it right as the coach called the end to our tackle drills. I’m lucky the first week was with the dummy and not the real deal.

While I was hunched over, and catching my breath, I felt a shadow come over me. Immediately, my guard went up.

“You’re pretty fast on your feet,” a teammate said. He gave me a quick smile, then ran off back toward the locker room with the rest of the guys.

I was chronically paranoid.

The setting sun finally offered some relief. While I watched the team hustle off to the showers, my miserable afternoon was painted with a vibrant backdrop of the coming night.

Preferring to avoid another confrontation, I chose to head back to my dorm. The return trip was more familiar, but I noticed different things I hadn’t seen before. Everywhere I looked, the campus was trimmed to an impeccable standard. It was very well-maintained. But as I studied more of the buildings, I realized just how uninspiring it all looked. It reminded me of the rigid way my grandmother organized her house.

And how she would lash you with a belt if something was misplaced. Or unwelcome.

When I got back to my dorm, I peeled off all my clothes. I changed into one of my only other shorts and a t-shirt.

After getting dressed, I stopped in front of the mirror in my wardrobe. Bumps and bruises dotted my face. A small gash grew from my chin to the bottom of my lip. Not exactly the look I wanted for myself.

Combing it with my fingers, I tried to make my matted and greasy hair look a bit more presentable. I needed to stop by the dining hall, since I hadn’t had anything to eat all day.

Racing out the building, I jumped to a stop after almost colliding with a ladder.

I stepped back, and saw a maintenance man doing repair work on the ceiling. A closer look revealed he was putting up the same device I had seen outside of mine and Adam’s doors.

The same device. The one which kept blinking red.

When I got outside, it had finally become dark. The dining hall wasn’t far at all, though.

It seemed like most everyone else was in for the night, because campus was empty in every direction I looked. In my limited time here, I at least expected there might be some weird war cries or generally loud and obnoxious immaturity.

But tonight wasn’t like that.

Every bit of my evening walk was peaceful.

That was, up until I turned the corner and saw his body.