Temps de lecture

Vues

Date de publication

Commentaires

Liste de lecture

Fiction

• Fiction : Récit entièrement imaginé, avec des personnages et des situations inventés

• Inspiré du réel : Récit partant d'une expérience vécue, avec une part d'invention ou d'embellissement

• Réel : Récit fidèle à une expérience réellement vécue

• Fantasme : Histoire correspondant à un fantasme personnel ou collectif

• Poème : Texte rédigé sous forme poétique avec contenu érotique

Gays

Orientation principale dans ce chapitre

Tourmented by jock in love triangle — Chapitre 4 · Worship and reclamation

26 minutes

617

il y a 4 jours

Écriture avec assistance partielle d'une IA — Cette information est librement déclarée par l'auteur, elle n'a pas été vérifiée.

Auteur·e

Histoires publiées

Chapitres publiés

Abonnés

J'aime cumulés

847

Coup de cœur

Notre équipe a apprécié ce chapitre. Cliquez pour découvrir pourquoi.

L'avis peut contenir des indices sur l'intrigue.

Ce qui retient l'attention, c'est le soin mis dans l'écoulement du temps : les mois s'égrènent comme des stations, chacune scandée par un message répété — « Still here » — qui finit par résonner bien au-delà d'un simple SMS. La voix de Lee, hésitante et lucide à la fois, rend chaque silence aussi lourd qu'une décision. Et c'est précisément cette retenue, cette façon de ne rien trancher trop vite, qui donne au récit toute sa densité.

Tourmented by jock in love triangle

Chapitre 4 · Worship and reclamation

The weeks after Noah walked away bled into each other like watercolors left in the rain. I stopped answering my phone. Stopped checking email. Stopped leaving my apartment for anything except the absolute bare minimum—classes I couldn't afford to skip, groceries I couldn't afford to delay. The rest of the time, I lay on my couch and stared at the ceiling and replayed every decision I'd made since April like a film I couldn't turn off.

Marcus's texts came in waves. The first week: desperate, pleading, a flood of words I couldn't bring myself to read all the way through. Please talk to me. I know you're hurting. Let me be there for you. Lee. Lee, please. The second week: shorter. More measured. I'm not going anywhere. Take your time. The third week: a single message each morning, always the same. I'm still here. I never responded.

Not because I didn't want to. That was the problem—I wanted to. Every time my phone buzzed, my stomach dropped and my pulse jumped and some traitorous part of me hoped it was him. And then I'd remember the look on Noah's face in the coffee shop. The wet shine of his eyes. The way he'd said maybe I do like he was only just realizing it himself.

So I didn't respond. I buried myself in silence and let the guilt eat me alive.

June arrived. The campus emptied out for summer break, leaving behind only the graduate students and the stragglers and the too-broke-to-travel. I qualified as all three. My scholarship covered summer housing, and I'd signed up for two online courses I had no intention of actually completing, and my days dissolved into an endless gray loop of nothing.

Marcus kept texting.

Still here.
Still here.
Still here.

The athletic department opened their investigation in late June. I found out from a voicemail left by some administrator with a voice like cold oatmeal. "Mr. Walsh, this is Patricia Hendricks from the Office of Athletic Compliance. We're conducting a review of student-athlete conduct regarding Marcus Chen. A formal complaint has been filed alleging a pattern of harassment over the past two academic years. We'd like to schedule an interview with you at your earliest convenience."

Formal complaint. The words sat in my mouth like copper pennies.

Noah. It had to be Noah. He was the only one who knew the full scope of it—every hallway confrontation, every cafeteria humiliation, every relationship Marcus had systematically dismantled. I'd told him everything during those long nights on my couch, his fingers tracing patterns on my thigh, his voice murmuring you didn't deserve that into my hair.

And now he'd filed a complaint. Not for revenge—Noah wasn't petty. But because he believed it was the right thing to do. Because he still wanted to protect me, even after I'd broken his heart.

I didn't call the administrator back for three days.

When I finally did, my voice was hoarse from disuse. "This is Lee Walsh. I'm returning your call."

The interview took place in a windowless conference room in the administration building. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A recording device sat on the table between us, red light blinking. Patricia Hendricks was a thin woman with thin lips and thin patience, and she asked her questions in a tone that suggested she'd already decided what answers she wanted to hear.

"Mr. Chen has been accused of systematic harassment. Can you describe any interactions you've had with him that might be relevant?"

My hands were folded on the table. I stared at my knuckles.

"He made comments," I said. "About how I dressed. How I talked. Who I spent time with. Every day, for two years. If I had a girlfriend, he'd find a way to end it. If I had friends, he'd humiliate me in front of them until they stopped being my friends."

"And how did that make you feel?"

The question was so absurd I almost laughed. How did it make me feel. Like asking a drowning man how he felt about water.

"Small," I said. "Invisible. Terrified. Like I couldn't exist without his permission."

She wrote something on her notepad. "And yet you've indicated you don't wish to press charges. Why is that?"

Because I slept with him. Because I have feelings for him. Because I'm so tangled up in him I can't tell where the trauma ends and the attraction begins.

"He's..." I stopped. Started again. "I don't think he meant it the way it looked. I think he was dealing with something he didn't understand, and I was the target because I was..." The word I was looking for didn't exist. "Convenient. Visible. Someone he couldn't stop thinking about."

Patricia Hendricks did not look impressed by this explanation.

"Mr. Walsh, I want to be clear. The conduct you've described constitutes a violation of our student code. Regardless of Mr. Chen's motivations, the impact on you was real. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"And you're choosing not to pursue disciplinary action beyond what the athletic department deems appropriate?"

My throat tightened. "Yes."

She clicked off the recording device. "The department will make its determination within the week. Thank you for your time."

The determination came down on a Thursday. Marcus Chen: suspended for one full season. All harassment charges dropped, per the victim's request. Eligible for reinstatement in the spring.

The campus news outlets ran the story for exactly two days before moving on to something else. By July, it was like the stadium confession had never happened. Marcus's name faded from the headlines. His face disappeared from the athletic department's promotional materials. The football team started their summer training without him, and the world kept spinning, and I stayed in my apartment with my guilt and my silence and the ghost of his hands on my skin.

He kept texting.

Still here.

August. A new message.

I got an offer. Full scholarship. University of Walton. Division I. They don't care about the suspension. They want me, Lee.

My heart stopped. Walton was three states away.

I leave in three weeks. Please. Just one conversation before I go. That's all I'm asking. One conversation, and if you tell me to leave you alone forever, I will.

I stared at the screen for seventeen minutes. My thumb hovered over the keyboard.

I put the phone down.

He texted the night before his departure.

I know you're not going to answer. I've made my peace with that. But I need you to know something. A pause between messages, long enough that I thought he was done. Then: Those two years I spent making your life hell—that wasn't about you. It was about me. I was a coward and a bully and I took out my own self-hatred on the one person I wanted most in the world. That's not an excuse. It's an explanation. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to be someone who deserves you, even if you never speak to me again.

Goodbye, Lee.

I didn't sleep that night.

The fall semester started without him. For the first time in two years, I walked across campus without scanning crowds for his face. Without bracing for his voice. Without steeling myself for the next humiliation.

It should have felt like freedom.

It felt like absence. Like a hole cut out of the world where something essential used to be.

I went to classes. I did my work. I didn't date. Rachel sent me a text in September—heard about everything, hope you're okay—and I didn't respond. Derek passed me in the quad once, flanked by new sycophants, and his eyes skated over me like I was furniture.

Noah transferred schools in October. I found out through a mutual friend, a brief mention in a group chat I'd forgotten I was part of. Yeah, Noah's at Northridge now. Said he needed a fresh start.

I didn't blame him.

Walton's first game of the season was in November. I watched it alone in my apartment, lights off, laptop screen the only illumination. Marcus looked different. Leaner. Sharper. Whatever training they'd put him through at Walton had honed him into something even more devastating than before. He moved across the field like a blade, and the announcers couldn't stop talking about him—the transfer quarterback with the controversial past, the viral confession, the redemption story waiting to be written.

He threw for three hundred yards. Four touchdowns. They won by twenty-one points.

The camera found him after the final whistle, sweat-soaked and grinning, and I felt it like a punch to the sternum. That smile. I'd seen it exactly twice before—once in his apartment, when I'd laughed at something he'd said, and once in my bed, when he'd whispered my name like a prayer.

I closed the laptop.

Didn't sleep that night either.

December. Another Walton game. Another dominant performance. Another post-game interview where Marcus thanked his coaches and his teammates and said nothing about his personal life.

January. The spring semester began. I registered for classes, attended lectures, ate meals, existed. My advisor mentioned something about graduate programs, about the future, about planning ahead. I nodded and took the pamphlets and threw them in the recycling bin when I got home.

February. Marcus texted.

I hadn't blocked his number. Hadn't deleted his contact. Hadn't done any of the things a sensible person would have done nine months ago.

We're playing in the regional championship next month. It's in your city. I know you probably won't come, but I wanted you to know.

My heart was a drum in my chest.

I still think about you. Every day.

The regional championship fell on a Saturday in late March. I didn't plan to go. I told myself I wasn't going. I told myself a hundred different variations of you're not going while I showered and dressed and ate breakfast and checked the game time on my phone and checked it again and checked it a third time.

At 3:47 PM, I was in my car.

At 4:22 PM, I was buying a ticket at the stadium gate.

At 4:58 PM, I was in the nosebleed section, as far from the field as I could possibly get, wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up and sunglasses I didn't need.

You're an idiot, I told myself. You're a complete and utter idiot.

The game started. Marcus was magnificent. Effortless. He threw with a precision that seemed almost supernatural, reading defenses before they formed, placing the ball exactly where it needed to be every single time. The Walton crowd roared his name in unison. CHEN. CHEN. CHEN. It echoed off the stadium walls like thunder.

Halftime came. Walton was up by ten. I stayed in my seat, hood still up, heart still racing, every nerve in my body screaming at me to leave before—

"There he is."

The voice came from everywhere at once. The stadium speakers. Amplified. Booming.

I looked up.

The Jumbotron.

My face was on the Jumbotron.

A cameraman had found me—some eagle-eyed bastard with a long lens and a knack for recognizing faces—and my image filled the massive screen above the field: hoodie, sunglasses, terrified expression, unmistakably me.

The broadcast team scrambled. Someone in the production booth clearly recognized my face from the viral stadium confession footage. A graphic appeared beside my image: Lee Walsh. Viral confession subject. In attendance.

The crowd murmured. Phones lifted.

And on the field, Marcus Chen stopped dead.

He was staring up at the Jumbotron. At me. His helmet was off—he'd been drinking water on the sideline—and I could see his expression with brutal, high-definition clarity.

Shock. Then recognition. Then something that looked a lot like hope.

He raised his hand. Waved.

I ran.

I don't remember leaving the stadium. I don't remember the stairs, the concourse, the parking lot. I remember the cold March air hitting my face, and the distant roar of the crowd, and my phone buzzing in my pocket with a text I didn't read until I was in my car with the doors locked and my hands shaking on the steering wheel.

Lee. You came.
Stay there. Please. I'm coming.
Lee.

I didn't stay. I drove home, and I didn't look back.

I got accepted to Walton in April. The acceptance letter arrived on a Tuesday, thick and cream-colored and completely unexpected. I'd applied on a whim back in January, during one of those 2 AM spirals where the future yawned open like a chasm and I'd thrown applications at every graduate program I could think of just to feel like I was doing something.

Walton had a computer science program. One of the best in the country. Full funding for PhD candidates.

I stared at the letter for an hour.

Then I signed the acceptance form.

August again. Move-in day. The Walton campus was all red brick and white columns and meticulously manicured lawns. It looked like a brochure. Smelled like money. I hauled my boxes up three flights of stairs to my new apartment—graduate housing, a single, small but functional—and tried not to think about the fact that Marcus Chen was somewhere on this campus.

I'd done the math. He was a junior now. Still the starting quarterback. Still the face of Walton football. His Instagram—which I definitely did not check regularly—was a wall of game photos and training videos and the occasional brooding black-and-white selfie that made my stomach flip in ways I refused to examine.

He didn't know I was here.

He couldn't know.

I'd told no one. Not my old classmates. Not my family. I'd slipped away from my old campus like a thief in the night, leaving behind nothing but a forwarding address and a carefully curated social media silence.

If I could just keep my head down. If I could just—

Day one of orientation. I walked into the graduate student welcome mixer with a name tag stuck to my chest and a plastic cup of lukewarm punch in my hand and approximately zero interest in making friends.

"Lee? Lee Walsh?"

The voice came from behind me. Male. Unfamiliar. I turned.

A guy I didn't recognize was grinning at me like I was a celebrity. He was maybe twenty-one, baby-faced, wearing a Walton football t-shirt and the unmistakable bearing of someone who spent a lot of time in the gym.

"I knew it. I knew it was you. Marcus said you might be coming here this year. Bro, this is insane. I'm Tyler, by the way. Tight end. Marcus is gonna lose his mind when he finds out you're actually here."

My blood turned to ice.

"Marcus knows I'm here?"

"Dude, he's been telling everyone for weeks. 'Lee's coming to Walton. Lee Walsh is coming to Walton.' Like, literally everyone. I think the janitorial staff knows your name at this point."

I set down my punch. My hand was trembling.

"I'm not—we're not—"

"Hey, no judgment." Tyler held up both hands, still grinning. "Marcus is my guy. If he says you're important, you're important. I just wanted to introduce myself. Welcome to Walton, man."

He clapped me on the shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

I stood frozen, name tag crooked, pulse hammering, the full weight of what I'd done crashing down on me like a wave.

He found me the next day. I was walking back from the computer science building, a campus map in one hand and a schedule printout in the other, when a familiar silhouette detached itself from the shadow of the library and fell into step beside me.

"Hey."

Marcus Chen.

He looked—God, he looked good. The year apart had sharpened every edge. His jaw was more defined, his shoulders broader, his hair a little longer and artfully disheveled. He was wearing a Walton football hoodie and gray joggers and an expression of barely contained joy that made my chest ache.

"Marcus."

"You're here." His voice was soft. Disbelieving. "You're actually here."

"I got accepted to the PhD program. It wasn't—I didn't come here for you."

"I know." He was smiling now, a real smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I know you didn't. But you're here. And I'm here. And I've been waiting a year, Lee. A whole year."

"I didn't ask you to wait."

"You didn't have to."

We stood there on the sidewalk, students flowing around us like water around a stone, and I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to feel. The anger was still there, somewhere deep, but it was buried under so many other things—longing, fear, hope, guilt—that I couldn't access it anymore.

"I'm not the same person I was," Marcus said quietly. "I've been in therapy. Real therapy. For a year. I've been working on—everything. The bullying. The obsession. The way I used you as a punching bag because I couldn't handle my own feelings." His hand lifted, then dropped, like he'd thought about touching me and thought better of it. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm just asking you to let me show you who I am now."

"Marcus—"

"You don't have to decide anything right now. You don't have to decide anything ever. But I'm going to be here. On this campus. In your orbit. And I'm going to treat you the way I should have treated you from the beginning." His eyes met mine, steady and warm. "Like someone I love."

The word hit me like a physical blow. Love. He'd said it before, in the heat of passion, in the desperation of his confession, but this was different. This was calm. Certain. A statement of fact, not a plea for reciprocation.

"I have class," I heard myself say.

"Okay." He stepped aside. "I'll see you around, Lee."

He walked away.

I watched him go.

He didn't ambush me. Didn't corner me. Didn't deploy any of the tactics he'd used for two years. Instead, he was simply... present. At the coffee shop where I studied, three tables away, not approaching. At the campus dining hall, across the room, not staring. In the library, in the quad, in the hallways of the science building, always at a respectful distance, always giving me space.

And he talked about me. Constantly. To everyone.

"Lee Walsh is brilliant. Did you know he's in the PhD program? Computer science. He's going to change the world someday."

"Stay away from him. He's off-limits. I'm serious, bro. Off. Limits."

"Have you met Lee? No? You should meet Lee. He's the smartest person on this campus. Probably the smartest person I've ever met."

I heard these things secondhand. Thirdhand. From Tyler, who'd decided we were friends now. From other graduate students who'd been approached by the star quarterback and given the "Lee Walsh orientation speech." From a barista at the coffee shop who asked, with genuine curiosity, "Are you and Marcus Chen a thing? Because he talks about you a lot."

"He's not my boyfriend," I said.

But I didn't say it with conviction.

October. A Walton home game against their biggest rival. Marcus had left a ticket for me at will-call. Front row. Fifty-yard line. I found out when Tyler showed up at my apartment with an envelope and a grin.

"He's not going to ask you himself," Tyler said. "He's trying to give you space. But he really wants you there. And honestly? So do I. The guy plays better when you're in the stands."

"How do you know that?"

"Because last season, the only game he didn't throw for three hundred yards was the one after you ran away from him in the parking lot."

That hit harder than I expected.

I went to the game.

The front-row seat was impossible to miss—right behind the Walton bench, so close I could hear the players calling plays, hear the thud of pads colliding, hear Marcus's voice rising above the chaos with calm authority. He saw me in the second quarter. Paused mid-play-call. Smiled.

Threw a touchdown on the next snap.

They won in overtime. The crowd stormed the field. Marcus was lifted onto shoulders, carried in triumph, and when he passed my section he looked down and said, "That was for you."

I didn't run this time.

November.

He invited me to his apartment. Off-campus, a small two-bedroom he shared with no one. "No pressure," he said. "I'll cook. You can leave whenever you want."

I went.

He made pasta. The sauce was from a jar, the garlic bread was slightly burnt, and he apologized for both things at least six times. We ate on his couch, the same way we'd eaten takeout in his old apartment a lifetime ago, and the conversation was easy in a way I'd forgotten conversations could be.

"Why did you wait?" I asked. "A whole year. You could have moved on. Found someone else."

He set down his fork. "I told you. I've loved you for two years. Waiting one more wasn't hard. What was hard was knowing I might never get the chance to show you I'd changed."

"And if I never forgave you?"

"Then I'd spend the rest of my life knowing I'd ruined my only shot at something real." He said it without self-pity. Just fact. "But I wasn't going to stop trying to be better. Even if you never saw it."

My chest was tight. My eyes were wet. I didn't know when that had started.

"Marcus."

"Yeah?"

"I'm still angry. About all of it. The two years. Rachel. Noah. The stadium. I'm still angry."

"I know."

"But I'm also—" The words stuck in my throat. "I'm also tired of being angry. I'm tired of fighting this. I'm tired of pretending I don't feel it too."

His breath caught.

"Lee—"

"I'm not saying I'm ready. I'm not saying I know how to do this. But I'm here. I came to your game. I came to your apartment. I'm here, Marcus. That has to count for something."

"It counts for everything." His voice was rough. His hand found mine on the couch cushion, fingers interlacing, gentle. "Everything."

December. A party at Tyler's house. The football team, assorted girlfriends and boyfriends, half the graduate program. I went because Tyler had become something like a friend, and because Marcus had asked, and because I was running out of reasons to say no.

A guy from the economics department cornered me by the drinks table. Tall. Dark-haired. Handsome in a forgettable way.

"Hey. You're Lee, right? I've seen you around. Can I get you a drink?"

Before I could answer, an arm wrapped around my waist from behind. Solid. Warm. Possessive.

"He's with me."

The guy's eyes widened. "Chen. Shit. Sorry, man. Didn't know."

"Now you do."

The arm didn't move. The guy retreated into the crowd. I twisted around to face Marcus, whose expression was unreadable.

"Did you just claim me?"

"Yes."

"In front of an entire party."

"Yes."

"Marcus—"

"I've been waiting two and a half years to be able to do that. To tell someone you're mine and have it be true." His voice dropped, low and intense, for my ears only. "I know we're not official. I know we're still figuring things out. But I need everyone on this campus to understand one thing: you are not available. You will never be available. Anyone who wants you has to go through me."

"You're insane."

"About you? Absolutely."

His thumb traced my jaw. His eyes were dark, heated, and I realized with a jolt that I wanted him. Right now. In the middle of this party, surrounded by people, I wanted him.

"Take me home," I said.

His pupils blew wide. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

His apartment was closer than mine. We barely made it through the door.

The second it clicked shut behind us, his mouth was on mine—hot, desperate, nothing like the patient restraint he'd shown for months. His hands were everywhere. My hair, my shoulders, my hips, gripping hard enough to bruise.

"I've been thinking about this," he growled against my throat, "every day. Every single day since the last time. The way you felt around me. The sounds you made. The way you said my name."

"Marcus—"

"Say it again."

"Marcus."

He groaned, low and guttural, and walked me backward toward the bedroom. His mouth found my collarbone, sucking hard, leaving marks I'd have to explain tomorrow. I didn't care. My hands were under his shirt, dragging it over his head, mapping the hard planes of his chest with my palms.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured. "Do you know that? Do you have any idea?"

"I—"

"Every part of you. Your brain. Your body. The way you laugh when you're nervous. The way you bite your lip when you're thinking. I've memorized all of it." His forehead pressed to mine. "I'm going to worship you tonight. Every inch. Is that okay?"

Words failed me. I nodded.

He undressed me like I was something precious. Slow. Deliberate. Each button on my shirt, each inch of skin revealed, greeted with his mouth. His hands trembled slightly—the only sign of the restraint he was exercising—and when I was finally naked beneath him on his bed, he stopped. Sighed. Shook his head.

"I can't believe you're here. I can't believe you're real."

"I'm real." I pulled him down to me. "Now stop talking."

He laughed against my mouth. Then he stopped talking.

He worked his way down my body with methodical devotion. Not rushing. Not fumbling. Every touch deliberate, every kiss a statement. My throat. My sternum. My navel. The jut of my hipbone, which he bit gently, making me gasp.

The first brush of his tongue against where I needed him most made me arch off the mattress.

"Marcus—"

"Shh." His breath was hot against sensitive skin. "I told you. Worship."

He took me apart with his mouth. By the time he finally—finally—pushed inside me, I was trembling uncontrollably, my hands fisted in his sheets, my voice reduced to wordless sounds of need.

"Look at me," he breathed. "I want to see you."

I opened my eyes. His face above me was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen—flushed, reverent, utterly undone.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, Lee. I'm going to spend the rest of my life loving you."

I couldn't speak. Couldn't think. The pleasure built and built, layer upon layer, until I was nothing but sensation and his name and the weight of him above me.

"Come with me," I gasped. "Please. Marcus, please—"

He buried his face in my throat. His rhythm fractured. His body went rigid.

We fell together.

Afterward, tangled in his sheets, our breathing slowly evening out, he traced patterns on my chest with his fingertip.

"Stay," he said. Not a command. A hope.

I turned my head on the pillow to look at him. His hair was a mess. His lips were swollen. He'd never looked more vulnerable.

"I'm not finished," he continued. "Figuring out who I am. Working through my issues. I know that. But I want to do it with you. If you'll let me."

I thought about Noah. About the two years of torment. About the stadium confession and the year of silence and the long, slow journey back to this moment.

"You're going to have to be patient," I said. "I'm still healing. I might be healing for a long time."

"I'll wait."

"And you can't go back to being the person you were. Ever. If I see even a hint of that Marcus again—"

"You won't. I swear on my life."

"And you have to stop telling every guy on campus that I'm 'yours' like I'm property."

He winced. "Okay. Fair. I can—I'll work on that."

"But." I paused. "When you do it in front of me? When you wrap your arm around me and tell someone I'm with you?" Heat pooled in my stomach. "I don't hate it."

His eyes darkened. "You don't?"

"I don't hate it."

A slow smile spread across his face—not the desperate, pleading expression he'd worn for so long, but something confident. Something knowing.

"Good," he said. "Because I meant what I said. You're mine, Lee Walsh. And I'm yours. And I'm going to spend every day making sure you never regret choosing me."

He kissed me. Deep and slow and full of promise.

Outside, the December wind rattled the windows. Inside, wrapped in the arms of the man who'd once been my tormentor and was now—against all logic, against all reason—something like my home, I let myself believe him.

Commentaires