During lunch, Katie managed to get away from Layton long enough to bring me to an empty science lab, where she got out her makeup kit.

“Hold still,” she said. “I’ll try to be gentle.” Then she proceeded to cover my bruises.

“This really isn’t necessary,” I told her, but didn’t stop her.

“If you don’t want to be the subject of conversation,” she said, “you have to make sure you’re not drawing attention to yourself.”

“And this you know from experience?”

She stopped dabbing my face, but only for a moment. “Why do you keep looking for something that’s not there?” she asked.

“Because I see the way Layton talks to you.”

“Talk is talk.”

“And you’re okay with the way he is?”

She pressed a little too hard as she spread the makeup, and I grimaced. “Sorry,” she said, then sighed, and took a moment to regain her composure. “Ash, you have your reasons for keeping the peace, and I have mine,” Katie said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“But this isn’t what people think it is,” I told her.

Katie went back to dabbing my face and took her time before responding to that. “Even if it’s not, it could have been,” she told me. “There are plenty of people out there who would have done this to you if they weren’t, literally, beaten to the punch.”

And I knew she was right. I wanted to tell myself that it was just this messed-up world. That in my world it wouldn’t be the case . . . but that wasn’t true. This place did not have a monopoly on intolerance.

This will all blow over, I told myself. But who was I kidding? Now I wasn’t just the queer football player, I was the queer football player who got the shit kicked out of him by some homophobic scum. And while me coming out was Instagram-worthy, this new wrinkle was newsworthy. Before the end of the day, I got a call from a local reporter—God knows how she even got my number. I hung up on her, then turned off my phone. There was no question that I was now in the seat of a catapult that was about to send me places I didn’t want to go.

I was excused from Thursday’s practice. I didn’t ask to be excused.

“We all need a day off once in a while,” the coach said, even though I’d taken plenty of days off lately.

“You can’t pull me out of the game tomorrow! I have to play.” And he had no idea how much.

He sighed. “I won’t pull you out against your will,” he said. “If I did, people will put all sorts of spin on that.”