Chapter 14
RYAN
“Each pair will be assigned a section,” says Elliot, once we’ve all screamed ourselves hoarse.
“You’ll sort documents by date, category, and relevance.
Anything of historical significance gets flagged for the university archivist. Everything else gets cataloged and filed according to the system outlined in these binders.
” He produces eight identical three-ring binders from seemingly nowhere and distributes them.
I accept mine with trembling fingers. The binder is thick, suggesting someone with too much time and not enough joy created an elaborate system that will haunt my dreams.
“Jacoby, Abrams—you’re in Section G.” Elliot points toward a particularly dim corner of the basement.
“Larney, Monroe—Section A. Gunnarson, Paisley—Section E.” He checks something off on his clipboard.
“I’ll be upstairs if you have any questions.
Though I encourage you to consult your binders first. They’re quite comprehensive. ”
“Comprehensive,” Drew mutters humorlessly. “Wonderful.”
Elliot’s gaze lingers on Gerard for a moment—something softer flickering beneath the professional mask—before he turns and ascends the stairs.
The basement door closes behind him with a definitive thud.
For a moment, none of us moves. Then Gerard breaks the silence by launching into the opening notes of “Don’t You Forget About Me” at full volume as Nathan steers him to their assigned area.
Drew and Jackson share an amused look before making their way deeper into the basement.
Which leaves me standing alone with Oliver Jacoby.
“So,” Oliver says with an easy smile playing at his lips. “Ready to sort through the ghosts of BSU past?”
“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life,” I quip.
He lets out this warm, genuine laugh that does absolutely nothing to calm the butterflies staging a coup in my stomach and leads the way toward our designated corner.
Section G is, if possible, even dustier than the rest of the basement.
The shelving units here are older, the metal spotted with rust, and the boxes look as though they haven’t been touched since the seventies.
A single worktable has been set up between the rows, equipped with a lamp that casts a pool of yellow light across the oppressive dimness.
Oliver sets his binder on the table and surveys our domain. “Could be worse.”
“How?”
“Could be on fire.” He grabs the nearest box and hauls it onto the table. A cloud of dust erupts, making us both cough. “Let’s see what treasures await.”
The box contains faculty meeting minutes from 1987. I pull up a metal folding chair and start sorting through the yellowed pages while Oliver tackles a second box that appears to hold student organization records.
For a while, we work silently. The only sounds are the rustling of paper, the distant hum of the ventilation system, and Gerard’s continued musical performance.
“Is he always like this?” I ask quietly.
Oliver doesn’t look up from his sorting. “Gerard? Yeah. He’s basically a golden retriever in human form. Boundless energy, zero self-preservation instincts, and an inexplicable ability to make everyone love him despite their best efforts.”
I nod, filing that information away. The hockey team’s dynamics are still foreign to me, a complex web of relationships I’m only beginning to understand.
Jackson has tried explaining it multiple times, usually with elaborate hand gestures and sports metaphors that sail over my head, but experiencing it firsthand is different.
These people genuinely care about each other.
It radiates from every interaction, every insult, every exasperated sigh. They’re a family in the truest sense.
And it’s everything I’ve never had.
My own family fractured long before Mom died. Dad was always more comfortable with orders than conversations, more fluent in military protocol than emotional support. Marvin was building walls of social status to hide behind. And me? I retreated into the stars.
When Mom got sick, I thought maybe it would bring us all together.
That shared grief would forge a bond. Instead, it drove us further apart.
Dad became even more rigid, as if he could control the cancer through sheer force of discipline.
Marvin kept finding excuses to stay at friends’ houses, to be anywhere but the place where our mother was slowly disappearing.
It was up to me to be the one sitting at her bedside, mapping constellations on the ceiling, and naming new stars after her favorite things—the Vanilla Nebula, the Cinnamon Cluster.
Sometimes it feels like only yesterday she was still here.
Other times it feels like another lifetime entirely.
“You okay?” Oliver’s voice pulls me back to the present. I realize I’ve been staring at the same page for several minutes, not seeing it at all.
“Fine,” I say automatically. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
The question is gentle and curious, without being pushy. Classic Oliver. Even as a kid, he had the ability to create space for honesty without demanding it.
“My mom,” I admit, surprising myself. “She would have found this hilarious. Getting in trouble for skinny-dipping. Sentenced to sorting dusty archives. She had this theory that the best stories came from the worst decisions.”
Oliver sets aside a folder labeled Greek Life Correspondence 1987 and gives me his full attention. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” The words ache in my throat.
Gerard’s singing echoes through the basement again, and I hear Nathan let out a sound that might be a growl.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Oliver asks me.
My stomach clenches. When Oliver Jacoby asks me something personal, my body can’t decide whether to freeze or flee. “Depends on how personal.”
“Fair enough.” The lamplight carves shadows beneath his cheekbones and turns his irises into pools of emerald. “When did you figure out you were gay?”
The question lands the way a stone does in still water, the ripples spreading outward through my carefully constructed calm.
“I think I always knew,” I admit, my voice steadier than I feel.
“Even before I had words for it. I remember thinking Tommy Hendrickson had the nicest smile in our class. I didn’t understand why that felt different from how other boys talked about girls, but I knew it was something I should keep to myself. ”
Oliver nods slowly. “Military family. I imagine that complicated things.”
“You could say that.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Dad’s idea of masculinity came straight out of the 1950s. Marvin learned to perform it flawlessly—sports, girls, bravado. I couldn’t, though. Every time I tried, it felt like wearing a costume that didn’t fit.”
“Did you ever come out to them?”
“To Dad? God, no.” The thought alone makes me want to run into traffic. “Marvin figured it out on his own, I think. He’s never said anything directly, but there have been comments over the years. Nothing I could call him out on without admitting he was right.”
The memories surface unbidden—Marvin asking why I never had girlfriends, the suffocating feeling of being seen and unseen simultaneously. I learned early to make myself small, to disappear into books and telescopes and the vast, impersonal comfort of the cosmos.
“What about you?” I ask, desperate to shift the spotlight. “When did you know?”
Oliver’s expression shifts into something wry. “Oh, I knew early too. But as I got older, I was a lot less subtle about it.”
“What do you mean?”
He runs a hand through his hair, dislodging a small cloud of dust. “So, junior year of high school. I’d been fooling around with this guy on my hockey team for a few months. Nothing serious—just teenage hormones and convenient proximity. We thought we were being careful.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” Oliver continues with a grimace, “Coach Davis walked into the equipment room at exactly the wrong moment. And by wrong moment, I mean I had my tongue down Devon’s throat and my hand halfway down his pants.”
I choke on nothing. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah.” Oliver laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “Coach froze in the doorway, shock, confusion, and resignation written all over his face. Then he said, ‘Jacoby, my office,’ and walked out.”
“What happened?”
“I was convinced my life was over. That he was going to out me to my parents, kick me off the team, tell the whole school.” Oliver shakes his head. “Instead, he sat me down and asked if I was being safe. If we were using protection and understood the importance of consent and communication.”
My jaw drops. “Seriously?”
“Coach Davis was old-school in a lot of ways, but he’d had a gay brother who died of AIDS in the eighties.
Changed his whole perspective on things.
” Oliver’s voice softens with obvious affection.
“He told me that who I loved was my business, but that I needed to be smarter about where I expressed that love. Said the equipment room smelled bad enough without adding teenage hormones to the mix.”
Despite myself, I laugh. “He sounds incredible.”
“He was. Is. I still call him sometimes.” Oliver pauses, his expression growing more serious.
“He didn’t out me, but the experience kind of forced my hand.
I realized I didn’t want to spend my life hiding in equipment rooms. So I came out to my parents that summer.
Then to the team. It wasn’t always easy, but it was freeing. ”
I try to picture myself standing in the center of a room, every hidden part of me suddenly illuminated. It feels as foreign as a distant galaxy, completely unattainable.
“I’ve never had that,” I say quietly. “The freedom part.”
Oliver studies me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Ryan, can I ask you something else?”
“You’re on a roll. Might as well.”
“Have you ever dated anyone? Had a boyfriend, I mean.”