Chapter 16 #2
“Not this time,” Joshua said, resting a hand on Mark’s arm. “Get your feet wet while we’re still here. If you want help, throw me a glance.” The hand on Mark’s arm tightened. “But I’m betting you won’t need me. You’ve got this.”
The door creaked open. A couple of kids drifted in, backpacks slung low, eyes flicking around the room.
Mark cleared his throat and stepped forward before he could overthink it.
“Hey,” he said. “Glad you’re here.”
Joshua took a seat in the circle instead of standing in front.
Mark glanced at him once, then waited until everyone had taken a seat. There were seven kids. He didn’t rush it. He didn’t fill the space. When the last backpack slid under a chair and the room settled into that particular, watchful quiet, he cleared his throat.
Mark looked around the circle. “Before I introduce our guests, why don’t we go around and say our names—just first names, if that’s what you’re comfortable with. No pressure to say more than you want. Give your pronouns if that works for you.”
There was a brief hesitation, then a girl with blue streaks in her hair lifted her chin. “Lex,” she said, voice clear but careful.
Next to her, a quiet boy with glasses gave a small wave. “I’m Jacob.
A curly-haired girl in a worn UVA hoodie smiled shyly. “Tasha.”
A boy with neatly twisted hair leaned forward slightly. “Aaron,” he said, with a quick nod.
Beside him, a girl with long, dark hair tucked behind her shoulders offered a small, steady smile. “Terry.”
A tall, lanky boy, one sneaker bouncing lightly against the floor, shrugged. “Malik.”
At the far side, a broad-shouldered boy in a gray hoodie sat with his arms folded. He waited until last. When it was his turn, he simply said, “Dylan.” His voice was steady, but he didn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes
Mark nodded, easy and reassuring. “Thanks, everyone. That helps a lot.”
He turned to the visitors, inviting them to introduce themselves.
“Okay,” he said. “Before we get started, I want to introduce a few people who are visiting today.”
A couple of heads lifted. No one stiffened. That felt like a win.
Joshua leaned forward slightly. “I’m Josh,” he said. “I work with groups like this. I’m mostly here to listen.”
Nate lifted his hand in a half-wave. “I’m Nate. I teach writing. Sometimes I bring notebooks.”
A few kids smiled at that.
“I’m David,” David said. “I help with rules and boundaries when groups need them.”
Trent nodded once. “I’m Trent. I drive the bus and do body-based work, stretching, physical things that help when words are hard.”
Colin waited until last. “I’m Colin,” he said. “I help out when things get complicated. I do legal stuff sometimes.”
That was it. No credentials. No speeches. No weight added to the room.
Mark took a breath and stepped back into the circle, the movement small but deliberate.
“So,” he said, “before we do anything else, I want to try out something we can use every week.”
He glanced around. No one bolted. Good sign.
“I’ll ask the same question each time,” he continued. “You don’t have to answer out loud if you don’t want to. One word is fine. Passing is fine.”
Joshua stayed quiet.
Mark nodded once, committing to it.
“How are you feeling today?”
The silence came—familiar now, not frightening.
Mark let it stay.
A kid near the window shrugged. “Tired.”
Mark nodded. “Thanks.”
“Nervous,” someone else offered.
“Yeah,” Mark said gently. “That makes sense.” He paused for a half-second, then leaned toward the student. “Me too.”
There was a soft titter from the group.
A third voice, quieter. “OK.”
Mark smiled a little. “OK counts.”
He glanced at Joshua, just once, and Joshua gave him a slow nod: You’ve got this.
Mark turned back to the circle.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s try something together.”
Nate slid a stack of notebooks, prompt sheets, and art supplies onto a rolling cart and wheeled it close to the circle. He gathered a pile of notebooks into his arms, then turned to face Mark.
Mark looked at the notebooks for a second, then back at the kids. He didn’t pick one up. He didn’t move yet.
“So—this isn’t an assignment,” he said. “There’s nothing to turn in. Nothing I’m going to read unless you ask me to.”
A couple of shoulders eased. Just a little.
“These are just… places to put things. Thoughts. Questions. Stuff that’s noisy in your head. Josh has given us a page filled with writing suggestions that will kick-start a lot of thoughts.” He paused. “You can draw pictures. Or… nothing at all.”
He glanced at Joshua, then back to the circle. Steadier now.
“If writing isn’t your thing, that’s fine. If you don’t know what to write, that’s fine too. You can sit with it. You can doodle or draw something. Paste something from these magazines. You can close it and just listen.”
He gestured toward Nate.
“Nate will pass them out to you. Take one if you want.”
Then he stopped talking.
No selling it. No filling the air.
Joshua leaned toward him and pointed to one of the Playbook tabs: Creative Journaling. Inside was a page with a long list of suggested writing prompts. Mark turned back to him with a grin. “Man! You thought of everything!”
Nate leaned forward just enough to be heard as he placed the notebooks into their outstretched hands, his voice easy.
“If it helps, you can start with something really small,” he told the teens. “Like finishing one sentence.”
He picked up a notebook, flipped it open, and read from the inside cover where he’d already written:
Right now, I’m wondering if…
He grinned at the group. “That one’s mine. You can write one word after that,” Nate said. “Or cross it out and write something else. Or ignore it completely.”
He shrugged. “The notebook doesn’t care.”
Everyone in the circle reached for a notebook.
A couple of kids immediately flipped it open, like claiming territory.
Three of the kids moved to Nate’s side and examined the writing prompts, laughing with him when they found one that hit a little closer to home than they expected.
One kid read the prompt sheet, closed his notebook, then opened it up again.
Dylan Price sat staring at the blank page longer than anyone else. His hoodie was up, posture guarded, but when Mark’s gaze landed on him, Dylan met it for a moment before glancing away.
Mark tried to keep his voice gentle. “Dylan, you want to weigh in? No pressure if you don’t. We’re all learning the routine as we go.”
Dylan hesitated, thumb flicking at the spiral of his notebook. Then, quietly but perfectly clear: “I came out a couple months ago,” he said, eyes on the cover. “And it’s like the whole place shifted.”
He dragged in a breath.
“It’s not just the showers, you know? Or the changing part. It’s… everything. Before practice, after. I used to feel like I belonged there. Now, I don’t even want to walk in. Doesn’t matter if nobody says anything. You can feel it.”
Mark nodded, making sure not to rush him. “You play football, right? Varsity?”
Dylan nodded, glancing down. “Yeah. Left tackle. I mean, I used to love it. But now it’s like—every move gets watched. If you laugh at something, it’s ‘why’s he laughing?’ If you look at anyone too long… they notice.” He hesitated. “Some days I try to be invisible. Some days I want to quit.”
Joshua spoke gently, leaning forward just enough to close the distance. “Have you talked to your coach?”
A sardonic half-smile from Dylan. “He says, ‘You’re not the first gay kid I’ve coached, but you are the first who’s out while still playing.’ I think he means well, but he’s not… He’s not in there with me, you know?”
Joshua nodded. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “There’s a difference between meaning well and being the one who has to walk back into that room.”
Colin offered a nod. “It’s a brave thing you’re doing, Dylan. Listen, one of our participants is a linebacker. Went through a lot of the same crap last year. It got better. Not perfect, but better. I think he’d be willing to chat with you about it, if you think it would be helpful.”
Dylan’s eyes flickered with something like hope. “Yeah? Maybe. It just sucks. I keep telling myself, ‘Don’t give them a reason to talk,’ but it doesn’t matter. They’ll find one anyway.”
Colin nodded. “Totally get it, buddy. Let me contact him and see if I can get you two together.”
Trent’s voice was low but certain. “You shouldn’t have to shrink yourself so other people can stay comfortable,” he said. “You’re not the problem in that locker room.”
Mark echoed him. “You’re allowed to take up space here, Dylan. On the team, too. You’ve earned it.”
Dylan nodded, jaw set. “Some days I believe that,” he said. “Other days, I just want one hour where I get to be a football player and not a headline.”
A few others murmured agreement. The topic rippled through the group, opening space for more stories—Tasha mentioned being outed on Instagram; another described using headphones to tune out whispers.
Trent and Colin rose and walked around the circle, chatting with the teens, asking them about Emporia–their school–their likes.
Mark glanced at Joshua, a question in his eyes: “Am I doing enough?”
Joshua met his eyes. “You made it safe. That’s everything.”
Dylan’s notebook was still clutched in his hands as the meeting wrapped. He caught Colin at the door. “You told us that once—back in Charlottesville—you knew what it was like to feel like the only one. How’d you get through it?”
Colin’s answer was quiet but honest. “I stopped waiting for a crowd,” he said. “I found one person. Then another. That’s how you build a place to stand.”
Dylan considered that. “It’s hard. But… thanks.”
Colin nodded. “You’re not alone, Dylan. You’ve got this group. Give Mark a chance. He’s a good guy.”
Dylan gave a tiny, grateful nod—then slipped his notebook into his backpack and headed for the door, just a little straighter than he’d walked in.
There was a shifting of feet, the scrape of a chair.
Mark lowered his voice as Tasha passed by. “I keep replaying what she said about Instagram. I should talk to her, shouldn’t I?”
Joshua gave a small nod. “Yeah. Just let her know you heard her and your here if she wants to talk about it.”
Mark breathed out. “OK. I can do that.”
Joshua squeezed Mark’s arm, then caught Colin’s eye.
This is how it starts.
When the room was empty again, Mark let his shoulders sag.
“Wow,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “That wasn’t… terrible.”
Nate smiled. “High praise.”
“I kept waiting for something to go wrong,” Mark admitted. “For someone to bolt. Or get loud. Or—” He shook his head. “They just… stayed.”
Joshua nodded. “That counts.”
Mark glanced at the circle of chairs, then back at them. “There’s a place a few blocks from here. Nothing fancy. You guys hungry?”
No one argued.
The place was dim and comfortable, softened by years of use. A few teachers at the bar waved a Mark as they entered.. A couple of locals hunched over plates that looked better than Colin expected. Mark chose two adjoining booths, and they all slid into the seats.
The drink orders came first. Beer for Mark and Trent. Water for Colin and Joshua. Wine for David. Something fizzy for Nate. Food arrived later in unremarkable baskets and tasted like a slice of heaven.
For a few minutes, they didn’t talk about the group at all.
Then Nate shared a story about a student who once turned in a notebook filled entirely with grocery lists and footnotes. David and Mark laughed about the administrative issues common to both a rural high school and the University of Virginia.
Eventually, Mark exhaled and said quietly, “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
Joshua didn’t respond right away. He just nodded once, like that made perfect sense.
“You held the room today,” he said then.
Mark’s mouth twitched. “I had a lot of help.”
“You came. You stayed. It all matters,” Joshua said.
For a long time, the five men huddled together, talking about the Pride Group.
Joshua grabbed a pile of napkins and began sketching a rough plan for slow, deliberate growth, possible discussion topics, and goals Mark might suggest to help the group find focus.
As he talked, he placed the scribbled-on napkins in the Playbook, marking the pages that would provide the practical tools behind each of the ideas he’d just sketched.
Colin watched him in silence, his eyes bright with love and a quiet, unshakable pride.
Later, as they began to move toward the pub’s exit, Joshua touched Mark’s arm. “Mark, do you plan to stick with it? I mean, is this a long-term thing for you?”
Mark shook his head and smiled. “I’m a middle-aged widower with no family. This group has given me a new focus. A new life goal.” He nodded. “I’ll be there as long as they want me.”
“I’m glad,” Joshua told him, then waved good night as they went their separate ways.