SHORT STORIES 5
To grow up in a small town in East Texas, you learn early that life has clear rules. Love God with all your heart. Respect your parents. Work hard. Stay pure. And never, ever question the way things have always been. For most of my eighteen years, I followed those rules without complaint. My name is Wyatt Donovan, and I was the kind of boy who made my parents proud just by existing.
Our family lived in a modest white house with a big front porch and a cross hanging above the door. Dad worked as a deacon at the First Baptist Church and ran a small auto repair shop on the edge of town. Mom taught Sunday school and kept our home spotless, always with a Bible verse stitched onto a pillow or framed on the wall. My two younger sisters, Grace and Hope, were the perfect church girls—blonde curls, sweet smiles, and voices that could sing hymns like angels. I was the oldest, the one expected to set the example.
I loved my family. I really did. But loving them meant carrying a secret that grew heavier every year. From the time I was thirteen, I knew I was different. While the other boys at youth group talked about girls in hushed, excited tones, I felt nothing. Instead, my eyes sometimes lingered too long on the youth pastor's strong arms or the way a visiting missionary's shirt stretched across his chest during a slideshow about service in Africa. I prayed about it constantly. I begged God to take it away, to make me normal, to let me fit into the life everyone expected for me. The prayers never changed anything. They only left me feeling more alone.
School was my escape. I was good at math—better than good. Numbers made sense to me in a way people never did. I could close my eyes and see equations unfold like landscapes, three-dimensional and beautiful. Algebra, calculus, geometry—they were clean and logical. There were no gray areas, no hidden sins. My teachers said I had a gift. My parents said it was God's blessing. I used it to stay busy, to keep my mind occupied so it wouldn't wander into dangerous territory.
By senior year, I had scholarship offers from several Christian colleges, but I wanted something more. Rice University in Houston accepted me with a generous aid package for mathematics. My parents were hesitant about the big city—full of temptation, they said—but Rice had a strong reputation and wasn't too far from home. They agreed after weeks of prayer and a long conversation with our pastor. "Stay close to the Lord, Wyatt," Dad told me the night before I left. "Don't let the world pull you away."
I promised I wouldn't.
Moving into the dorms at Rice felt like stepping into another universe. The campus was beautiful, with its red brick buildings and shady oaks. Students walked everywhere, laughing and talking without that constant undercurrent of judgment I knew from back home. My roommate was a quiet guy named Isaiah Dunn, a sophomore from Dallas studying biology. He had warm brown skin, a quick smile, and an easy way about him that made me relax almost immediately.
"Wyatt, right?" he said when I arrived with my suitcases. He helped me carry things in without being asked. "Math major? Nice. I'm pre-med. We can suffer through the intro sciences together."
Isaiah became my first real friend at college. He didn't push too hard when I said I was tired and wanted to stay in on Friday nights. He didn't tease me about not having a girlfriend. He just let me be.
The first few weeks passed in a blur of classes, orientation events, and late-night study sessions in the library. I joined the math club and signed up as a tutor for incoming freshmen. It felt safe. Predictable. Then came the day everything started to shift.
Rice had an excellent baseball program. I didn't follow sports much—my dad liked football, but I never had the build or the interest for it. Still, when the university sent out an email about the "Owl Mentor Program" pairing academic students with athletes, Isaiah encouraged me to apply.
"Come on, man," he said one evening as we ate ramen in our room. "It'll look good on your resume, and you might actually have some fun. These guys aren't all meatheads. Some of them are pretty sharp."
I agreed mostly to make him stop asking. A week later, I was assigned to mentor Parker Cole, a freshman pitcher who had turned down offers from bigger programs to come to Rice. His file said he was from a small town in Louisiana, raised in a tight-knit family with strong values. That sounded familiar.
We met for the first time on a warm Saturday afternoon in early October. The coaching staff introduced the new recruits to their mentors at a casual lunch in one of the campus dining halls. I arrived early, nervous, adjusting my button-down shirt and trying not to fidget. When Parker walked in with his parents, I felt my stomach tighten in a way I couldn't explain.
He was tall—maybe six-three—with broad shoulders and the kind of athletic build that came from years of serious training. His hair was dark brown, almost black, cut short but with a little length on top that looked effortlessly stylish. His eyes were a deep hazel that caught the light when he smiled. He moved with quiet confidence, shaking hands with everyone and saying "Yes, sir" and "Thank you, ma'am" in a soft Southern drawl that made my ears warm.
His mother was petite and sharp-eyed. His father was a former athlete himself, with a firm handshake and stories about watching Rice play back in his day. I sat next to Mrs. Cole during lunch and talked about academics, campus life, and how the mentor program helped athletes balance sports with studies. She seemed to like me. By the end of the meal, she was telling Parker how lucky he was to have me as his Owl.
Then Parker turned to me directly for the first time.
"Nice to meet you, Wyatt," he said, his voice low and genuine. His hazel eyes met mine, and for a second, it felt like the noisy dining hall faded away. "I appreciate you doing this. I know pitchers have crazy schedules, so I won't take up too much of your time."
I managed a smile. "No problem at all. I'm here to help however I can."
We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet the following week to go over his class schedule. As he walked away with his parents, I caught myself watching the way his shoulders filled out his polo shirt. I looked down at my hands quickly, whispering a silent prayer for strength. This was just mentoring. Nothing more.
The next few days, I threw myself into my classes. Advanced Calculus. Linear Algebra. I stayed late in the library, filling notebooks with equations until my hand cramped. Isaiah noticed my distraction one night.
"You okay?" he asked, looking up from his textbook. "You've been quiet even for you."
"Yeah," I lied. "Just adjusting."
He didn't push, but I could tell he didn't fully believe me.
My first official meeting with Parker was in the common area of my dorm. He showed up right on time, wearing athletic shorts and a Rice baseball hoodie. We spread out his schedule on a table and talked about which classes might be tough and how to manage travel for away games.
"You're really good at this explaining stuff," he said after I broke down a tricky prerequisite requirement. "Most people just tell me to figure it out."
I shrugged, feeling my face heat up. "Math makes sense to me. I like helping people see it that way too."
We talked longer than planned. He told me about growing up in Louisiana, helping his dad coach Little League, and how baseball had always been his way of connecting with people. His family was religious too—church every Sunday, youth group, the whole thing. It felt comforting to share that common ground.
"You seem like a guy who has it together," Parker said as we wrapped up. "I respect that. College is a lot."
I laughed softly. "I'm trying. Some days it's easier than others."
Before he left, he clapped me on the shoulder. The touch was brief and friendly, but it lingered in my mind for hours afterward. That night, lying in bed, I stared at the ceiling and fought against thoughts I knew were sinful. Parker was just a nice guy doing his best. I was here to mentor him, not to notice the curve of his smile or the strength in his hands.
The weeks that followed brought more meetings. We studied together sometimes in the library. Parker was smarter than he gave himself credit for—he had a good head for strategy and numbers, which helped with his pitching statistics. In return, he dragged me to a few baseball practices, insisting I needed to see what he actually did.
"You can't mentor me if you don't know the game," he joked.
Sitting in the stands at Reckling Park, watching him throw fastballs that cracked like thunder, I felt something stir inside me that I had spent years trying to bury. The way his body moved on the mound—powerful, focused, graceful—it was beautiful. I told myself it was admiration for his talent. Nothing else.
One evening after a long practice, Parker found me waiting as promised. He was sweaty, his hair damp, and he grinned when he saw me.
"Want to grab something to eat? My treat. I owe you for all the help."
I hesitated. It was just dinner. Friends did that. "Sure," I said.
We walked to a small pizza place near campus. Over slices and soda, we talked about everything and nothing—favorite movies (he liked action films; I preferred documentaries), music, and even a little about our hometowns. He asked about my family, and I told him the truth: how close we were, how much I missed them, but also how their expectations sometimes felt like a weight.
"I get that," Parker said quietly. "My parents are great, but they have this picture of who I should be. Star athlete, good Christian boy, marry a nice girl someday. It's a lot."
Our eyes met across the table, and for the first time, I wondered if he carried secrets too. The thought both terrified and excited me.