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September –

Being 12 was hard. There were many reasons for that, but a lot of them fell into a single category, as Ben Hathaway saw it: change. Everything, big and small, seemed to be changing. And he didn’t like that one bit.

He was in a new school this year—a first-year, middle-school kid with mostly older kids inhabiting the sprawling building. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his parents had divorced two months previously, and he was now living with his mother in a new house. It was in a nicer part of town than where they’d been before, but still...

So, new school, new neighborhood that he still hadn’t learned his way around, no friends in the neighborhood or the school, and, maybe worst, a new place to live without his dad in the house.

Those were just some of the changes. Maybe even the less-important ones. He was changing as well. Not just the obvious ones he encountered when he was taking a shower or changing into his pajamas at night. He’d expected those changes, and they were happening, slowly, but right on schedule according to what he was learning in his Sex Ed classes. Still, it took some getting used to. However, he didn’t find those physical transformations as bothersome as what else seemed to be changing.

He’d been just like all his friends before all this development began. He’d liked the same things, the same games and activities and people and movies and jokes and such. They’d all been on the same page. Now, well, he thought he was changing in ways his old friends probably weren’t. Probably not in the ways the new friends he’d probably make at this new school were changing, either.

He got ready for bed, slipping off his clothes and dropping them wherever, while reaching for his pajamas. He hesitated before pulling them on. It was a warm night, and as he felt so often now when going to bed, there was an excitement coursing through him. He wondered what it would feel like to slide under his top sheet naked.

There, that kind of feeling—something else that had changed. Sex Ed hadn’t prepared him for the depth of the feelings he was having these days. Urges that had been whispers before were suddenly shouts, demanding his attention. Not just at night, either.

He dropped his pajamas, and feeling deliciously naughty, pulled back the bedspread and light blanket. He’d only need his thin sheet tonight. He slid into bed and slowly pulled the sheet over him, feeling it glide across his body.

All this was so new. What came next was also new and was the change he was most concerned about. He knew it was about to happen, and it did. As soon as he closed his eyes, his imagination took over. And where it went was where he knew it would go because it had been going there for the past two weeks, since his first day of the school year.

Crew Carson. That was the boy’s name. Ben had a crush on Crew Carson that was larger than anything he’d felt before. It was almost more than he could handle. It was overpowering, all-consuming, and unless he forced himself not to think of him, Crew was in Ben’s mind most of the day and at night when he was trying to sleep. And in the morning when he woke up. Crew Carson.

He’d had crushes before, of course, on both boys and girls. They usually lasted a week or even two, then gradually faded away when a new person caught his eye and imagination. But this crush on Crew wasn’t like that. It had hit him with the force of a cannonball and had never lost its impact.

School had started the last week in August. He had Crew in most of his classes. Whereas Ben was about the same size, give or take, as most of his peers, Crew was somewhat taller. Ben had almost white-blond hair, a pallid complexion with rosy cheeks that embarrassed him, and bright blue eyes; he thought himself terribly uninteresting-looking—rather like a piece of plain white bread. He wished he had the exotic looks of Crew, who was dark with bronzed olive skin, almost-black hair that in bright sunlight showed variable shades of deep-brown and almost-purple tints among its many shades of ebony. His eyes were dark, too, coordinated with his hair. Ben was disappointed he was so very blah, with his washed out features—even while his mother assured him he was cute, cute as a bug, she said—and he felt Crew was simply the most handsome boy he’d ever seen.

They had different personalities, too. Ben was reticent and happy to be in the shadows, unnoticed and uninvolved. Crew was effervescent and, due to his looks or charismatic personality or both, most often at the center of whatever was going on. Other kids were drawn to him. Ben didn’t mind how that worked because, while he stood in those shadows, he was free to watch Crew all day long with no one noticing. And, that was what he did.

From the first time Ben had seen Crew, Ben had been smitten. Ben had first laid his eyes on Crew on the first day of school when Crew had entered a classroom where Ben was already seated—in the back, where he always tried to sit. Ben had felt his stomach lurch and his eyes latch onto the boy. He’d had the same reaction ever after.

Now, a couple of weeks into the school term, Crew was in his thoughts almost constantly—and often painfully. At night, it was usually the same. Ben couldn’t get him out of his mind and just accepted the fact the boy would accompany him to the land of Nod, and so he allowed his mind to drift where it would—

Crew was on a raft with him, floating down a wide, slow-moving river with leafy forest on both sides, just the two of them. It was hot, and Crew convinced Ben that removing their clothing, allowing the breeze to kiss their skin, would make them feel much better. Ben had seen the wisdom in this and shucked his clothes, then turned and saw Crew equally naked. Crew became aroused looking at Ben, which caused the same reaction in Ben, and almost as if by magnetism the two boys began walking toward each other—

Or, they’d built a tree house, and Crew had been working on nailing down the floor while Ben was below, fastening the cut-up pieces of two by fours to the tree, which would act as steps up to the floor where Crew worked. When Ben had looked up, he realized he could see almost all the way into the shorts Crew was wearing. He could see no hint of underwear; Crew was going commando that day, and Ben couldn’t pull his eyes away. Eventually, Crew glanced down at him, and a slow smile spread across his face. Crew slowly moved his leg, opening the restricted view Ben had so he could see all of Crew’s—

Or, there was a school dance for the freshman class and everyone was there, even Con Gower, who had the reputation of being the class bully. They were all dressed up—the boys in sports jackets and ties, the girls in pretty dresses. Ben was on the sidelines, as usual, wondering why he had no desire to ask any of the girls to dance with him, knowing the person he wanted to dance with would be horrified if Ben approached him. Then, to his surprise, Crew materialized in front of him and said, “Could I have this dance. I can’t take my eyes off of you. You’re the most attractive person in the room! I want you in my arms.” Ben blushed and demurely accepted, but when they were dancing, and he’d been in Crew’s arms, he became too excited by the feel and smell of the boy and the inevitable happened. He tried to hide it, but moving closer to Crew would have meant he’d feel it. Then Con Gower of all people saw it and said, “Look everyone, the fag is hard,” and that’s when Crew slugged Con in the stomach, dropping the bully to his knees. When people turned to look, Crew stepped back in front of Ben to screen his predicament and said, “Con was talking about me,” and pointed to his own crotch where there was an obvious—

Or, the bombs were exploding in the distance, getting nearer. The class was all huddled out in the main corridor against the walls, away from the glass in the windows. “This is it,” Mrs. Handratty said. “I think the war’s finally found us. I pray you all survive.” Ben was scared to death hearing the planes, hearing the bombs, and then Crew was with him, sliding down to sit next to him on the floor, taking Ben in his arms. “If we’re going to die, we’re going to die together!” he said and leaned over and kissed Ben. When he did this, his hand slipped onto Ben’s lap, and even with all the other kids watching he could feel himself getting—

The bright sun coming through the windows woke him. Something felt different, and then he realized he was naked under the sheet. He’d done it! He’d slept without wearing his PJs! Then he saw them lying on the floor and had the terrible thought that if his mother came in to wake him, she’d see them, too.

He glanced at the clock and saw it was about the time she’d come in if he wasn’t already up. He jumped out of bed and was reaching down for his pajamas when he heard footsteps. Then the door opened, and he heard, “Oops! Sorry dear.”

“You’re supposed to knock!” Ben said, angrily. “Here, I just took off my jammies to get dressed and in you walk. At least I was turned around! You’ve got to knock and wait for me to say it’s OK!”

“All right. I said I was sorry. It’s not as if I don’t know what naked boys look like!”

“You don’t know what this naked boy looks like, at least from the front, and I plan on keeping it that way!”

“Well, he looks fine from the back,” she laughed, teasingly.

“Mom!” he shouted in exasperation.

She gently closed the door as she left, but he could hear her still chuckling.

So daydreaming about Crew, crushing on him really hard, was one of the changes Ben was experiencing, one of the most affecting and confusing. He was still trying to decide, however, whether it was one he did or didn’t like. He was still working on that.
October –

He’d thought his crush on Crew would be a transitory thing, like the others he’d had. It wasn’t, though. Its intensity had waned a bit, but his feelings were still strong. His crushes on both boys and girls were now a single crush on a single boy. The ones on girls simply were no longer happening. It was just boys. Well, that wasn’t true, either. It was one boy, and it was hotter than anything he’d ever felt. That was taking him some effort to get used to.

Ben remembered the assembly at school the first week of the school year. Everyone had been there and informed of the anti-bullying policy at the school, which was strict. No physical bullying and no verbal bullying. No social-media bullying, either. There’d been a lot of talk about religious and sexual orientation and racial differences, but what was emphasized was how the kids all had more in common with each other than things that separated them, and they all had the right to be comfortable in their own skins and their own school. There was talk about how, at their age, learning to accept the differences in people and finding the common ground was one of the most important things they’d be doing in their time at this school.

Ben had been surprised at what came next. The principal had called several kids up onto the stage to speak. One had been a girl who was wearing a head scarf. She was a Muslim. She answered some questions from both the principal and the audience. She seemed outgoing and not a bit shy about speaking to the large group of kids.

There was a black boy who did the same and also wasn’t intimidated by standing in front of the group. He was his class’s president and student-council rep. He was the editor of the school’s paper, and he said he was hoping to get into Harvard after high school.

And to Ben’s great surprise, there was a boy who told them he was gay. He stood up on the stage in front of everyone and said he was gay! Ben just stared at him, wondering how he had the courage to do that. The boy also said he was the first-string keeper on the school’s soccer team and that he was on the school’s debate team as well, so being gay was just one other thing in a long list of things describing him. Ben had seen him in the cafeteria and outside before and after school and knew from the large group of kids that were always around him that he was a popular kid.

As were the other two kids.

Ben was impressed with this school. There was an air of friendliness about it. Oh, there were some kids like Con Gower, but they were the exception, and they came in with a reputation from their elementary schools and so were closely watched.

School was school, except now all the students moved from classroom to classroom rather than staying in one place all day. Crew was in some of his classes, not in others. Ben found it much easier to concentrate on the lessons being taught when he didn’t have the distraction Crew caused. He still saw him in the cafeteria, however, and they had the same gym class, so he saw him there, too.

They had social studies together, and Mr. Turner assigned a project for the term. Ben was hoping he’d get paired with Crew for his, but he got a girl instead. He watched Crew and the boy he was working with, heads together, talking and planning and working, and he sighed. Why not him? Because, as much as his imagination at night took him places with Crew that were often clothing-optional, he realized that what he really wanted with Crew more than anything was to be able to spend time with him, talk to him, maybe play video games with him. Just hang out with him. Just get to know him. Just to be friends.

“What are you looking at?” Marti asked him. “You aren’t even listening to me!”

Ben blushed. “Sorry. I’ve got a saxophone lesson after school, and I haven’t been practicing, and I’m going to get reamed.”

Marti looked at him skeptically. “I’m in the band. I’ve never seen you in there.”

“Oh, I’m just beginning. Maybe next year I’ll be good enough.”

She stared at him a moment, seeing his blush, reading his body language. “What’s your teacher’s name?”

Just then Mr. Turner was wandering by, and overhearing her, asked, “Are you two working on the project? A working outline is due in two weeks. Some groups are ready to start writing already. You need to spend your time together productively.”

And so Ben never had to tell her the name of his nonexistent sax teacher.
November –

Gym class sucked. And was thrilling. But mostly it sucked. The thrilling part was showering. It meant he saw Crew in the almost-altogether. Not totally, because most of the boys were shy and kept their underwear on or changed into a bathing suit under a towel. Ben did that once he saw others doing it, and Crew did as well. But Ben did get to see Crew’s body—how his muscles moved when he walked; how he didn’t have any more hair in his pits than Ben did; how his ribs were barely visible yet there, showing he had a little meat on his bones—just not much; how flat his tummy was; how his arms were starting to show just a bit of definition. It was enough to fuel a whole new set of fantasies at night.

The other exciting part was seeing Crew doing all the stuff most of the other boys were doing and doing it better than they were. Crew was an athlete! A good one, too. No matter what the activity was—basketball, dodgeball, volleyball, rope climbing, soccer, calisthenics, touch football, whatever—Crew was a natural. He had the strength and grace and body control to look good doing them all, and Ben surreptitiously spent a lot of time watching him, marveling at him. So much time the coach would occasionally yell at him to get with it.

The sucking part was all the rest. The fact was, Ben was crap at team sports. No matter what it was, he didn’t seem to fit in. The other kids learned about this right away. He wasn’t the only kid who was uncoordinated and unmotivated, so he wasn’t always picked last, but was in the last four or five picked every time.

When he had to participate, he did so in a desultory sort of way. The coach noticed.

“Ben, stop and see me in my office when you’re dressed,” Coach Hubbard said one day when Ben walked out of the showers, his towel wrapped around his bathing-suit-covered loins. Ben dressed hurriedly and knocked on the open door to the coach’s office. He was sure he was going to get chewed out for his lack of enthusiasm.

“Come in. Close the door, please.” When a nervous Ben was seated in the chair the coach had pointed to, the coach smiled at him. “I’ve been watching you,” he said.

Ben gulped.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you. I see you’re not very interested in the games we play here during gym class. That’s OK. Some boys are; some aren’t. I watch all the boys, and you’re not alone. But most boys are good at something, and you do have a talent. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Ben’s heart was still beating fast from his nervousness, which made it hard for him to think. He wasn’t good at talking to adults. So, rather than try to figure this out, he merely said, “No.”

The coach laughed. “Why did I think that’s what you’d say? As I said, I’ve been watching you. You remind me of someone.” He paused for effect, then said, “Me. I was like you when I was just starting middle school. It’s a time in life where we start learning who we are. When we find what we’re good at and what we enjoy doing. Often those are the same thing. I know something you do well. I don’t know if you enjoy it. Your face rarely gives much away about how you’re feeling.”

Coach Hubbard stopped, and Ben squirmed in his chair, remaining silent. The coach nodded as if that’s what he had expected. “What you do well, better than most in this class, is running. Every time we do laps, I watch your form. You have natural talent for running. I’d like you to consider going out for our track team. Do you think you’d be interested in that?”

Ben was shocked. Good at running? Sure, he could run. All boys could. He’d never considered he was better than the others at it. He thought back and remembered the last time they’d run laps outside. It was a quarter-mile track, and they had to run around it twice. They’d all started in a pack together, which had bothered him. He didn’t like being in the middle of a bunch of boys, all swinging their arms and elbows and unconcerned about where they were swinging them. He jogged with the rest for only a short time before he saw an opening in front of him, an escape route. He put on some speed and ran through the pack to an open track. Then, to keep ahead of all the rest, he just continued to stay in front, running at whatever pace was required. It hadn’t been difficult. Was this what the coach had seen? He hadn’t been that fast, just faster than the rest, and only because he hated being in the middle.

The coach was looking at him. Waiting.

“Uh, I don’t know, Coach. I mean, I’ve never even thought about something like that. On a team? With all those other athletes? The good ones?” He immediately thought of the sort of boy who’d be on such a team, big guys, rough guys, muscled and older guys—ones who’d undoubtedly look down on a shrimp like him. Make belittling comments.

“Uh, well, thanks, Coach, but I don’t think so. Nice of you to ask, however.” He stood up, ready to leave. The coach motioned for him to sit down again.

“Ben,” he said, speaking a little softer, “remember when I said you remind me of me? Well, let me tell you a story. A true story. When I was in high school, I became friends with a boy in my class. He was really good at many things, most of the things I was very bad at. What he did best was to believe in himself. That was what I was worst at. The one thing I could do was running. My friend knew that, and he started pushing me. Not by forcing me to do anything; he was more subtle than that. He pushed me by complimenting me. Telling me how good I was. He was on the track team and very successful. He told me I could be, too, if I’d just try. I didn’t want to. The thought of it tied me in knots. Then he told me that the team’s best runner wasn’t going to be able to compete because his grades were bad, and they needed someone to take his place just so we had enough bodies on the team. He pleaded with me to join and told me he’d be sure I was accepted by everyone, that no one would expect me to be a star or anything like that.

“Well, it was hard for me, but I felt I was doing this for him, and he’d done a lot for me. So, I let him convince me to join the team. I only agreed because he wanted me there and was there himself. When I started training with the group, I learned something. They were all just kids like I was. The coaches didn’t yell at us and criticize us; they worked with us, supported us, taught us how to run better. I found out all my fears had been only that, fears, and I started enjoying being with the other kids.

“My friend pushed me and was there with me, and I found I liked working hard, and by the time we finished high school, I’d set a state record in the 880. You know how I was able to do that, besides the hard practice I put in?”

Ben shook his head.

“I could do it because I joined the track team. That was how.”

Ben looked at him, but he could see the coach was done. Ben stood up, turned to see if he’d be waved back down, and when he wasn’t, he opened the door. Then, just as he was leaving, he turned back to the coach and asked, “What about your friend? Do you still know him?”

He saw the coach hesitate for a moment, then looked him in the eye. “We’re still friends. We even went to the same college. Now, we share an apartment.”

During the next gym class, the coach sidled up to Ben when he was alone and asked, “Have you given the track team any more thought?”

As a matter of fact, Ben had. He’d never been told he was good at anything before, and certainly not at anything athletic. He thought about that a lot. He actually sort of wanted to do it. But even more, he sort of didn’t want to be involved in something like that. He was sure he’d be the worst on the team and would be scorned by the others. He couldn’t face that. But of course he couldn’t tell the coach that.

“I don’t think so, coach. I kinda want to, but, well, no.”

Coach Hubbard nodded. “Well, then, I want to tell you something. We have an outdoor track, as you know. We also have an indoor one, up above the swimming pool, circling around behind the bleachers up near the ceiling. I’m giving you permission to use either one any time you want. I think you should practice—every day if you can—and if I can’t get you to do it with a team and with our coaching, at least you should do it by yourself. So both tracks are available for you. It’s up to you whether you take advantage of them. I’m trying to help you like my friend helped me. This is the best I can do.”
December –

The snow came early, during the first week of December. It was still warm enough that the snow was damp, and so it was good for making snowmen, snow forts, and, of course, snowballs. It snowed heavily one Thursday night, and Ben woke to the news school had been cancelled.

His mother still made him get up. “You’re not lazing around like you do on the weekends. If you’ve got nothing to do, I’ll find something. But maybe you’d like to take your sled over to Boardman’s Hill. I saw a couple of neighborhood kids walking down our street dragging sleds behind them, and that’s probably where they were headed. Maybe you could even make a friend.” She paused a moment before sighing. “Like that’s going to happen.”

She said the last with mixed emotions, sarcasm dancing with regret, and patience trying to cut in. He smiled at her because he knew she deserved his smile. He wasn’t the easiest kid to put up with, and she did OK. She had to be mother and father to him now, and she tried. He hadn’t even talked on the phone with his dad since the divorce. The man had just disappeared.

Ben knew Boardman’s Hill. Their street ended in a cross street that ran parallel with the edge of a steep escarpment that ran down a couple of hundred feet to a river at the bottom. In many places, it was as steep as a cliff face, like at the end of Ben’s street where it was way too sheer even to try to climb down. However, a few blocks to the south, the decline was much gentler, and there was a narrow trail ending at the flat area near the river. Rather than lead straight down the side of the hill, the trail cut across the side of it to reduce the steepness of the drop. What made it so picturesque were the trees bordering each side of the path. Loner that he was, Ben had explored the neighborhood by now and once even walked all the way down to the river following the trail. The trek back up tired him out. It was a long way.

He’d heard that it was called Boardman’s Hill and that a lot of kids used it to get to the river and the flats surrounding it in the summer. Thinking what it must look like covered in snow, he wasn’t surprised that it would be a popular sledding spot.

After breakfast, his mother did the dishes and then looked at him. He knew she’d meant it about chores, so he quickly found his coat, boots and gloves, pulled them all on and said, “Be back by lunch.”

“Have fun,” she returned, watching him walk out the door.

He found his sled in the garage in a large box they hadn’t got around to emptying. Looking around, he saw several boxes like that and grinned, realizing what chore he’d avoided.

It was early enough in the day that there were only a few kids at the hill. They were scattered all over, some at the top ready to ride down, some on their sleds already partway down the hill, some trudging the long way back up and a few standing about halfway down where there was a broad flat area without any trees, a place to rest on the way back up or do whatever a kid wanted to do.

Ben pulled his hood up to keep his ears warm. To keep himself unrecognizable, too, but he did that by instinct rather than by conscious thought. Kids were lining up, taking turns, and he got behind the last kid, one he recognized from school. Timothy, he thought. Small, kind of wispy kid who was really quiet in school and often had a vague sort of look of incomprehension on his face. Well, Ben couldn’t hold that against him. He was that way, too. Except for the look, of course.

When it was his turn, with Timothy about half way down, Ben took a couple of running steps and launched himself head first, flat on his stomach on the sled. The path wasn’t too steep at the top but dropped faster partway down. The sled ride was long and thrilling, the best ride Ben had ever had. The trees on both sides of the path flew past, and as he came to the flatter area halfway down, he saw several kids there, and then, to his surprise, he saw Crew was one of them. He slid on, came to the steepest part of the trail and nearly flew. The path gradually flattened out as it neared the river, and the ride eventually came to an end.

He rolled off the sled, beaming. What a ride! Then, realizing another sled was coming, he got up, grabbed the rope attached to his sled, stepped to the side of the path and began the long hike up.

As he walked, watching Timothy a few yards in front of him, he realized he’d soon be passing by where Crew was. The thought excited him. Would he be brave enough to talk to Crew? Would Crew talk to him? He probably would; Crew was friendly with everyone. The only real question was, would Ben be so tongue-tied in Crew’s presence he’d act like a dork?

When he’d almost reached the midway plateau, he heard Crew’s voice. “Hey, Timmy! Come over here. This is neat!”

Timothy turned off the hill and moved out of sight. Ben kept walking and then came to the flat area where a few kids appeared to be busy doing something in the snow. He was going to stop and watch but saw Crew, and his heart began beating faster than it already was because of the climb. He had started up the hill again when he heard, “Hey, uh, you’re Ben, aren’t you? Ben, come help us.”

Crew was talking to him, but even better, Crew knew his name!

Ben turned and stepped away from the hill onto the flat area. There were five kids there. Crew came over to him. “We’re building two snow forts so we can have a snowball war. Come help us. With you, we have six guys, so can have even teams. Come on.”

Crew turned to go back to where the forts were being built. Three kids were carrying snow to where they were building a wall, patting the new snow into place. Another kid was working on another construction a short distance away from the first. Crew led Ben there. “This is Peter,” he said, introducing Ben to the other kid. “And Peter, this is Ben. That’s right, isn’t it?” he said, looking at Ben.

Ben finally had to speak. “Yes,” he said. “Ben Hathaway.”

Crew seemed to take it for granted that Ben knew who he was. “OK, we three will be against those three. Let’s get this fort built and then have ourselves a war!”

Ben started helping. Building a snow fort from dampish, heavy snow was pretty easy, and working together with Crew was much easier than talking to him. It all seemed so natural! In only a few minutes, they’d finished the building part and Crew had them begin making snowballs.

“Uh, I’m not real good at throwing,” Ben said to Crew, trying to pack snowballs and finding they kept falling apart.

Crew watched him, then said, “You’re not using enough snow and you’re squeezing and twisting at the same time. You’ve never done this before, have you?”

Ben dropped his eyes. He was a failure, and in front of Crew!