Sledgehammer Writing Contest

Harvey’s 30-minute story speaks to regret and what could be if we could only turn back time. Congrats on the win, Harvey!

Prompts:

Character: Someone who does extreme sports

Action: Passing judgment

Setting: In a school

Prop: A time machine

Ticket to Thomas

by Harvey Liao

There he was—smiling and laughing with his friends, leaning against the wall of the gym. The last bell had just rung, and everyone was either eager to run home or lingering behind to say their goodbyes. Thomas was the star of any room he walked into. He could make conversation with anyone and everyone, and by the end of it, they’d consider him a friend. That is, if they ever gave him a chance. I know I didn’t.

I was still an intense, sports-obsessed loser in high school. It was all I ever thought about. I barely stretched my time between lacrosse and soccer while managing to make passing grades. I was always a man of few words and even fewer friends. I didn’t feel that I needed them. The companionship I felt on the field was enough.

Then, he came into my life and ruined it all. The other guys on my teams tolerated me because I was the one who scored the most points. They’d cheer and clap me on the back when I made a goal, and I could sometimes convince myself that they liked me.

They hated Thomas. He was confident and happy and had the audacity to also be different. In our little conservative town, Thomas was the only openly gay guy any of us had ever met. I would say he was brave, too, but it’s not like he made the choice to come out. He got caught kissing Daniel Jacobs behind the school freshman year by one of my soccer teammates.

Daniel Jacobs was one of our teammates, too. The other guys tore him to shreds over it. I didn’t stop them. I stayed quiet and trained more, like I always did. Daniel Jacobs killed himself that summer. My teammates turned their sights on Thomas after that.

During our senior year, Thomas sat next to me in math class. He didn’t ignore me or avoid me, like anyone with an ounce of sense would do. His opening line was, “Thank you.”

“What for?” I asked.

“You never join in with your friends to harass me.”

I wanted to say, “I never defend you, either,” but instead I said, “They aren’t my friends. We’re just on the same team.”

His face lit up when I said that. My mistake. After that day, he never left me alone. The worst part was that I didn’t want him to.

I started thinking about him at practice. I’d be so angry with my teammates that I refused to pass to them. My performance started to tank, and their cruelty turned on me.

I stopped talking to Thomas on the last day of our senior year, when he told me he had feelings for me. I knew that I was going to become an athlete someday, and he was already distracting me as it was.

Now, it’s been 50 years. I had my career as a snowboarder. I even won the Olympics, but when I looked back at my life, I only thought of Thomas. So, when a ticket to a time machine became available, I took it back to him.

Filed under: Great BOLD Write-Off, Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: BOLD Coffee & Books, extreme athlete, extreme sports, fiction, Indigo Editing, life, love, Mini Sledgehammer, passing judgment, Portland, short story, time machine, write-off, writing, writing contest, writing prompts |