It took a moment for Emma to answer, and even though he knew how hard it was for her, he wanted to reach through the phone and shake her into speaking. “They think he’ll probably walk again, after a long rehabilitation, but he’ll never play football. His career’s done.”
Micah now felt the bile rise in his throat. He could hear Emma yelling his name as he clutched his stomach, bent over, and puked onto the pavement.
Part Two
From the Reach Out, 24 May 2016
Out and About With Jasper Brunswick
ANY LONG-TERM reader of this paper will know that I have written with some regularity about Declan Tyler’s charity, GetOut, which helps queer kids deal with homophobia (among other things) in their chosen sport. Two recent success stories have been Micah Johnson, the first AFL player out from the beginning of his career, and Emma Goldsworthy, who is currently training at the Australian Institute of Sport and hoping for an eventual placement with the Hockeyroos.
Unfortunately the story of one GetOut member has taken a dark turn. Will Deanes was another young man rising through the ranks, playing in a VFL team while completing his final year of high school. He had a future every bit as bright as Micah Johnson’s, with the draft for the AFL being his major goal come December.
But it seems that has all ended, with a major bus accident coming home from a country game. Thankfully, the injuries for the rest of team were minor, or at least, not life-threatening. Will is the one who copped the worst of it, with doctors predicting that, although he may walk again, his career as a footballer has most certainly ended before it truly began.
In light of all the other tragedies in the world, this may seem a blip in all of the coulda woulda shouldas, but this is a young man who had everything before him. His life is not over, but everything he hoped for has been taken from him and he now faces uncertainty where once he saw a straight path.
“It’s too hard for Will to think about it right now,” said Declan Tyler, Will’s mentor at GetOut, when reached for comment. “He just has to take everything in stages. What he has to do is focus upon recovery and rehabilitation.”
It doesn’t need to be said that GetOut’s objective is to be there for Will—it’s the reason why it was created, after all.
Chapter 10
TRUTH BE told, Will Deanes wasn’t exactly a close friend of Micah’s. Although they had a tumultuous history, they had slowly resolved their issues and could call each other friends even if they mostly only knew about each other’s lives through mutuals like Emma and through social networking.
So they had come a long way from a past that included Will cyberbullying Micah, Micah finding out Will was also gay, Will punching him out, and then Will later trying to kiss him. It was all very… dramatic, like their lives were some teenage soap opera on fast-forward. But by the end of last year, Will had been coming to terms with his sexuality and they had even had a sort of undeclared truce even though they weren’t really “friend” friends.
Will had kept in touch with Emma more than he had Micah, and Emma had kept Micah up to date with what was going on in his life. Apparently he had told his dad he was gay, and when he hadn’t taken it that well, Will had moved out with some footy buddies who were a bit more tolerant. Micah couldn’t even imagine how hard doing his final year of school while out of home and preparing for the draft would be. It gave him a new respect for Will, especially as he had been making it work in conjunction with being a regular player for the Northern Blues, based in Preston.
Now he didn’t even have that, because Will Deanes was currently lying in the Austin Hospital with a broken back.
And it wasn’t even anything to do with a football injury. Micah knew so many football careers could end on the field, but Will hadn’t even had that opportunity. A wet road had finished Will’s dreams of a career in the professional league. Even dreams of the suburban leagues were done and dusted.
Micah couldn’t even begin to imagine what Will must be thinking, prone in that bed, dwarfed by the hospital ward around him. Will had only just had his eighteenth birthday, and already his future was in tatters. It may have been selfish, but it was hard for Micah not to imagine how easily it could have been him. It could be anybody. And he didn’t know what he would do if it had been him.
When he managed to get home, Micah had sat staring at the wall for a while. Then he went in search of Sam. Even though he didn’t know Will, Sam took the news badly. Sam very much believed in the brotherhood aspect of football, and to him Will’s tale of tragedy was as bad as if it happened to someone on their own team.
“It’s so fucked,” Micah said, full of eloquence.
“I know.” And, as Sam’s arm had snaked around his shoulders, Micah found himself crying.
Sam just let him do so, until he had calmed enough to begin talking again.
“So, what do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to go and see him before the game on Saturday.” The Dockers were playing the Western Bulldogs in Melbourne, and they were booked for flights on Thursday afternoon.
“Do you want to go earlier?”
“Will they let me?”
“I’ll go and talk to them with you.”
Micah was so grateful he turned and gave Sam a full bear hug. And all of a sudden the warmth of Sam’s body fired his libido, and he would have given anything to kiss Sam and be kissed back. And more. He knew it was just a cliché—the glad to be alive fuck, but he wanted it.
It wasn’t that he was attracted to Sam. Sure, he was a good-looking guy, but in Micah’s mind he was an older brother, and he didn’t want anything sexual from him. It was that reminder of that warmth, that closeness, that desire to be held and comforted. He wanted that. And then he was reminded that he had still never spoken to Kyle since that disastrous weekend. Life was short, or at least, full of fucked things. He really shouldn’t contribute to that, as he knew Kyle would most likely be hating the way things had ended between them.
He pulled away from Sam and wiped his eyes. “Thanks.”
“No worries. I’ll go call the bosses.”
As Sam left, Micah dug his phone out of his bag and activated Grindr.