It happens sometimes, darling, that the people we grew up with, that we thought we knew inside and out, were hiding things from us. It’s easy for a lot of people to say that they would know if any of their friends are gay, but for the most part that’s not true. I don’t think that he’s homophobic, or that he has a problem with you being gay, but rather I think what drove him away from you is the fact that you didn’t feel like you could trust him enough to tell him this secret sooner.

But don’t worry. Things will be looking up soon enough. Just keep getting on with your life. He’ll be back in it before you know it.

---

You hope that whoever it was you talked to on that advice line is right. Because every moment that you spend away from your friend hurts. Not just because you’re used to having him there, but because it feels like a piece of you is missing. You know that the other guy told you to get back to your life, but it’s not the same without your friend.

You need to do something to distract yourself. At first you try and throw yourself into your studies, but you’re so worried that it’s hard to think. That, and your head’s been a bit foggy of late. So you decide to do something else, something more productive, something that you’ve been meaning to do for a long time. You start going to the gym.

The repetitive nature of the exercises, lifting the weights up and down not really thinking about them, it’s almost like meditation. And it feels so good. You would have never thought that working out could be so fulfilling. But most importantly, you slip into a strange sort of mindlessness while you’re doing your reps, a mindlessness that helps distract you from the big problem in your life.

You scarcely notice the fog in your head getting thicker and thicker, your thoughts getting slower and slower, all the smarts and knowledge in your head draining out with every weight that you lift.

One day, a few weeks later, someone comes up to you in the middle of a set of crunches. “Hey,” he says, his voice low and dull, like the typical frat bro. “Sorry I kinda walked out on you, bruh,” he says. You look up, and if not for the fact that you spent years with this man you would not have recognized him. Your friend has gotten buff. Big and buff. Hot and buff.

“Fuckin’ A, bruh,” you grumble, totally oblivious to how dumb you sound. Come to think of it, you haven’t really done any schoolwork these past few weeks. Nor have you thought of anything more basic than making food, working out, jerking off, and getting fucked. You just grin and clap your hand on his arm, flexing your own new-found muscles as you pull him in for a hug and a hot make-out session in the middle of the gym floor. “It’s fine. Just don’t ever do that to me again, ‘kay?”

“‘Course not, bro,” he grunts, palming your ass through your compression shorts. “What do you say we take this home and get some ‘catching up’ done?” he says, grinding his hips into yours, letting you know that he’s hard and ready for you.

You press your own erection into his and say, “Fuck yeah, bro!”