The epiphany comes to him one summer day as he is trying on his new jersey in front of the mirror.
"Suits me better than the last one, eh Mark?"
There is no answer, and Dylan is confused for one full second before he remembers that he's alone in the room. The realization makes him snicker, then dissolve into full laughter. Here he is, standing in the bathroom in his boxers, talking to Mark who went home hours ago. Though he knows there's no one around to hear, he keeps on laughing because for some reason it keeps getting more and more hilarious the more he thinks about it. It's a ridiculous impulse, really – why would Mark have been there? It's not like they make a habit of going to the bathroom together, although they've been doing that more and more lately (but it's really so Dylan don't have to interrupt his talking because he's terrible at holding his thoughts) and even then, why would Mark stay to watch him change? Well, not that they've never changed in front of each other, they change together with their teammates in the locker room of course, and sometimes in Mark's bedroom in summer when the AC's broken and their clothes are getting stuffy and they can't be bothered to move too much (but these occasions always felt a little different, somehow).
And Dylan keeps laughing even as he is getting a little breathless. He's not quite sure why his heart started beating faster, in the way that it does sometimes when he's anticipating something big. There's a sort of uneasiness in his stomach that's not quite unpleasant, and he's pretty sure it's the same feeling he remembers from those summer days of lazing around in sweltering heat, making sporadic conversation and watching with uncharacteristic fascination the way Mark's shirt hikes up on his hips when he stretches.
On one occasion, Dylan remembers thinking, distractedly, that Mark's skin didn't look quite the same when no one else was looking at it, and he remembers laughing then, too, because it was such a funny thought to have, so very ridiculous –
But it feels like all those funny thoughts and feelings are building up, now, or rather it feels like he's just noticed them building up, right as they are about to burst –
And Dylan remembers, in vivid details, the look in Mark's eyes and the curve of his lips when he smiled at him back then, and it takes what little is left of his breath away.
From outside the room, his mother asks him what's wrong in a tone that suggests she doesn't expect a sane answer, and so he doesn't give her one.
He doesn't think he could explain, really. He's standing in front of the mirror with no pants on, wiping tears out of his eyes and grinning from ear to ear like he's just understood the best joke he's ever been told.