“Oh.” I thought about it for a moment. “Don’t most people use their parents’ accounts?”
“Yeah.” Keaton cleared his throat. “I’m, um. Not allowed to anymore. Anyway, I picked out this film. What do you think?”
“A haunted house?” I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Oh, hold on!” Keaton said. He leaned over quickly and turned off the lamp by his bed. The room plunged into darkness. The only light left was from the laptop screen. “There. For atmosphere.”
“For atmosphere,” I nodded dumbly.
Something had changed.
Maybe it was the atmosphere, but it had shifted. I was sitting on Keaton’s bed. In the dark. The two of us sitting close to watch a movie.
Too close.
He’d shifted closer after he turned off the lamp. The laptop rested on my left knee and his right. We were so close together. I could feel his thigh pressed all the way up against mine.
We were too close.
But I didn’t want to move away.
The title screen came up and the movie started. It was dark and quiet at first. I shifted a little. He was still pressed up against me. I froze in case the movement would make him realize and move away. He didn’t.
I looked sideways at him out of the corner of my eye. I studied his face in the harsh glow from the screen. I’d never looked at him this close up.
“I’m sorry,” I said faintly.
“What?” Keaton asked. He looked around at me. He had to tilt his head back slightly to avoid getting so close it would be awkward.
I had to resist an urge to lean in closer again.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “For everything I did to you. You’re so kind. And nice. And you’ve done nothing but help me. I was an asshole to you.”
Keaton blushed faintly, his cheeks reddening in the glow. The movie went dark, casting him in darkness for a moment before the scene changed again. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said.
My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. How could he still be so nice?
“But I do,” I said. “You need to know -”
“I know,” Keaton said. He dropped his hand onto the spacebar and paused the movie. “I saw it in your face the other day. When you were apologizing, before. I know you really mean it.”
“I still need to keep saying it,” I insisted. “There’s so much I have to cover.”
“No,” he said, and for a terrifying moment, I thought he meant he wouldn’t accept any more apologies. “I forgive you, Olly. Okay? You helped me. You probably saved my life. And even though you did all that stuff before… what you did to save me means something. To me, it really does. It changes everything I thought about what happened back then. Someone actually cared enough to help me.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. He’d thought he was alone. I let him think that. I could have at least told him it was me back then. Come forward. Offered him protection. Stayed at the school so I could watch over him. Even if it was hard for me to be there. I could have done more.
“You can’t keep apologizing forever,” Keaton said, shaking his head. “We have to live together for the rest of the year. So, I forgive you.”
He forgave me.
I turned the words over in my head.
“Okay,” I said. I looked back at the screen. It was the only thing I could think of to do.
Because all my mind was full of was the wordsI forgive you. They repeated again and again on a heartbreaking loop.
Keaton forgave me.
