I’m sorry
Then another:
Pls answr me
Then another:
I fuked up
And another:
Pls just talk to me
But there were no dots.
No reply.
So, I called.
Then called again.
Each time it went straight to voicemail.
I sat there staring at my phone, but he never responded or called me back.
After a while, the party started to thin out and Hanover stopped in front of me. “Need a ride home?”
“Yeah.”
He helped me up, and we got into his car. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Keaton silently begging, waiting for me to speak, and every time I opened them, he was still gone.
Keaton’s car was in his driveway, but his room was dark when my teammate dropped me off. I stood there, staring across the dark gap between my house and his, at the window I’d spent half my life watching.
The light never turned on.
A few minutes later, I climbed in through my own window because I couldn’t handle walking through the house and hearing my parents freak out that I was drunk.
By morning, I hated myself in a way I couldn’t put into words. I went next door before nine and knocked on the front door.
No answer.
I knocked again, louder this time, and a few seconds later, the curtain shifted in the front window. I couldn’t see who was behind it. The curtain fell back into place, and nobody opened the door.
I texted Keaton again:
Pls talk to me
Nothing.
That night, I knocked on his window just like he’d done at mine more times than I could count.
His room stayed dark.
On Monday at school, I saw him by the parking lot before first period. “Keaton,” I called out to him.
He heard me. I knew he had because his shoulders tightened, but he kept walking.
I hurried after him. “Keaton, wait!”
