He reached the building, opened the door, and went inside without looking back. I stopped outside and watched it close behind him. At school, no one knew about us, and I couldn’t bring myself to chase him through that door.
At lunchtime, I crossed the quad while he was sitting with his friends near the library wall. One of them saw me coming and looked more confused than anything. Then Keaton turned, saw me, snatched his backpack, and stood up. He didn’t say a word to them; he just walked away. I followed him halfway across campus before finally stopping because people were staring, and for the first time, I truly understood how exposed he had felt at the party. Not just cornered. Not just outnumbered. Left there while everyone watched, and the one person who should’ve had his back did nothing.
I found him after school two days later at the pizza place he worked at.
He was behind the counter. For a second, I thought maybe this was it. Maybe he’d yell. Maybe he’d tell me to get lost. Maybe he’d finally say something I could answer. Instead, he turned around and disappeared into the back without a word.
A girl stepped up to the register. “You gonna order?”
I stared at the kitchen door. “No,” I answered.
She waited for me to leave.
I did.
After that, I tried everything I could think of: I texted, I called, I knocked on his front door. I waited by his car after work. I went to the parking lot after school and saw him get into the Elantra, but the second he saw me, he locked the door and drove away. A week went by. Then two. Then a month.
By October, people stopped talking about the party because high school always found something new to turn into gossip. Ridgway never brought it up around me again, and I thinkpart of him knew something didn’t add up. He watched me differently after that, but he didn’t push.
Keaton never gave me anything. Not anger. Not closure. Not even a go to hell. Just silence. That somehow hurt worse than getting screamed at ever could, and I knew I had no right to feel that way when I was the reason for it in the first place.
The party replayed in my head every night, whether I wanted it to or not. The room. The doorway. Ridgway. The other guys in the hall. The look on Keaton’s face each time he turned to me and saw nothing. That was what stayed with me. Not the punches, not the blood, not even Ridgway running his mouth. It was the fact that Keaton gave me every chance to tell the truth, and I stood there and let the lie bury him.
Because when it mattered, I chose myself.
Football season kept going. Everyone treated me like nothing had changed, and I went along with it. I put on the jersey, took the hits, did what I was supposed to do, and none of it touched what was sitting in my chest. Sometimes I caught sight of Keaton after school when people started gathering for the game, but if he saw me, he never let it show. He wasn’t there for me anyway. He had his own life, his own people, and afterthatnight, I wasn’t part of any of it.
At home, I kept looking at his window without meaning to.
Every night.
Every damn night.
Sometimes the light was on and his shadow moved past the blinds. Sometimes the room stayed dark. Once, I saw him close the curtains the moment he saw me standing there. Still, I kept looking anyway.
By graduation, we hadn’t spoken for months. Even so, I kept searching for him. I sought him out when we lined up in our gowns behind the gym. I looked for him on the football field as families filled the bleachers. After we crossed the stage andpeople started hugging and taking pictures, I tracked him down. I found him near the edge of the crowd with his mom. He was holding his diploma case at his side while she adjusted his cap and smiled up at him, trying to make him smile too.
I took a step toward him, but Dad caught my shoulder. “Picture first.”
Mom was crying, phone in hand, asking where she should stand so the light would hit right. I barely heard her. I kept peering over Dad’s shoulder for Keaton while they pulled me into pictures I didn’t care about. By the time they finished, he was gone.
The day I left for the Air Force, Dad loaded my bags into the trunk while I lingered in the driveway a bit longer than I needed to, hoping Keaton would give me something, but he never came out, so I got into the car.
As Dad backed out, I glanced toward the side of the house where our windows faced each other.
He was there.
He didn’t wave.
He didn’t move.
He just stood there and let me leave.
My throat burned as I kept my focus on him until the house disappeared behind us.
14
Keaton
