Elliot threw his arms up. “I’m allowed to have things I keep to myself! Just because you want to describe in excruciating detail the way pussy tastes doesn’t mean I have to return the favor.”
Damon’s eyebrows pulled down as sadness deflated his features.
Regret pitted Elliot’s stomach. It wasn’t true. He wanted to know every single detail about Damon, even the parts that made him burn with jealousy, but he couldn’t take it back now. He turned on his heel and said over his shoulder, “I have to go to class.”
Damon didn’t stop him.
Chapter Four
Damon and Elliot had gotten into fights before. When they were younger, it was usually because Damon didn’t understand why Elliot insisted on doing things a certain way. Damon’s mom had to explain to him that some people were extra sensitive.
That the things Damon loved about Elliot—his kindness and understanding, his quiet reassuring presence—those things came from that sensitivity.
Elliot always knew Damon’s feelings without Damon ever having to explain them. He was the calming presence that held Damon as he broke down when his dad died. Damon wouldn’t have gotten through that time without him.
But that sensitivity meant Elliot usually avoided conflict. He let the things that bothered him fester under the surface until he exploded and it ended up in a huge fight that Damon didn’t see coming.
Damon knew this. He tried to be better. Tried to be more sensitive, like his best friend.
But he never really mastered that preternatural way Elliot just knew things about him. About when he was scared or sad. When he needed space or needed comfort. When he was about to do something stupid and needed to be talked out of jumping off swings or roofs.
Damon could see that every fight they’d had in the last four years had been because Damon was pushing Elliot to date or trying to set him up.
It made sense now why Elliot had shut down when Damon told him about going to prom with Chelsea. Why his shoulders had hunched and he wouldn’t meet Damon’s eye as he explained how Elliot and Madison could go together to the dance. Elliot wasn’t jealous of Damon at all. He was sick of Damon pressuring him into being someone he wasn’t.
Damon rubbed his eyes. It made him sick to remember everything he’d said to him. The hours and hours he went on, trying to coach him on how to talk to girls or how they liked to be kissed or touched. It never occurred to him that Elliot might be gay. Damon thought he was just shy and needed advice.
God, he was such a dick.
Everyone in school knew, or assumed, that Elliot was gay, but Damon didn’t see it. Didn’t know his best friend at all.
Elliot was his everything, and he kept this from Damon, which meant Damon wasn’t as important to Elliot as Elliot was to him.
It’d been a week since he’d hauled Elliot into the restrooms and basically forced him to come out.
Damon tried, multiple times, to type out an apology text, but everything sounded stupid. He scrolled through their text thread. The last message was ten days ago. Elliot reminding him that Damon’s mom’s birthday was this week. Or last week. Which Damon had forgotten anyway because he was a terribleperson. Elliot probably would have reminded him again on the day of if they weren’t still fighting.
He deleted his patheticI’m sorrytext and left his phone in his bedroom. He went down the stairs and into the kitchen to deliver the other apology he owed.
“Hey, Momma?”
“Hmm?” his mom said, stirring something in a pot.
“Can I help you with dinner?”
She looked up and smiled. “Sure, baby. That’d be great. You want to get stuff out for the salad? Cut up the veggies?”
Damon opened the fridge. “Uh, so,” he started, grabbing the veggies. “I’m really sorry I forgot to say happy birthday the other day. I suck.”
His mom laughed. “It’s okay, hun. I know you have a lot on your mind with semifinals coming up.”
He deposited all the vegetables on the counter and went to his mom, hugging her from behind. “Still. I’m sorry, Momma. Happy late birthday.”
She patted his hand. “Thank you, Damon.”
“Should we go out to eat or something this weekend? My treat?”
Turning to him, she smiled and said, “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
