Page 25 of The Art of Drowning

“I hope you left some for me.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Callum appeared suddenly. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His hair was all messed up and his face had that freshly awake but not yet coherent look to it. He was wearing a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants and, unfortunately, also wearing a shirt.

I shoved the pan toward him and watched as he took one of the egg bites and bit it in half.

“Sam gone?” Callum asked as he shuffled around the kitchen, getting his mug out of the dishwasher so he could have a coffee. Callum had a favorite mug. It was a stupid mug–large and green and painted like a pickle. It had the phrase, I’m kind of a big dill, on the front of it. It amused him and no one else was allowed—or wanted—to use it.

“Just left.”

Callum’s gaze slid over to mine and he looked at me instead of the coffee he was stirring. “I hope you don’t think you’re going back to that fucking mausoleum you call a house.”

I laughed in spite of my desire not to. To remain cool and unaffected by anything Callum might have to say. “Your mom already forbade it. And your dad did last night. And Sam again this morning. Sam basically told me to ask for my own bedroom here.” I laughed again, but Callum didn’t.

His gaze slid away and he looked at his coffee like it was the most interesting thing in the room. Fuck. He hated the idea. He hated the idea of me being here, and didn’t know how to tell me.

“You should,” he said, making my lungs seize up.

“I should what?”

“Live here.” Callum turned and leaned against the counter. He held his mug by the handle and cradled it with the other. “You already do anyway. You might as well have a space that you can go to for privacy. A space that’s just yours.”

“I’m not taking a room in your house.” I didn’t know how to explain the panic that galloped through me. The way that the idea of living with them was both too good to be true and a nightmare. Because if I lived here all the time, that meant unfettered access to Callum.

“You’re so stubborn,” he said, but there was no rebuke in his words. No malice or disappointment. Just a statement of fact. “What do you plan to do while Sam is gone?”

“If it was summer, I’d spend it in the pool.” I let the warm memories wash over me. Summer had been this magical fever dream that I had sometimes convinced myself hadn’t been real.

“We could go shopping together. I still have to get something for Sam.”

“So do I.”

“We can go after we’re dressed,” Callum said like it was a done deal. It wasn’t like I argued with him. Whatever Callum wanted to do, I went along with. The whole day. We started with shopping for Sam and when we got back, we wrapped his presents together.

Callum got him a jersey of his favorite hockey team. I was shit at gifts and ended up going with Callum’s hockey theme and bought a wallet with the team logo embossed into the leather. After we finished the gift wrapping, we somehow ended up in the living room watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. I’d seen it for the first time during my first Christmas here and though I’d never told anyone how much I loved it, somehow I think Callum knew because once it started, I could feel his eyes drift to me every so often, like watching me watch the movie was part of his fun.

His parents got home late and brought takeout and we sat around in the living room and ate out of the containers, the glow of the Christmas lights lending magic to the moment. After dinner, Callum and I made our excuses to go upstairs. I hesitated at the top of the steps, unsure of where to go next. Did I invite myself into Callum’s room? Did I hole up in Sam’s, alone for the rest of the night?

Callum stopped right behind me, so close I could feel his warmth.

“Did you want to watch another movie?” he asked, his voice weird and low and kind of quiet. But at least he could speak. I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak or breathe or even think. Or I might have said no. No was the smart answer. The right answer.

I nodded and Callum moved imperceptibly closer before moving past me. “Come on then,” he said, leading me into his room like he wasn’t leading me straight into temptation.

THIRTEEN

callum

THEN

When Sam was gone, Damien and I used to exist separately. Now, though, ever since the summer, we gravitated to each other more and more when Sam wasn’t around. It felt like a deception, though it wasn’t intended to be that way. But if Sam asked, I’d deny it. I’d swear on all the graves necessary to make him believe that there was nothing in the way I looked at Damien. That there was nothing there because I felt nothing at all. That Damien was invisible to me, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Damien was the air I breathed. The dreams I dreamed. He was my secret obsession.

Since the summer, I’d fully embraced the fact that I was so, so, so fucking gay. So very, very completely gay. It had been a scary thing to realize at first, but now, even though I wasn’t out, I knew myself better. I was more aware of why I felt different from my friends. Why their enthusiasm for some things didn’t match mine. Why sometimes I felt out of sync with them. It explained how I could feel lonely while in the same room as them, and knowing the reason for that made everything easier. Everything except being around Damien.

That got harder as each day went by and my stupid feelings didn’t disappear. Absence made the heart grow fonder, sure, but it also made a closeted gay boy braver when it came to jerking off while thinking about his brother’s best friend. The more he hung around Sam, the less he was around me, which meant the less eye contact I’d have to worry about making, knowing that I’d rubbed one out in the shower with his face burned into my memory and his name a ghost on my lips.

Never spoken aloud. I wasn’t brave enough for that. I mean, what if someone heard me over the roar of the water? I felt like if I said it out loud, that he’d somehow know. And sometimes I wished he did know.

Ever since discovering I was gay and embracing it, letting the truth of it settle into my bones, it became this big secret. This cloud that hovered over my every interaction. At first I was worried that people could tell just by looking at me. Did Mom know? Did Dad suspect something? Would Sam out me?