Page 36 of The Art of Drowning

Callum’s room was far cleaner. He had some trophies on a shelf and a few ribbons that he’d won for different things over the years. Callum was nearly as popular as Sam was at school, but he wore it differently than Sam did.

Sam wore his social standing like a shield and a weapon. He moved easily through nearly every social clique at school with the exception of Callum’s friends, whom he stayed away from. Everyone loved Sam because he made it easy for them to love him. He was good at telling people what they wanted to hear.

Callum, on the other hand, stuck to his circle of friends. They were tight and loyal, and if anyone tried to be a dick to one of the group, Callum never let them. And in a few months, none of this would matter to them. They’d be done with school and off to college or whatever their plans were.

And I’d still be here.

The door clicked shut and I flinched at the sound as it pulled me out of my head and back into reality.

I turned to face Callum, who leaned against the door and silently stared at me. He didn’t have to ask what I was doing here, why I’d knocked on his door. We both knew.

“This can’t happen,” Callum told me, but he made no move to let me leave.

My heart ricocheted around my chest, wild and desperate. At some point, my hands left the safety of my pockets and twitched at my sides like they couldn’t help but answer the pull I felt.

Ever since the summer, there’d been this energy between us. An invisible pull, like a string connecting us. When Callum walked into a room, I felt him before I saw him. When he was near, I wanted to be closer. Most of the time I was good at hiding it. Pretending that he meant nothing, was nothing, was invisible to me, was fucking torture.

Callum was all I saw.

“We’re not doing anything,” I said. It was both the truth and a lie. We weren’t doing anything. We were two people in a room watching their resolve crumble. Watching all the reasons we gave ourselves fall away because they were flimsy at best. Meaningless at worst.

The naked truth was that I didn’t want to stay away from Callum, but my friendship with Sam would suffer if he found out. And Sam was all I had. Without Sam’s friendship, I didn’t even have Callum or their parents. The warmth of their house, their family. None of it existed without Sam’s blessing.

And yet, I was risking it all. Standing in the room of a guy I had no business even looking at, unable to do anything but stare and wish for the courage to close the distance.

It was Callum who moved first. He stepped away from the door but not toward me. He sort of slid to the side and folded his arms over his chest. The silence that hung between us was thick and heavy. Callum’s gaze dropped to the floor, then it lifted again.

“You kissed me.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Why?”

The laugh that escaped surprised even me and I cut it off. “Are you serious?”

He nodded his head before I was even done asking the question.

“Because I wanted to. I’ve wanted to for a while. I still want to.”

“Are you…” he looked away, then back at me. “Are you gay?”

I shook my head. “No. Definitely bi, though.” It was weird to say it out loud. Weird in a good way. Kind of scary too, because there was still the small chance that I’d misread Callum completely and he was just straight and shy.

Some of the tension left Callum and his arms relaxed a little, loosening the hold he had on himself. “I am. Gay, I mean. I’m gay.” He exhaled a breath, his shoulders slumping.

“I’d hoped so,” I told him, laying my soul bare. It was easy to admit that when I’d already kissed him. When I’d already learned, albeit briefly, what his body felt like, pressed against mine. “I’d hate to be crushing on a straight guy.”

He choked on a laugh. “Yeah, it sucks.” He blanched and clamped his mouth shut.

Oh.

Oh, holy shit.

“You thought I was straight? And you… you had a crush on me?”

Callum rolled his eyes. “Please don’t pretend to not know how you looked all summer, half naked in my pool every single day.”

No air would enter or leave my lungs. I’d never been so thrilled or terrified to find out that a crush I had was reciprocated. This was… massive. Life-changing.

Forbidden.

Sam was my best friend, and I’d never give up on him, but he was unusually possessive about certain things. And he had this unexplained animosity toward Callum. He explained it away as sibling rivalry, standard-issue shit, nothing to worry about. But I worried. Now more than ever.