Page 96 of The Art of Drowning

I tossed my phone aside and ate the rest of the food Callum sent. I hadn’t had much of an appetite for the past few days, but the moment Callum sent me food, I realized I was starving.

The next morning, I got another message from him. He just wished me a good day. That was all, but it was enough to have me going into work walking on a cloud.

Bowie noticed my chipper mood right away, but when he opened his mouth to ask me about it, I just winked at him and let him draw his own conclusions.

I still didn’t text him back with any kind of regularity, but Callum’s texts grew in frequency. Good morning texts and good night texts and a few through the day.

This continued for a month. Maybe more. And every day I talked a little more to him. I asked about his job, which he said was going well and glad that he was fully remote now, which was a relatively new thing from what he said. I still wasn’t quite sure what he did. He’d explained it to me a few times, but I always forgot and I was tired of asking and looking like a dumbass.

And then one day we were full on talking all day long. Little quips back and forth. Some flirty banter. Some silly memes. And I thought maybe we could do this. Maybe I didn’t need anyone’s approval. Bowie would always have my back, but maybe he didn’t have to be the only one.

And then one morning I got a weird text from Callum.

Just the number five and nothing else. When the number four came in an hour later, I typed out a simple message.

WTF are you doing?

Callum

*evil emoji*

Despite my prodding, he didn’t respond until another hour had passed and then he sent the number three.

What the fuck was this about, if not a countdown?

He gave me nothing to go on when the clock ran down to two, then one, then finally zero.

And nothing happened at first. I stared at my phone, at the glaring zero sitting there in front of me. Countdowns didn’t always culminate in good things. Sometimes they counted down to game over. Cold dread sliced through me, and I had to bite my lip from panicking and whimpering.

Then… a knock at my door. My heart sat in my throat, thrashing wildly. My brain begged my feet to move, but they were glued to the floor. It might be Callum out there. It might not be.

But deep down I knew before I even opened the door and saw him standing there with a couple boxes of pizza, a six-pack of beer, and a bouquet of flowers…

He was here.

He was gorgeous and unfairly beautiful and so nicely dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a soft-looking long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves pushed up past his elbows.

“Can I come in?” Callum asked and I caught the flash of uncertainty in his eyes in the micro-second it took me to say yes.

I wanted to tell him that he could always come in. That he had a place here forever if he wanted it.

“Of course,” I said, my voice drenched in naked hope. Callum gave me a shy smile and stepped into my home.

For the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel so big and lonely.

FORTY-SIX

callum

NOW

Had I packed up my whole life and moved to a new city on a whim without a guarantee that once I got here Damien would even want me around? Yes. Would I do it again just for a chance at this? Also yes. Immediately and eternally yes.

Damien was it for me. He’d always been it for me. From the summer I noticed him, when we still had the gangly teenage limbs. He was beautiful then and beautiful now with a couple days’ worth of scruff on his face and a confused look that wouldn’t quite go away, even as I toed out of my shoes.

Finding Damien’s business had been the easy part. Convincing Bowie to give me Damien’s home address had been considerably harder. It took a few weeks of me keeping in touch with Damien, of me nagging at Bowie, telling him about my plans, showing him proof that I was serious, before he finally believed me.

I loved that for Damien. I loved that he had a friend who loved him the way Bowie loved him. He deserved that. And so much more.