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“Good job, asshole,” I muttered to myself while rubbing at my face with my hands.

The memories kept coming anyway. Alvin laughing against my mouth. Alvin whispering my name. Screaming it. Moaning it. The weight of him beneath me, beside me, against me. The way he’d trusted me even when I was shaking too hard to pretend I had control.

It should have been easier to feel guilty about. That was the part I couldn’t wrap my head around. If it had been awful, I could’ve called it a mistake and walked away clean. If it had felt wrong, I could’ve blamed the heat, the annoying fucking campers, anger, loneliness, anything.

But it had felt good. Very fucking good.

And it was just too easy to remember the exact sound he made when I touched him. The sounds I made. The sounds we made together. So in sync that it didn’t feel like it was the first time. So euphoric that it felt like the first time every time.

There was no clean way to separate the pleasure from the damage. No way to say, “That was amazing, but it didn’t matter.”

It mattered too fucking much…

I got down on the floor and reached under my bunk. My fingers grazing over the flask taped to the frame. I’d hidden it there before camp started, back when I was sure surviving Alvin meant I needed it. The metal was warm from the day. I peeled away the tape and unscrewed the cap.

The smell hit me first. My ma’s cheap bourbon. Sharp enough to sting my nose. I took a long gulp and it burned all the way down.

“It’s been real fun, Camp Dix,” I said to the empty cabin. Then I took another drink.

Alvin had always been better at saying what he wanted. He wanted answers. He wanted me. I wanted him too. That didn’t mean I could give him any of it.

I’d tried to make that distinction sound noble. Like refusing him was some kind of sacrifice. Like I was protecting him from the cowardly, closeted parts of me. The parts terrified of being seen.

Maybe I was. Or maybe I was just protecting myself.

The flask tipped against my knee while my glare remained fixed on the bare floor between the bunks.

When we were fifteen, Alvin had climbed through my window after we’d spent three days not speaking. I didn’t even remember what we were fighting about. Probably something stupid. It was usually something stupid. Like me accusing him of embarrassing me in front of a pretty girl I honestly gave two shits about.

He’d landed badly, knocked over a lamp, and cursed so loud my ma shouted from downstairs. I’d laughed until he punched my shoulder. Then I’d told him to get the fuck out. He’d told me to move aside, and a few minutes later, we were watching some tv movie I wasn’t even paying attention to. Because I had been too focused on how close he was sitting next to me. How he’d smelled. Wondering what his lip gloss tasted like.

It didn’t matter how cruel I was to him. If I pushed him away. Even when I’d finally worked up the courage to kiss him and immediately made it clear that I shouldn’t have done it.

Alvin kept coming back because I left the window open. Or maybe because I’d never told him not to and actually meant it…

I took another drink. The cabin tilted slightly and my stomach twisted.

I didn’t know if I wanted him to hate me or come back and hit me. Both options felt better than the empty bunk.

In less than ten minutes, the flask was already half gone. I should’ve stopped. I knew that. I also knew stopping meant thinking clearly, and clarity had never done me any good. I took another long swig. I couldn’t even taste the alcohol anymore.

I glanced over at the spider habitat sitting on the table. Sprigey 2.0 was motionless in its plastic prison. All eight of its eyes judging me. I lifted the flask towards the damn thing.

“Here’s to you, you creepy bastard,” I said, nearly choking on whatever newfound bullshit was stuck in my throat. “At least you know what you are. No apologies.” I took another drink. “Just a judgmental little shit in a cage.”

I turned back to the door. I thought about finding Alvin. About asking where he was staying. About telling him that I was sorry. None of those thoughts made it past the cabin door.

What could I say? That I loved him but couldn’t be with him? That I wanted him but couldn’t want him publicly? That I’d spent years needing him and had no idea how to survive being honest about it?

Sorry wasn’t enough. It had never been enough.

I finished the flask. My body felt heavy, as though something stronger than gravity was weighing it down, and I crawled onto my bunk without taking off my shoes.

It was almost as if I could feel how empty his bed was above me. Even though empty was the opposite of feeling heavy.

I turned onto my side, faced the wall, and closed my eyes. But that was the fucked-up thing about the human mind. It didn’t have to see something to see it. And right now, all I could see was Alvin.

His mouth against mine. His hand in my hair. His dick when it was leaking precum moments before it exploded entirely.