Page 99 of Tide Over

“It can’t come soon enough,” he sighs.

I run my fingers through Miss Bobber’s fur beside me. “Caleb stopped by today,” I tell him.

“The guitar player?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“How was that?”

“It was good…” I take a breath, my heart pounding. “I told him I’m gay.”

There’s a brief silence. “And?”

“It was fine.”

“Would you look at that…” he says slowly.

I huff a laugh. “Fuck off.”

He laughs, and I can’t help but smile at the sound.

“I’m happy everything went well with him,” he says. “I know that was probably really hard to do.”

I stare up at the ceiling for a moment. “It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be…”

He chuckles. “Even better.”

“And…” I take a deep breath, “When you’re home, I still want to tell my family.”

“Of course,” he says softly.

I smile, already feeling some weight lifting.

“I’ve… actually been thinking about family a lot lately,” he adds hesitantly.

“Yeah?” I ask, unsure of where he’s going with that.

“Yeah…” His voice grows quieter. “I want to go see mine when I get home.”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t know what to say because I have no idea what prompted this. So I stay quiet as he continues.

“I think… I think your injury, and…” a frustrated sigh escapes him, like he’s trying to find the right words, but can’t. “It’s just… I need to do it. I need to stop running.”

I feel like there’s more, and like there’s something he’s trying to get out. So I stay quiet, letting him work through his thoughts.

“Nick died in an explosion at camp.”

My heart feels like it stops as those words settle over me.

He pulls in a shaky breath. “He was working on an oilfield steel skid that I was working on the day before.”

I stay silent, not even moving as he slowly lets it all out.

“Nick and I were the only two welders on shift that day, so when our supervisor said one of us needed to go finish it, I convinced him to go.” He pauses for a moment. “I didn’t want to do it.”

My heart races as I take in the pain in his voice.

“The acetylene cylinders needed to be switched out because they were low from the day before,” he continues slowly, like each word is heavy and hard to get out. “The foreman switched them out… but something went wrong, and too much was released.” He’s quiet for a moment, then his voice breaks. “It should have been me.”

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