Page 117 of Forever We Fall

“Sure.”

I’m ready for the great flood or the great meteor.

Maybe I’ll get lucky, and I won’t be able to lift the weight when it’s my turn. Maybe it’ll slip, Miles won’t catch it, and that’ll be that.

I pick up the envelope and stare at it for a full minute before dropping it back onto my desk as I have too many times to count over the last three days.

A mixture of excitement and dread churns my insides as it has for the last six months, since we started applying to colleges and universities. The future is upon me. Upon us. As ready as I am to leave this cursed continent behind, I’m also terrified.

Sure, when Hota won every award imaginable at the athletic banquet, for leading the wrestling team to another championship and an unmatched record, I was in the stands cheering for him. But we hadn’t jerked off in front of each other since Nate.

We still sleep together every night. His weight and warmth give me the comfort I need. But we haven’t spoken about any real thing in so long it hurts.

Sure, I want him more than anything in the world. But I can’t see past my own fucked-up shit to make it happen.

I hate that he spends so much time with Miles and the wrestling guys, but I made that happen. I chose to shield himfrom me. To give him a better life than being the best friend of the fucked-up guy for the rest of his life.

Maybe it was the hit to the head that shattered my past trauma enough to see Hota again, without the shadows. I’d take another crack to the skull if it meant I could touch him and hold him without them again.

But the minute the fuzz lifted from my brain, everything else came into crystalline view. Namely, my uncle over my shoulder once more.

My only hope is to make something of myself and leave my past in the past. Then, maybe I can be what he needs. One day.

Despite everything, I find myself crossing through the bathroom and standing at his door. A door that is never locked to me. A door I also never open.

My knuckles rasp against the wood.

A few moments later, he clears his throat. “Come in.”

I push into the room, and he has clothes spread across his bed. Half in neat piles and the other is a freshly dried heap.

At least a dozen letters like the one I just grabbed litter his desk.

“You’re avoiding it more than I am. I’ve done all my commissions for the week already, but I haven’t done my laundry just yet.” I cling to the door, afraid that if I get much closer, I’ll drop to my knees and beg him to come to Harvard with me. That is, if I got accepted.

I want him to go with me as much as I want to kiss him without seeing my uncle looming above me. He has to choose it, though. I cannot sway his decision.

“Avoiding what?” he asks as if he doesn’t know exactly what I’m referring to.

“Opening your letters.”

His gaze flits to the haphazard stack, then quickly back to his clothes. “You haven’t opened yours yet?”

I’ll never get over how beautiful his face is. Head on, he’s devastating. From the side.Damn. His profile is enchanting with his hair now swooping low to his collar, his perfect nose, and enticing lips. Then there’s his cutting jaw and long, muscled neck.

“No.” I shake my head, trying to focus. “I don’t have nearly as many as you, and I find it…”

He looks at me. His gaze searches my face.

I swallow my sigh. “Scary.” I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. “Is that stupid?”

“Not even a little.” He laughs. It’s small, and it still warms my chilled insides. “Yesterday, I dusted.” His grimace is fucking precious. “Who the hell dusts?”

“Not teenagers.” I chuckle for the first time in weeks.

He picks up a pair of shorts and chucks them at me. “Help me with this, and then we can open these fuckers and get the albatross from around our necks.”

I clutch his clothing in my hands and let my head tilt. “Albatross around our necks. Have you been reading?” I let the disbelief bleed into my voice.

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