Page 16 of I've Walked Where You've Been
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Despite Matty’s sudden fixation on Ethan, there were other, more pressing matters to focus on. The end of their last year of school was rapidly approaching, and both he and Ethan spent more and more time in their room, studying together for finals. Ethan, especially, seemed stressed out of his mind. He’d been provisionally accepted into Brown, dependent on keeping his GPA and grades up. So had Matty, but his qualifications didn’t have to be as impressive. He was riding Ethan’s coattails, after all.
Matty tried not to think about it a lot—didn’t want to get bitter about the fact that he was being dragged along once again. That everybody expected him to just smile and be grateful he was getting into an Ivy League school even though there was no way he’d pick that university to attend, no matter how prestigious it was.
Ethan only brought it up once, late at night after their brains had been thoroughly fried by studying.
“I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to go to Brown when I chose it. I didn’t even talk to you about it.”
They were each lying in their own beds, the lights low, too tired to get ready for bed.
Matty blinked at the ceiling, not having expected the admission. “I mean…I guess we weren’t really buddies, then.” The application process had been months before their fight in the woods.
“I don’t think that matters? You’re going to spend the next four years there. I mean…fuck. It’s gonna be where you make friends and maybe find…you know. I don’t know, I’m just…I’m sorry. That was so fucking shitty of me.”
Matty tilted his head to look at Ethan’s prone form, his closed eyes clenched against something internal. Matty took a deep breath, feeling Ethan’s guilt and shame and self-recrimination like a toxic pulse inside his head.
He’d never done this before—neither of them had ever touched the bond unless it was to shut it down—but Matty knew it could be done. He reached out, a bundled feeling of comfort, and forgiveness, and understanding, and soothed the rough edges of their bond.
Ethan flinched bodily on the bed, turning his head on a gasp to look at him. Matty just let the bond speak for him, wondering if this was why there had always been so much misunderstanding between them. They’d always ignored what the bond was telling them in favour of what they decided to put into words, but Matty didn’t think either of them was particularly good at communicating. At least, not to each other.
Matty could see Ethan breathe deeply, eyes going a little hazy, and Matty could feel Ethan reach through the bond tentatively.
It felt somehow both strange and the most natural thing in the world. Something instinctual he’d repressed for too long.
Matty couldn’t believe they’d never done this. It was like touch, but not. Like presence. Like closing your eyes and knowing someone dear was with you, feeling their warmth. It was the sudden strengthening of the bond, deep, deep inside Matty, filling him up in a way he’d never felt before.
“Whoa,” he whispered.
Ethan focused his eyes again, and the surge of sensation lessened. He cleared his throat, a blush coating his cheeks. “Sorry. Was that okay?”
Matty laughed a little. “I mean, I started it. And…you could feel it was okay. Right?”
Matty could see Ethan swallow. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Well, then. Stop worrying about Brown. What’s done is done. In the future…maybe we can make those decisions together.”
“Yeah. That sounds…nice.”
They looked at each other for a long moment until Matty couldn’t take it anymore, stretching with a groan and sitting up. “Okay. I’m gonna get ready for bed and pass the fuck out.”
“Yeah, same.”
Even as Matty drifted to sleep, he could feel the pulse of the bond, just that little bit stronger than usual.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Matty couldn’t deny—to himself, at least—that he was nervous about Brown. He and everybody else knew that he didn’t deserve to be there—not on his own merit. It wasembarrassingto be dragged along by someone else, but like he’d said to Ethan—what was done was done.
The summer leading up to that first year of college was filled with the wild feeling of finally ending high school and being at the brink of starting something new. Matty tried not to be too happy about the fact that Ethan and Frank broke up after graduation. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad for Ethan—he just wanted a new start without having to deal with being shut out from the bond for a while, that was all.
Matty didn’t spendthatmuch time with Ethan, but at least he actually hung outwithhim, and not justaroundhim. They’d press together on a couch, satiating the bond’s need for touch, and watch a movie, or scroll through their phones, showing each other funny posts. It wasn’t as intense as that night they’d touched through the bond, but it was good. Better than ever before, at least.
The move to Brown was even more awkward than Matty had been expecting. The college had put them in a room with a single bed, and it’d been a whole ordeal to get it changed. By the time it got fixed, it was late at night, and they still had to move all their stuff in. Their parents eventually headed out when their bags and boxes were strewn all over, both Matty and Ethan collapsing onto their beds, not even introducing themselves to their dorm neighbours before falling asleep.
In truth, the start of the new college year wasn’t as bad as Matty had been expecting. They weren’t stuck in a bondmates-only dorm—people didn’t even know they were bondmates unless one of them said anything, and even then, nobody seemed bothered. Matty had almost been expecting people to side-eye him judgmentally the second they learnt why he was really there, but nobody seemed to give a shit.
