43. Arlo
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 him from 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.
“Shut up, or I’ll make you fold my underwear.” He turns back to his large pile.
To keep my mind off his underwear and what I’d like to do with them, I fold the shorts, move farther into the room, and set them in the proper stack.
“Someone told me I should read more. That it’s good for me.”
“This person sounds brilliant.” I grin.
He grins back and tosses me another pair of shorts.
We fold in companionable silence for a minute or two. The stacks of folded clothes are huge, and the remaining pile is pretty big.
“How long has it been since you’ve done laundry?”
“A while.” He folds the shirt he’s holding and sets it down with more force than necessary. “I kinda lost my laundry buddy.”
My heart plummets.
“Your wrestling friends have plenty of laundry, I’m sure.” I force through my swelling throat.
“I bet they do. Doesn’t mean I want them seeing my underwear.”
“Oh.” I can’t say any more. If I do, it’ll lead us down a path that has an abrupt end. He wants me to see his underwear. I want to see his underwear. But I can’t do it without totally losing my shit.
Wonderful.
“I hate that you push me away.” Hota tosses his unfolded shirt onto the bed and stalks to the chair that used to be my reading chair. Now, I guess it’s his.
I hate that I push you away too.
I love that you always let me come back.
I’m an abusive asshole. Using you.
Tension tugs at my shoulders. Regret sours my mouth.
My lips part to speak, though I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said.
“I know why you do it.” He slouches into the chair and stares at his shoes. “Other people are easier to deal with than I am.”
“Not in the way you think, Hota.” I lean against the side of his bed and slide to the floor. The surface is cold and hard under my cheeks.
His gaze lifts to me, narrow and cautious. “How do I think?”
“You think they’re less trouble, less history, less secrets. And they are, but that’s not why.”
“Then why?” he barks. The hurt is prominent in his usually stoic features.
“Because I don’t care about them. I don’t want to touch them. To kiss them. To hold them and never let them go.” I rub my hand over my tattered heart.
Hota scrubs a hand down his face. The other is clenched in a fist. His cheeks are red, and his eyes flare with despair. “If that’s what you want, Arlo, do it.”
If only it was that simple.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, anger spiking my veins. “You know I can’t. You know why I can’t.”
“Yeah. I do.” He shoots up from his chair and heads for the door. At least, I think that’s where he’s headed. His long strides carry past me, and he swerves left into the bathroom. A moment later, he comes back with three envelopes.
He tosses them toward me. Before they land, he grabs his heap and returns to the chair. “Let’s get this over with, huh?”
“Yeah,” I grouse, “where are your letters from?” We’d talked about where we wanted to apply. All of them had been in the States. We were both running from things. It’s possible he’d changed his mind along the way and decided to stay in the UK.
My stomach warbles.
“Iowa. NC State. Iowa State. Nebraska. Penn State. Oklahoma State. Missouri. Stanford. Harvard.”
All colleges with excellent wrestling programs. Of them, the one I wanted him to choose is the lowest ranking of the bunch. A fat fucking chance of that happening. I swallowed past the expanding lump in my throat. “You go first.”
He stalls.
“I know you can’t.” He centers his gaze on me, punctuating the meaning of his words. “I didn’t mean to imply…” He huffs. “What you’ve been through, I can’t imagine. I know you can’t. Not now, and maybe not ever. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you in my life. Stop pushing me away.” He glares. “Whatever the reason, fucking stop.”
I nod and blink back tears.
This is hard for me, but it might be harder for Hota. He’s not the one who suffered at the hands of my uncle, yet he’s still paying the price.
“Okay.” He points at me. “Where are your letters from?”
I grab the three from where they landed and fan them in my hand, though I don’t need to look at them to know. “Wharton. Stanford. Harvard.”
We stare at each other for a while, holding our futures in our sweaty palms.
“Okay, fuck it.” Hota jumbles them up in his lap and picks one at random. He rips into the seam and pulls out a simple trifold paper. His cheeks puff with a breath, and then he flattens the sheet and tugs his gaze from mine. “Nebraska. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. Accepted with full scholarship.”
“Holy shit.” My stomach hits the floor, but I know what an accomplishment it is to receive a full ride to any college, much less one with a highly sought-after collegiate wrestling program. “That’s amazing, Hota.”
He sets it on his right side by this thigh. “Your turn.”
“Go again. You have so many.” And I can’t even think about operating my hands right now. They’re clenching onto the envelopes so hard to keep from shaking.
“Fine.” He snatches another and tears into it. “Penn State.” There’s a rattle in his voice that wasn’t there with the first. There are no blah, blah, blahs. His gaze zips down the page, and then they bloat. “Accepted.” Then they narrow, searching some more. “Full scholarship plus room and board.” He gasps. As though he needs a full ride.
His dad is a business mogul with overflowing bank accounts.
“Open a letter, Arlo,” he demands as he places the second letter in the center of his lap under the unopened envelopes.
Giving him two options that would put him far away from me and farther away from me.
“Wharton first.” I drop the other two into my lap and carefully peel back the seam of the envelope. My stomach quakes. I don’t know if I want to be accepted to a place where there is zero chance Hota could attend. That’s not right. I know I don’t care about this one, which is why I chose it first. I blow out a deep breath and skim. “Accepted.”
“That’s great, Arlo.” His gaze narrows. “Why did that sound like a rejection?”
I want to roll my eyes. I don’t. Instead, I point at his pile. “You next. Two more.”
“Bossy.” He grabs another envelope and rips into it. “Missouri. Accepted.” His eyes work down the page. His lips part, but no words come out. He closes his mouth, then folds the paper and stuffs it next to his left thigh. “Partial scholarship.”
“Hota, three for three. That’s fucking great.”
“Yeah.” He nods and snatches another. Paper tears and he reads. No words come. Then he blinks at the page.
“Well?”
“Oklahoma State. Full ride.” He grins. “Tuition plus room and board.”
“Wow!” That’s all I can say because I fucking hate that school. I don’t know anything about it, except they have the most decorated wrestling history in all of college wrestling, and it’s where Nate goes to school.
“Yeah, wow.” He sighs and carefully slips the paper under the others on his lap.
I grab my next letter, just to have something to do with my hands. I take too much joy in ripping the envelope so terribly that the paper would never go back inside. I look at words. They don’t make much sense right now.
Hota clears his throat.
“Okay. Okay. Stanford.” I start over at the top and work my way down. “Accepted.”
“Hell yeah.” Hota smiles at me. He clenches his fist and gives it a little triumphant shake.
But really, it would only be triumphant if he also got accepted.
“You go.”
“Iowa.” He rips and reads. “Accepted with a full scholarship.” He stuffs it to the right and goes again. “NC State. Accepted.” He grimaces and sets that letter to his left.
“Keep going.”
He grabs one more but pauses before he rips. “Stanford.”
I nod while also chewing on my cheek.
His upper lip curls for a flash, then disappears. “Waitlisted.”
“Fuck.” I can’t catch my reaction or pull it back.
“Yeah.” He huffs. “Fuck.”
A part of me perks, just knowing he’s disappointed. Then I remember I don’t know why he’s disappointed. It could and probably does have nothing to do with me or us going somewhere together.
He crumples the paper and tosses it toward the waste basket. The finality makes my eyes burn. “Iowa State?” I motion to the letters in his lap. There are only two left.
“Sure.” He grabs, rips, and reads. “Accepted. Full scholarship plus room and board.” Center pile.
“That’s good.”
We both stare at the letters remaining. One in his lap and one in mine. Both for Harvard. The school that held so much promise for my family but had taken so much away.
I’m scared as hell to go there. That there might be a Judge Harvard curse that would leave me crippled but alive. A falling elevator or a dead limb from a tree.
At the same time, I’m determined to make my statement and leave my stamp on the school.
Are they willing to give me the opportunity? Me and my friend?
My mouth is suddenly Sahara dry.
“Together?” Hota asks.
I nod. Fuck, I hope so.
We rip the envelopes and pull out the letterhead. Slowly, we unfold them.
“Accepted.” I choke. I blink at the words and then drop my paper in a near desperate search for Hota’s outcome.
“Accepted.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Scholarship?” I beg since that seems to be important to him.
“Scholarship.” He nods, and his smile blooms.
I collapse against the leg of his bed, panting my relief for a few seconds. And then he puts the letter on the right side of his thigh instead of the center.