Camden
“What are you doing here?” I stand at my window, looking at my best friend, who’s only in a hoodie, despite it being pretty cold outside. “Where’s your coat?”
“Just let me in.” He sounds sad. He looks damn sad. I huff but move out of the way so he can climb into my window like he always does. I have no idea why he never uses the front door. It’s not that late, and it’s a Saturday.
This week sucked. We barely spoke to each other, and to say I’m surprised to see him here is an understatement. After closing the window, he stands there with his hands in his pockets, looking awkward, like he doesn’t know what to do. Which is really fucking weird. “What’s up? You okay?”
He shakes his head slowly and then sits on the edge of my bed, still looking uncomfortable. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it’s not good at all. He hasn’t looked like this since his grandpa died.
“Kingston. You’re freaking me out. What’s going on?” I sit next to him on my bed, wearing a black t-shirt and flannel pajama pants my mom got me last Christmas. I was planning to go to bed soon, since I have to wake up early to go cut firewood. But if he needs me, I’m here.
“I broke up with Kennedy.”
Okay, didn’t expect that. Still, it’s not like someone died.
“O-kay. I’m sure you guys can fix it.” I try to swallow away the bile my statement causes to rise in my throat and push away my own feelings because that’s what I do best. He needs me right now.
“In fact, I know you can. You guys have been through rough patches before.”
He shakes his head at me, looking determined. “I don’t want to fix it. I want to be done with her. I can’t take it anymore, Cam. I can’t do it.”
He sounds desperate and so damn distraught. “Hey, okay.” I wrap my arm around his big shoulders and take a deep breath, hoping he’ll follow and do the same. Thankfully, he does. “It’s okay.”
“I can’t be with her anymore. It was toxic. She didn’t like me.”
My eyes flutter closed momentarily, and then I open them again. “Everyone likes you.”
He half chuckles at that, but it’s far from his real laugh. “She didn’t. She wanted me to be someone else. To be interested in going to dances and shit I don’t care about. She acted like there was something wrong with me for not wanting to be just like her.”
She’s always been like that. I wonder what’s changed now, but I don’t say it out loud. He doesn’t need that right now. “You deserve to be whoever you want to be.” The words clench around my heart like a vise, but I keep going. “If it was becoming toxic, it’s a good thing you broke up.”
“Oh, I know. I’m not sad. I’m glad. Really fucking glad. She could be so goddamn hateful.”
I start to realize that maybe I didn’t know just how bad it was between them, because he looks equally relieved to be away from her and horrified by their past. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“She just . . .” He pushes his hand through his hair and shakes it off. “I tried to break up with her a few times before, but she’d get really nasty, which turned to crying, and then somehow, I stayed. But this time I didn’t. This time I stuck to it, and it feels fucking awesome.”
He’s smiling now, which pulls a small smile from me. “Well, good. I’m glad you’re free then.”
“Yeah.” He sits up a little straighter and pats my thigh with his meaty hand. “Free. I like that.” He’s full-on grinning now. “We should go to a party.”
“Uh, what?” There’s no way I’m going to a party tonight, and that came out of nowhere.
“Yeah.” He stands up excitedly. “There’s one in Great Lodge tonight.”
I raise an eyebrow at him and don’t move from my spot on the bed. Great Lodge is about thirty minutes away and has the closest community college. “A college party?”
He nods with a big smile. “Yeah. I mean, maybe we could even go to college there together. Thirty minutes isn’t too far. Or you know, you could go there, but I can stay here and work. We could get a place somewhere in the middle.”
He’s getting way too excited now, and I know I need to shut down this line of thinking fast. But I can’t find the words. Living with him? Yeah, that would be fun. But it would also be a totally torturous disaster for me.
“So, we can go to the party, and you can scope it out. See if you could see yourself going to college there.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to leave Kensley,” I say, even though that’s not really shutting him down. It’s more out of curiosity because that’s what our last fight was about.
He sits on the bed again, resembling an excited puppy. “Yeah, I know. I still don’t. But thirty minutes away isn’t so bad. And like I said, we could rent a house in the middle or something, you know? It could still work out.”
I know I have to kick the damn puppy, and I feel sick to my stomach. “Kingston . . .” I start, and he frowns. “I kind of want to leave Kansas.”
His entire face falls even further, and now I feel like the biggest villain in the world. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I . . .” Don’t really have the words. He stands up, his brow furrowed and looking pale.
“You want to leave the whole goddamn state behind?”
“Maybe not forever.” I stand up cautiously, not wanting to fight with him again. But making him think that maybe I’ll be happy going to a community college close to home isn’t healthy. “But for college . . . yeah.”
“What the fuck, Cam?” Yeah, he’s pissed.
“Shhh. Lucy’s in bed.” Her room is next to mine, and I don’t want her to wake up.
“So you’ve had this planned all along?” he whisper-shouts, looking far more distraught than he did when he first got here and told me about his breakup.
“Calm down, okay? I told you I need to get out of here. Let’s just sit down and talk about it.” I try to take his arm to guide him back to my bed, but he pulls away furiously.
“No. I’m not going to calm down. You want to leave the state.” He keeps his voice low, but it’s clear he’s angry.
“The state. Not you.”
“Bullshit. It is leaving me. You won’t even consider going to Great Lodge?”
The truth is, I did consider it, but that’s not what I want. I want to be far away where I can be the true me. Where I can come out and not worry about all the things I worry about here. Where I can meet other gay people and find my place in this world.
I can’t do that here or thirty minutes from here, and I know it.
“No,” I answer honestly, my voice hoarse.
“Why the hell not? Why do you want out of here so bad?” I grab my own hoodie and pull his arm. This time, he doesn’t fight me, and we go out the door through the kitchen into the backyard to have this conversation.
My mom is already in her room, and Luce is asleep, so I know we’ll have privacy out here. I release him, and he fidgets angrily with his hoodie, shooting a glare at me. “I need to get out of here. Can you please just listen to me? As your best friend, can you please just try to hear me?”
“Why?” His voice sounds broken and so alone and heartbroken, it nearly kills me. “Why do you want to get away so damn bad?”
“I just need to.” I don’t consider telling him the real reason because I’m a total chickenshit.
“No.” He shakes his head at me, pacing around the backyard, looking slightly crazy. His breath is visible in the cold night air as he faces me. “Tell me. I’m your best friend in the whole world. So tell me.”
“I can’t,” I say quietly, but it’s not good enough for him. He takes a step closer to me, his eyes visible in the moonlight and pleading with me.
“Tell. Me.”
“I can’t.” I say it louder, my hands starting to shake because I can’t. I really can’t. I don’t want to do it this way, but he’s pushing me.
His hand goes over his heart, white air escaping from his lungs. “Tell me why you want out so bad, Cam. I deserve to know.”
I can’t take it anymore. My resolve snaps, and I yell back at him, “You really want to know?”
“Yes!” His voice is loud, but I know the back door is closed, and the bedrooms are on the other side of the house. It’s just our conversation right now. Just Kingston and me.
“Fine. I’m eighteen years old, and I watch my little sister even more than my own mother does. I have to make good grades and keep up with sports, all while trying to help support them both. I’m fucking exhausted, and I’m a teenager.”
His shoulders slump slightly as he takes a shaky breath. “I know . . . it’s hard, but will college really change that? Can you really just leave?”
The truth is, I don’t know. “I want to. God, I want to.”
“So just because of that?”
I shake my head, tears forming in my eyes because I truly am exhausted.
Keeping a secret so buried like I have is soul crushing and so damn draining.
And the floodgates just open. “I want more. So much more than a town with two stoplights. With small-minded people. I’m tired of carrying so many burdens around.
I want to live in a big city where people won’t judge me for who I am.
” His brow furrows in confusion, and I look away, my voice strained, but I keep going.
“I’ve been in love with my best friend for as long as I can remember.
I need to get away because it’s not healthy being stuck where you’re always around what you can’t have. ”
“You’re . . .” I can’t look at him, but I can hear the anguish in his voice. “You’re what?”
“Don’t.” I start for the door, needing to escape. But he grabs my arm and turns my body to face him.
“What did you just say to me?”
I try to pull away, but his grip is tight. “Let me go.”
He does physically, but his eyes hold me there. “I’m your best friend.”
I let out a deep breath, the cold air hurting my chest, but not as much as the fear in his eyes. “Yes.”
“You’re gay?” He’s processing it, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Yes.” I answer honestly for the first time out loud. I would cheer, but I can’t because he looks sick.
“You never told me.”
“No.” I shake my head, fighting tears. Fighting my shaking body. Fighting every instinct inside me that says to run. “I couldn’t.”
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I nearly laugh at that because he has to know. But he looks clueless. “Kensley isn’t exactly gay-friendly.”
“I’m not Kensley.”
“But you are,” I toss back because he is. He knows, and so do I. He’s usually proud of that fact.
“In love?” Even in the darkness, he looks pale.
“It’s my problem.” I place a hand over my heart, wanting him to understand this. “Not yours. Not at all. It’s on me. Please, just let it go.”
He looks hurt as his eyes search mine with confusion. “How?”
“I don’t know, but you need to bury it because I’m not telling anyone else. This is why I need out. I have to get out of here, Kingston. And as my best friend, you need to let me.”
“I . . .” I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him speechless before. I watch him swallow hard, his Adam’s apple dancing in his throat as he looks at me for more answers than I have. “Okay.”
I nod once, the motion shaky and unsure. “Okay.”
We stand there for way too long, unmoving and freezing our asses off, just staring at each other before he seems to shake it off. It’s his idea to go back to my room, and when he strips and climbs into bed, wearing only his boxer briefs, and telling me to join him, I actually breathe again.
This is how we’ve always been. It feels normal, even though there’s still tension in the air.
I guess we really are just going to bury this down deep.