Chapter 9 Damien
Damien
It’s suffocating in there. The laughter, the clinking glasses, the bodies pressed too close together in a house that feels smaller than usual.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.
I used to love these kind of parties. Used to thrive on the noise, the distraction, the blur of lights, warmth, and movement.
Now all it does is remind me that I don’t feel at home in my own damn skin anymore.
I’ve been playing the part. The easy-going, dirty-joke-cracking, tattooed basketball captain who always has a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face. But my jaw’s aching from clenching it, and the smile I’ve been wearing since seven is starting to splinter at the edges.
I move toward the railing, already bracing my elbows on it, when I realize I’m not alone. There’s someone already out here, leaning against the far corner of the deck and half-lit by the string lights. My stomach drops before my brain fully catches up.
Noah.
He turns at the sound of my footsteps, stiffening when he sees me. His expression shutters, mouth parting as if he’s caught off guard, too.
For a second, we just stare at each other like two idiots who forgot how to function.
His hands come up in front of him, palms half-raised. “I didn’t know you were coming out here. I’ll—I’ll give you space, sorry—”
“Blue, wait.”
The words are out before I can claw them back, and the second they leave my mouth, I wish I could reach through the air and strangle them dead. The nickname slips out with a softness I haven’t let myself use in years.
And now he’s staring at me with wide, uncertain eyes, the kind that always made me forget how to breathe. One dark, one pale—and still so goddamn honest it hurts.
He stands there, flushed, rattled, and so very… Noah, that I feel the last four years collapse into nothing. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to stand here and look at him as if he didn’t haunt every decision I made since the night I left. “You don’t have to go.”
Noah looks down at his sneakers. “I don’t want to make it weird.”
“You’re not making it weird,” I say, lying through my teeth.
I study him in the glow of the string lights above the deck.
He’s taller now, shoulders broader, his face sharper with age, but the way he curls into himself when he’s overwhelmed hasn’t changed at all.
His fingers still tug at the sleeve of his shirt in those small, restless motions he probably doesn’t even notice.
He still can’t hold eye contact for more than a few seconds before his gaze flicks away.
And right now, those eyes—those mismatched, too-bright, impossibly beautiful eyes—are glassy.
The sight of it hits me square in the heart.
“Noah,” I whisper. “Hey, are you—what’s wrong?”
He shakes his head, before something in him breaks, and he blurts, “Why are you ignoring me?”
My heart fucking stops. “Blue—”
“Don’t.” He lifts his hand, cutting me off. “Don’t call me that.”
I stagger internally, my chest tightening until it hurts to breathe. “I—” I start, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m trying to say. There’s no good way to explain what I did. No excuse that makes it sound anything other than what it was in his eyes—abandonment.
Noah’s voice cracks on the next words. “You disappeared, Damien. One day, you were my best friend—my family—and the next, you were… gone. No warning. No goodbye. Nothing.”
I open my mouth again, panic clawing up my throat, but he doesn’t give me time.
“You didn’t answer my messages,” he continues, the words spilling faster now.
“You didn’t call. I spent weeks thinking something happened to you.
I thought maybe you were hurt, or dead, or—” He lets out a broken laugh, dragging a hand through his hair.
“And when I finally realized you weren’t coming back—when your mom told me you’d gone to live with your dad—I thought it had to be my fault. ”
My stomach drops… Of course, he puts the blame on himself when he was innocent in all of this.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say immediately. “None of it was your fault.”
“Then what was it?” he snaps, his soft voice suddenly loud enough to cut through the thumping bass inside the house. “Why did you leave me?”
Because I loved you, and your homophobic piece of shit father saw it.
Because he looked at me like I was poison and told me exactly what would happen to both of us if I stayed.
Because he used my naivety to silence me.
I look at the way his mouth trembles, at the color burning high in his cheeks, at the way his whole body is braced as if it’s waiting to be hit… And every instinct in me screams to pull him close and shield him from everything that ever hurt him.
But I can’t. I have no right to comfort him when I’m the reason he’s bleeding.
“I had to go,” I say finally, and the words sound pathetic even to my own ears.
He shakes his head slowly, and I know the excuse is flimsy. “You didn’t have to. You chose to.”
“You don’t know what happened, Noah—”
“Then tell me!” he demands, eyes wide and shining. “Tell me what the hell I did to deserve being dropped without so much as a goodbye.”
“I can’t,” I choke out.
Noah scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Of course you can’t.”
He turns away from me, shoulders tight, fists clenched at his sides as if he doesn’t know what to do with all the hurt trapped inside his small body. I watch him take one breath, then another, trying to steady himself.
That’s the part that destroys me.
The quiet signs—flexing and releasing his fingers, shoulders curling inward, rocking slightly on his heels. I still recognize all the ways he self-soothes.
I used to love those things about him. I used to watch him line up his pencils perfectly on his desk, retie his shoes three times until they felt right.
It never annoyed me having to wait for him to finish his little rituals.
It made my chest ache with something warm and full because I knew the world didn’t deserve how gentle he was.
“I’m not mad anymore,” he says after a long moment. “That’s not why I asked.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“I just…” He laughs, but it’s breathless. “I thought if I finally said it out loud, maybe it would stop haunting me every time you walk into a room and won’t look at me.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. “Blue—”
“I miss you, okay?” he says softly, turning to meet my gaze with watery eyes.
I swear to god, it takes everything in me not to cross the rest of the space between us and pull him to my chest. “I know it’s stupid, but it’s true.
One minute we were—” He chokes, swallows, tries again.
“I don’t get it, Damien. Why are you pretending I don’t exist? ”
Each word is fucking relentless in its honesty. I drag a hand over my face, exhaling hard. “Because it’s easier,” I blurt, and the second I say it, I know it’s a fucking cop-out. “It’s easier than admitting why I left in the first place.”
He stares at me, his features twisting in disbelief. “Easier… for who?”
“For me,” I admit, because I’m a goddamn coward.
“I see,” he whispers. “I thought maybe we could at least be okay. Friends, or whatever version of that we used to be. But every time I try, you’re already halfway out the door.”
His words hit harder than they should. Or maybe they hit exactly as hard as they’re meant to.
I don’t know anymore. I’ve lived four fucking years in a state of constant noise—women and men I don’t love, games I don’t care about, and friends I can’t talk to.
But right now, on this goddamn porch, under these stupid string lights with him in front of me, I finally feel the cost of pretending.
He turns away again before I can say anything else, his arms wrapping tighter around himself as he stares out at the yard.
“You used to talk to me, you know? We used to really talk, and not about the bullshit stuff. Not what you say to everyone else. I always felt… I don’t know.
Like maybe I got to see the version of you nobody else did. ”
The ache in my chest twists harder, almost painful. I swallow hard, and my voice comes out rougher than I mean. “You did.”
“Then what changed?” he whispers. “Because I sure as hell didn’t.”
I can’t stand the distance anymore, so I take a step closer. He doesn’t move or flinch away, but his back is still too straight, every muscle wound tight. “You didn’t change, but everything else did.”
He lets out a laugh that’s nothing like a laugh—just pain and exhaustion. “Was it that hard to say goodbye?”
God.
I take another breath and look away. I didn’t say goodbye because I couldn’t trust myself to walk away if I did. Because I was seventeen, selfish, and scared that one more minute with him would make me stay. And if I stayed… he wouldn’t be safe.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “It was.”
He turns around and looks stunned, and for a second, I think he might yell, cry, or do something that’ll break both of us open. But he just stands there, hurting, and I can feel the guilt I’ve carried for years start to choke me.
I edge closer again, my hip brushing the rail beside him, making myself close enough that if he wanted to, he could lean in. But he doesn’t.
“I cut contact because I didn’t know how to face you,” I admit. “Because staying away was the only way I could protect you.”
That makes his brow furrow, lips parting as confusion clouds his pretty face. “What are you talking about? Protect me from what?”
I shake my head, my jaw so tight I feel it crack. “I can’t tell you—” My voice breaks on it, real panic seeping in, because I know I’m losing him with every excuse I make.
“Forget it,” he says with a sigh and walks toward the sliding door. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not like it matters now.”
“It does matter.” My voice is too loud, and he flinches. He stops and doesn’t turn around, but I see his shoulders jerk up. “You matter. You always have.”
“You sure have a funny way of showing it,” he murmurs.