CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
· · ·
He invited me out.
And for a second — just one — I was excited.
Then he mentioned Abby.
Fuck.
I don’t know if I can do this.
But if I say no, I give him a reason to stop asking.
And I can’t risk that.
So I tell him yes.
· · ·
I ask if I can bring someone.
Taylor.
He’s from school. Quiet. Thoughtful. The kind of person who actually listens when you talk — who asked me once what I was reading and waited for the full answer, then said the title back to me a week later like he’d filed it away somewhere.
He laughs at the right moments without trying.
Nothing like Cassian.
Maybe that’s the point.
Maybe I should start spending time with people who don’t make me feel like I’m constantly off-balance.
Like I’m one wrong step away from losing everything.
He says yes immediately.
Thank God.
At least I won’t look completely pathetic.
· · ·
We meet at a burger place before the movie.
All four of us.
My parents drop us off out front, my mom making kissy faces through the window, my dad giving me an exaggerated thumbs up.
I’ve told them a million times it’s not a date.
Still, my stomach twists.
I glance at Taylor.
He looks nervous.
That makes two of us.
I probably should’ve clarified.
· · ·
Cassian and Abby are already there when we arrive, tucked into a booth by the window.
She’s smaller than I imagined. Red hair pulled up, laughing at something on her phone before we even sit down.
Cassian looks — relaxed.
The easy kind. The kind he only gets when he’s somewhere he wants to be.
Something tightens in my chest.
I slide in across from them. Taylor beside me.
· · ·
And then — it’s actually fine.
Not fine like I’m surviving it. Fine like I forget to monitor myself.
Abby is funny. Not in a trying-to-be-funny way — in a way where things just come out of her mouth and land. She does an impression of their history teacher that makes Taylor choke on his drink, and even I’m laughing before I can stop myself.
Taylor tells the story about his brother and the guitar. The dog leaving the room.
Cassian loses it.
I watch him laugh — really laugh — and for a second it doesn’t hurt the way I expect it to.
I tell the one about my dad’s birdhouse. My mom keeping it in the garden because she says it builds character.
Everyone laughs. Even Abby, who doesn’t know my parents at all, laughs like she does.
We order too much food.
Eat most of it anyway.
At some point I stop tracking how I’m doing and just — am.
It’s nice.
· · ·
At some point Taylor leans over to look at my phone when I’m showing him something, and his shoulder bumps mine and he just — leaves it there. Doesn’t move away. Doesn’t make it a thing. Just stays close the way people do when they want to be closer and aren’t sure yet if they’re allowed.
I don’t move away either.
It’s close.
That’s the honest word for it.
Just close.
And easy.
Not someone that pushes me every way at every chance.
I don’t have room for anyone else in my heart, though.
But this — this feels like something I didn’t know I was allowed to have.
Just an ordinary night. Four people in a booth.
Nobody in pain.
· · ·
He leans closer across the table.
“I’m really glad you invited me,” Taylor says quietly.
Something loosens in my chest.
Oh.
My gaydar is officially useless.
And my parents’ gaydar really works.
· · ·
Walking to the theater, I think: maybe I can do this.
Maybe this is what it looks like — Cassian with someone, me with someone, all of us just… fine.
Normal.
Maybe I’ve been making it bigger than it is.
The night is soft. Taylor walks close enough that our arms brush, and I let it happen, and I think — yeah.
Maybe I can handle this.
· · ·
The movie starts.
I stare at the screen without seeing any of it.
Because in the dark, something shifts.
Two rows ahead, Cassian and Abby have gone quiet in the way that isn’t nothing.
His arm moves around her. Slow. Easy. Like it belongs there.
She tips her head onto his shoulder.
He lets her.
He tips his head down toward hers.
And all at once the burger place feels like it was a hundred years ago.
My jaw tightens.
Something cold moves through me.
I look away before he can see me looking.
· · ·
That’s when Taylor’s hand finds mine.
Slow. Careful. Like he’s giving me time to pull away.
I look at his hand in mine for a moment.
Then I think about a roof in the dark and I need you so much and Cassian’s arm around someone else’s shoulders.
I lace my fingers through Taylor’s.
And I decide.
It’s not what I want.
But maybe that’s okay.
· · ·
Taylor shifts closer.
I turn — and he’s right there.
Peppermint.
Soft.
Easy.
Not like Cassian.
Cassian is smoke. Heat. Something that burns.
This — this is safe.
Taylor leans in first.
And I let him.
I’m so tired of waiting.
I’m so tired of being the one who never gets chosen.
· · ·
His hand tightens around mine.
Our shoulders bump against each other.
He parts his mouth, I part mine.
And for a second —
I let myself disappear into it.
Let it be enough.
· · ·
Then I look up.
And I see him.
Cassian is staring at me.
Not shocked.
Not confused.
Furious.
Not the cold kind.
The other kind.
The kind that looks almost like —
· · ·
He stands so abruptly his seat snaps back.
And then he’s gone.
Everything inside me drops.
I pull away from Taylor.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe, already standing.
And then I’m running after him.
Because he’s always the one I choose.
He always will be.
· · ·
He’s not in the hallway.
I check the bathroom.
He’s there.
Both hands braced on the sink.
Head down.
Breathing like he ran here.
Like he had to get somewhere before something caught up with him.
· · ·
“Cassian.”
He turns.
And I see it.
Not anger.
I was wrong about the anger.
His eyes are dark and his jaw is tight and he looks like someone who has been holding something for a very long time and just — ran out of room.
· · ·
He crosses the space between us in two steps and shoves me — hard —
back against the wall.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His voice is rough.
Wrecked.
· · ·
Something in me snaps.
“Tell you what?” I fire back. “That I’m gay? Why — so you could do what you always do? Get close and then pull away like none of it meant anything?”
My voice shakes.
I don’t care.
“I tried, Cassian. Every time I tried you shut it down.”
I step into him.
“You said you needed me. On the roof. You looked me in the eyes and said —”
My voice breaks.
I push through it.
“Don’t act like you didn’t know. And then you went back to her. Like I imagined it. Like you didn’t say anything to me at all.”
· · ·
He stares at me.
Something working in his jaw.
“I thought we were best friends.”
“That’s the only way I get to have you.” My voice drops. “So I take it. I make myself fit into whatever shape you need me to be. I pretend it’s enough.”
· · ·
“Ro —”
“It’s not enough, Cassian.” My chest is heaving. “It hasn’t been enough for a long time and you know it.
You’ve always known it. That’s why you came to the roof. That’s why you say the things you say and then act like you didn’t. Because you know.”
I stop.
I’m shaking.
“I’m barely holding it together here,” I say. Quieter. “So please. Either stop —”
He kisses me.
Not soft.
Not careful.
Not like the almost-moments or the noses brushing or the foreheads touching in the dark.
· · ·
Like something that’s been locked behind a door for years and finally — finally — broke through.
His hands come up to my face.
Both of them.
Not gentle.
Like he can’t get to me fast enough.
Like his body stopped asking permission.
Cupping my jaw, pulling me in, and there’s no hesitation — no careful, no testing — just him.
Finally.
After everything.
Choosing this.
Choosing me.
· · ·
I grab the front of his shirt with both hands and pull him in.
Closer.
Because I have waited —
God, I have waited so long —
I can’t get close enough to him.
· · ·
“God,” he breathes against my mouth.
Like it escaped him.
Like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“Ro —”
· · ·
He kisses me again before he can finish.
Harder.
Like saying my name broke the last thing that was holding him back.
Both hands sliding into my hair.
· · ·
And I feel it — the way his breath goes ragged — the way his hands aren’t steady — the way he’s shaking slightly and kissing me anyway —
Like he’s been fighting this.
For years.
And just —
lost.
He walks me back.
Not roughly.
Just inevitably.
Like gravity.
Until my back hits the wall and he’s right there — right there — and there’s nowhere to go and I don’t want to go anywhere.
I could stay trapped like this forever.
· · ·
“I’ve —” he starts.
Stops.
His forehead drops to mine.
Eyes closed.
Chest heaving.
Like he’s trying to find something and can’t.
“I’ve wanted —”
· · ·
He can’t finish it.
He never could say it.
So I pull him back in.
Because I don’t need the words.
I have eight years of evidence.
Rooftops and kitchen floors and hands in the dark.
I need you so much said like a secret.
I have this — him shaking — him holding my face like I’m something precious and terrifying all at once — kissing me like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done.
And the most devastating.
We break for air.
Both completely wrecked.
His hands still in my hair.
My fists still in his shirt.
Foreheads together.
Neither moving.
Like if we move it ends.
Like we both know it ends.
· · ·
In the quiet —
I feel him start to come back.
The way his breathing steadies.
The way his hands go still.
The way something behind his eyes moves from open — terrifyingly, beautifully open —
to closed.
That door.
That door he’s had since he was eight years old.
Swinging shut.
· · ·
“Cassian,” I whisper.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
Like if he looks at me he won’t be able to do what he’s about to do.
His hands fall away.
He steps back.
Just enough.
“Ro.”
Wrecked.
“Don’t.” Mine is too. “Don’t you dare tell me that was nothing.”
“I know,” he says.
· · ·
Quiet.
Certain.
Like that’s the whole problem.
He knows.
He’s always known.
And it doesn’t matter.
· · ·
I look at him for a long moment.
This person I have loved since before I knew what love was.
Who came through my window on the worst night of his life.
Who sat on my kitchen floor and held my hand under the stars and said I need you so much like a confession he couldn’t take back.
Who just kissed me like it was the last time.
· · ·
Maybe because he knew it was.
I can’t stay and watch him lock it back up.
Not after that.
Not after finally —
· · ·
So I leave.
Before he can make me feel like I imagined it.
I didn’t imagine it.
I know I didn’t.
But the worst part — the part that will stay with me longer than the kiss —
is the way he said I know.
Like it changed nothing.
Like it was never going to.
I let him burn me again.