Author's Note: This chapter contains extensive discussion of sexual assault, which may be triggering to some readers. Further warnings for sexual content, drug use, and references to family neglect and emotional abuse.

"The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families." -Jay McInerney

222 days sober

Sunday afternoon finds me trapped in the uniform section of the Patton bookstore for what feels like nine goddamn hours. Parents’ Day is tomorrow, and the school requires every student to be in full dress uniform instead of the more casual, individualized uniforms we can choose from for class every day. The problem with this—other than the fact that the dress uniform is uncomfortable as shit and way too hot for a pleasant April day—is that I don’t actually have my dress uniform anymore. I haven’t worn it since my last Parents’ Day, during my junior year; after that, it went into storage or a dumpster or something, leaving me pretty much up a creek.

The fine fuckwits of the Patton bookstore are all too willing to replace it for me, as long as I’m equally willing to shell out another two hundred dollars and spend an entire afternoon waiting for them to find one that fits me. I spend most of that time playing Tetris on my phone, until I get a text from Declan saying, still in CT?

nope, I text back. got back this morning, in pma bookstore now getting uniform for tmrrw.

come 2 mine when yr done. javi still nt back yettt.

I consider texting back something about not being his booty call, but who am I trying to fool? I’m exactly that easy, especially considering that it’s been two days since I’ve gotten my hands on him. I don’t reply, and I don’t give him any warning before I gather up the garment back with my new uniform and set off to his dorm.

The door is closed when I get there, but it’s unlocked. I shove it open and trip over the threshold. Declan is set up at his desk, dicking around on his computer; he seems pretty unconcerned by my loud, graceless entrance, so I make it even louder and more graceless. “Christ, that took forever. I get that nobody wants to work on the weekend, but if they’re gonna tell me to come by to pick up my uniform on a Sunday afternoon, the least they can do is make sure it takes less than forty-five fuckin’ minutes to—” I don’t get any further into my usual babble before I realize he’s on the phone. I wince and switch immediately to a whisper to say, “Sorry, didn’t realize you were talking to someone.”

“I’m on hold right now,” he says. He nods towards the garment bag. “Everything squared away now, though?”

“Yep. I’ll be looking just as neat and pretty as the rest of the squad tomorrow.” I hang the bag over the top of his closet door, fling my jacket off onto the floor, and drop to my knees in front of him. “You knew I was on my way over here, you useless sack of shit. Why didn’t you get yourself hard?”

“I’m not going to jerk off while I’m on the phone with a lieutenant colonel,” he says.

“Then hang up on him, ‘cause I can’t stay too long. Travis gets out of work at four, and I want to be there when he gets home. We’re getting Chinese and taking Omelette to the dog park.”

“And it would be such a shame for you to be late to your dinner-and-dog-walking date because I made you wait to suck my dick,” Declan says. He doesn’t seem like he’s annoyed or jealous, but when I try to pull his sweatpants down over his hips, he grabs my wrists. “I’m almost done. You can wait five min—yes, sir, I’m still here.”

I lean in and lap at the curve of his hip, but he’s already focused on the phone call again, and that’s no fun. I clamber back onto my feet, throw a leg over his, and settle onto his lap to start the long process of sucking a few hickeys into his skin, just below the collar of his t-shirt. He tries and fails to bat me away, then rolls his eyes, tucks his phone between his ear and shoulder, and dumps me on his bed before returning to his desk chair. I make a few monstrous faces at him; he flips me off and turns to face his computer again. I roll my eyes—what the fuck was the point of inviting me over, if all he planned to do was ignore me?

My phone is in my jacket pocket, over by the door, so I don’t have anything to entertain me while he wraps up his call. The only thing within reach is his wallet, which is sitting on the pillow. I flick it open and poke around a bit, but it’s pretty basic. A debit card, his student ID, a couple of twenties, a bunch of business cards. Those are a little weird, so I wait until he finally hangs up and ask, “Who are all these people you’ve got cards for?”

“A couple of ‘em are Army officers the school put me in touch with during my nomination process for West Point. I was just talking to one of them now,” he says. “But most of the cards are for this program thing I’ve got to do.”

“What kind of program?” I ask.

He smirks. “Recruiting bullshit for the school.”

I scramble upright, too delighted to stay lying down now. “Oh my god, Campbell. Are you the face of Patton Military Academy, and you never thought to mention it? Are there dorky little posters of your smiling, freckly face, with cute captions about being all you can be?”

“No, there aren’t any posters, you tool.” Declan grabs a paper clip off his desk and flicks it at my head, then turns back around to start typing something on his laptop. “And I’m not really the face of Patton. A couple times a semester, I throw on the full dress uniform, and they put me on a plane with an admissions rep and one of the drill sergeants, fly us out to a town in the middle of nowhere so we can spend a day or two pimping Patton to a bunch of middle-schoolers. The fact that I’m actually headed into the Service means I’m a pretty good mouthpiece, I guess. I talk about how great Patton is at teaching strong values and discipline, and in return, the school covers half my tuition. More than, actually—when I got into West Point, Patton comped my entire senior year.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass,” I say.

“Less of a pain in the ass than working four jobs to cover tuition would be. Give me my wallet.”

“No, I’m looking at it,” I say. I’m not really, but I could be. The only thing left to examine is his driver’s license; Declan looks all of twelve years old in his license picture. I make a face and cover the picture with my thumb; I hate seeing Dec look even younger than he is. “Culbertson, Nebraska. Is that even a real place?”

“Barely. There are less than a thousand people in the entire town,” Declan says. He stops typing and turns in place so that I can see the way he squints up at the ceiling. “I think it’s a village, actually, not a town.”

“Gross,” I mutter. I look back at the license. “Date of birth: April tenth.”

“Yep,” he says.

“Middle initial: L.” I get another yep. I clamber over to lie on my back, my head lolling back off the side of the bed to look at him upside down. “What’s it stand for?”

“Some weird thing my birth mom picked out.”

“Yeah, that’s what all middle names are,” I say. I reach out and pinch his calf, and he bats me away. “Mine’s Michael. Garen Michael Anderson.” From the look on Declan’s face, I’d guess he gives exactly zero fucks. I roll my eyes. “I know it’s not important, but that’s the kind of shit most people know about their friends. Their middle names, favorite movies, favorite sports, how many siblings they’ve got, what they wanna be when they grow up.”

Dec laces his fingers together behind his head and leans back in his chair. “You already know that one—I want to be a soldier. And you know why, which means you’re a step ahead of any of the other guys in the squad. Isn’t that enough?”

It’s not enough. I’m not sure that I even know what ‘enough’ means anymore. But the muscles in Declan’s arms seem drawn up tight, like he’s keeping his tone and pose casual to distract me from how tense this discussion is actually making him. Instead of asking another question that I know I won’t get an answer to anyway, I say, “I bet your middle name is Lionel. Or Larry. Something that makes you sound like a ninety-year-old man from Myrtle Beach.”

“Nope,” he laughs, his posture loosening just a bit.

“Lawrence. Logan. Liam,” I guess. He shakes his head. “Will you tell me if I get it right?” He tips his head in agreement. “Leonardo. Or Leon. Or Leo, some variation of that.”

He shakes his head again and says, “You really enjoy the sound of your own voice, don’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t? My voice is a dulcet, velvety siren’s song, and—”

“Your voice is a warning about the dangers of chain-smoking and deep-throating every cock in a five-mile radius.”

“Ten miles. Don’t sell me short,” I say. “Is it Lisa? Declan Lisa Campbell?”

“Yes, you’re exactly right. My middle name is Lisa. You caught me,” he says, inching his desk chair closer. The legs screech against the floor. He leans in to kiss me, even though I’m still upside down and our lips can’t quite match up correctly.

I curl a hand over the back of his neck and sing very quietly against his mouth, “Well, my daddy left home when I was three, and he didn’t leave much to Ma and me, just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze. Now, I don’t blame him ‘cause he run and hid, but the meanest thing that he ever did was before he left, he went and named me… Lisa.”

The Cash reference is enough to earn me a deeper kiss, even though our misaligned mouths make it sloppy and silly, with an occasional clack of teeth. I don’t mind it, but Declan is more easily frustrated than I am. He pulls away, bumps his nose against mine, and says, “Are you planning to sit up sometime today?”

“No, not when this is such a convenient position,” I say. I nod—up for me, down for him. “Take your pants off, let’s sixty-nine.”

He grins and reaches for the drawstring of his sweatpants, but before he can get it untied, there’s a loud thump outside the door, followed by the sound of a key sliding into the lock. Declan sighs and pushes his chair back towards the desk. “Javi was supposed to be back later than this.”

“Probably got separation anxiety from Vanessa,” I say, even though I don’t have much room to judge. Declan spent more time in my bed than out of it this past week. He gives me a look like he’s thinking the same thing, but my chance to say anything is cut off by Javi’s noisy, suitcase-laden entrance.

Declan’s roommate looks thrilled to see the both of us, which isn’t too shocking; Javi is thrilled by most things. Still, he shoves his suitcase towards his bed and comes over to greet us both with a clap to the shoulder. “Hey, guys. You both have a good break?”

“Fine,” Declan says. I make a face at him and mouth, just fine? He smirks at me and turns around to face his computer.

“Mine was alright, I guess,” I say. I sit up and pause, trying to blink back the rush of blood to my brain. “Spent most of it in bed. But I got that job—the dance gig at Rush. Thanks again for helping me set it up with Vanessa’s friend. He was a lot of help.”

“Yeah, man, no problem. Glad it worked out,” Javi says, beaming at me. He gestures to Declan. “Were you two planning to hang out tonight or something?”

Mostly I’d been planning to get my dick sucked, but that doesn’t appear to be an option any longer. I roll off the bed and grab the garment bag. “Nope, I just had to come to school to pick up my dress uniform for tomorrow. Figured I might as well stop by and say hi, since poor Campbell’s been alone here all weekend.”

“Bet he missed you terribly,” Javi agrees. He kicks his sneakers off and collapses on his bed. “Are both your parents coming tomorrow?”

I snort. “Neither of ‘em. They both came for Parents’ Day the first three years I was here, but I told them not to bother coming to this one. I see Dad almost every weekend, and I’m having dinner with Mom this Thursday. It’d be pointless for them to both take the day off work. But the school says I have to show up anyway for like, attendance purposes.”

“Man, that sucks. What do they expect you to do, hang in the library all day?” Javi says.

“I guess? Dunno. Maybe I’ll spend the whole day following the rest of the squad around, annoying you guys, charming your moms, bangin’ your dads—”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Javi groans. “Declan got laid on the last Parents’ Day. He won’t tell anybody the details—won’t tell us who it was or when he found time to get her alone, but apparently, he fucked somebody’s mom. Like, somebody in the squad. The last thing we need is to have you going in and fucking somebody’s dad.”

“Wasn’t your mom, not your business, Javi,” Declan says. He glances over his shoulder at us. “Anyway, don’t worry about what G’s going to do tomorrow. He can hang out with me all day.”

“Your grandparents aren’t coming out?” I say.

He shrugs. “Too expensive to fly, too time-consuming to drive. It’s not really worth it to come all the way out here just for Parents’ Day, especially since I think they want to come to West Point for the Acceptance Day Parade in August. At least, I think they do—last time I called, they kept going on about some surprise visit.”

“Do they realize it’s not a surprise if they tell you about it four months in advance?” Javi asks.

“The Campbells are a good-looking family, not a smart one,” I say, pulling my jacket back on and elbowing the door the rest of the way open. “I’ll see you two losers tomorrow morning, nice and late. So fucking glad we don’t have PT on Parents’ Day.”

Declan unfolds himself from his desk chair and shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers.

“I’ll walk you out. I need a cigarette, anyway,” he says. I don’t know if he believes it when he says it, but the hand he puts on the small of my back as we make our way down the stairs to the lobby suggests that he has other motivations. I’m not expecting much in the way of conversation, so it’s a little surprising when he asks, “Are you still fucking that guy?”

“Gonna need you to narrow that down a little, Dec. I’m fucking lots of guys,” I say, even though I’m… not. Not really. It hasn’t been a conscious decision, and if I happened to have an opportunity to sleep with a guy I was attracted to, I’d do it. But since the party at the Ward house right before break, Declan and I have been too wrapped up in each other to bother going after other people, the lone exception being the almost-handjob from--

“Trevor,” Declan says.

“You mean Travis?”

“Whatever.”

“You know his name, Dec, I know you do. And you’re the only one who thinks it’s funny to pretend you don’t.” I hipcheck the lobby door open and lead the way out across the parking lot to my car. Once we’re both leaning against it, each of us smoking a cigarette, I finally answer, “Nah, I’m not really fucking Travis anymore. He’s only interested in sleeping with me if it’s going to be something serious, and I’m only capable of making things serious between us if he’s going to be my boyfriend. And he’s not. Says he can’t be with me like that until I’ve been sober for a full year.”

Declan taps the ash off the end of his cigarette and says, “Dick.” I give him a reproachful look—I’ve told him not to say anything about Travis—but he just rolls his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. What does he expect you to do? Sit around with your thumb up your ass for the next however-many months just so he can pat himself on the back about how supportive he’s being?”

“It isn’t like that, Dec. It… makes sense, on a certain level. My shrink tells me the same thing—I shouldn’t be making any big changes or commitments—”

“Big changes,” he says, twisting around to pin me to the car with his hips. “Like… transferring schools? Moving to New York? Adopting a giant puppy with a stupid name? Getting a job in a nightclub? You’re making plenty of changes, and you’re doing fine with all of them. This Travis guy needs to give you some fucking credit.”

I don’t know how to explain that Travis does give me credit; he gives me more credit than anyone. Before I got sober, he was the one who told me that I could do it. He was the one who believed in me when I was at my lowest point, when I was completely ruined, when I was suicidal and on the floor. He has trusted me and loved me and saved me from the first moment we met, and every moment since.

Declan doesn’t get it. Declan will probably never get it.

“Travis is just trying to do the right thing for me,” I finally say.

“Yeah, well, sometimes you need someone who’d do the wrong thing for you, too. Just ask Barrington and his fucked up shoulder,” Declan says. I start to reply, but he shakes his head, flicks his cigarette across the lot, and says, “Kiss me.”

I obey gladly. It’s easier than talking—especially about Travis—and it’s good, it’s so good. Good enough that we waste several minutes making out right there against the side of my car. The parking lot isn’t secluded, and anyone who pulled in could easily spot us, but all that does is add some bite and urgency to the kiss. It’s been so fucking long since I felt breathless and reckless, but in a way that feels distinctly teenage.

“I have to go,” I remember to mumble at some point, but Declan pretends I haven’t spoken. His hands are stuffed into the back pockets of my jeans, and he seems to be two seconds away from suggesting we crawl into my car to take things further. “Dec, come on, I have to go. Got a boy and a puppy waiting on me.”

Against my lips, he says, “Natural Born Killers.” I let out a questioning hum, my lips buzzing against his just a little. He steps back and frowns up at the lamppost above us, like looking bored and annoyed will make his words seem more casual. “You said people are supposed to know their friends’ favorite movies. That’s mine. And I like… baseball. I’m on the school team.”

“Since when? You’ve never mentioned a single practice.”

“Since freshman year. Hour-long practices right after MLEP every night, before I go out on the obstacle course. And I know I’ve never mentioned it before, I didn’t realize I was supposed to be mentioning stupid shit like this.”

“Are you a catcher on the field, too? Or just in bed?” I ask. Making a dumb, cliche joke is easier than doing anything that might give away how fast my heart is beating. I can’t believe he’s actually bothering to tell me this shit; I can’t believe I made a list of stupid things he should tell me so that we could get closer, and he’s actually trying to do it right now.

He rolls his eyes back in my direction and says, “Shortstop. I have no idea where that fits into your ass-fucking metaphor, though. What was the other useless detail you wanted to know about me?”

“Do you have any siblings?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Don’t know, don’t care. My birth mom doesn’t have any other kids, but my bio-dad could’ve knocked up a dozen different women, for all I know. I haven’t heard from him in ten years, so I can’t be sure.”

“I don’t have any siblings,” I say, just in case he was wondering. He probably wasn’t.

“I kind of figured. This Ferrari of yours just screams ‘spoiled only-child.’”

I crowd closer and nip at his bottom lip. “Asshole. What’s your middle name?”

He presses me back against the side of my car and slips his hands under my jacket to hold me there as he kisses me. Truth be told, I get a little lost in it—lost enough that it takes me a second to even remember what we’re supposed to be talking about when he pulls back and says, “Nice try. Still not telling you.”

“Lancelot,” I say.

He shakes his head and turns back towards the path to take him to the dorms. “Drive safely.”

“Leroy.”

“Goodbye, Garen.”

223 days sober

“I need boot polish,” are the first words out of Sam’s mouth when he gets to the common room. “And a Xanax. And maybe a gun, so I can shoot myself in the fucking face.”

“Pick two. I’ve got all three in my room, but I’m not going to waste a perfectly good Xanax on you, if you’re just going to shoot yourself,” Declan says. He’s kicked back on the couch next to me, and one of his arms is slung across the back of it, barely a hair’s width away from my shoulders.

Sam shakes one of his boots and says, “The polish, obviously. My parents are going to be here in like, twenty minutes.”

Declan rolls his eyes and heaves himself to his feet. He makes it halfway down the hall before Sam calls after him, “Uh, and the other thing, too. The second one.”

If someone had made this request of me when I was at Patton the first time, I would have stolen Jamie’s boot polish (kit—he had an entire fucking kit) and hoarded all my Xanax for myself. But Declan returns a minute later with a tin of polish, a boot brush, and handful of little white bars of Xanax. He holds the pills out, and each of the guys—Sam, Steve, Javi, Taylor, and Charlie—snatches one up.

“I knew there was a reason we kept you around, despite the fact that you’re a huge douchebag,” Taylor says.

Declan rolls his eyes, but the pills all get swallowed before he has time to steal them back as punishment. He glances over at me and says, after a long moment, “I know you still smoke up. But can you still take pills?”

I glance down. There are three pills left on his palm. I want to lean down and scoop them all up with a curl of my tongue. I shake my head and look down at the seam of the couch cushion I’m on. “I’d better not.”

“Okay,” he says simply, and tucks the pills into his pocket without taking one for himself. He doesn’t look like he’s experiencing any of the Parents’ Day anxiety the other boys are having, anyway.

“I hate this,” Sam grumbles. He stops polishing long enough to glare at me and Declan. “You guys are fuckin’ lucky your parents don’t care about you enough to show up for things like this.”

“Yeah. I’m so glad my parents only ever thought of me as their drunken, teenage mistake,” Declan says, holding out his fist to me.

“I’m so glad my parents have finally realized I’m my own drunken, teenage mistake,” I say, knocking my knuckles against his. And then, I’ve suddenly got a lapful of faggot, because Ryan Marten has thrown himself on top of me. I shove at him, alarmed, and say, “What the fuck?”

“Please tell me that one of you assholes is holding,” Ryan says.

“Right now, I seem to be holding you,” I point out, “and I’d really rather not be, so, wanna get off?”

“I’ve already gotten off with you, Anderson, get over yourself,” he snaps, then turns his focus back to the rest of the squad. “My shitsnacking older brother just got his idiot ass shot in Afghanistan.”

The bored looks and not-too-subtle eyerolls all disappear at once. I say, much more soberly, “I’m sorry. Is he going to be—”

“He’s fine!” Ryan wails—and not an emotional sort of wail, either; it’s a self-pitying pout at maximum volume. “He takes one little bullet to the leg, and he gets a fucking medal for it. He’s at a hospital in Germany right now, and he’s coming home next week, and there’s going to be a parade. Literally—the mayor of my hometown is holding a parade to honor him. Now he’s a decorated war hero, I’m a limp-wristed disappointment who can’t wait to graduate so I can forget everything I know about rifles, and now I’m going to have to sit through nine hours of the ‘why can’t you be more like Kevin’ lecture. If I’m not high within the next five seconds, I will die.”

“Promise?” I grumble, and Ryan jabs an elbow into my ribcage, but Declan leans closer and says quietly, “What are you looking for?”

Ryan opens his mouth to reply, but he’s cut off by Sam, who hisses, “Dude, since when do we sell to people we don’t even like?”

“Rude,” Ryan huffs.

“Samuel, I’ve got enough drugs in my room to put down an entire hair-metal band and all their coked out groupies,” Declan sighs. “West Point administers drug-tests to all their cadets, and I’m supposed to report for basic training on July second. In order to have a clean system, I need to stop using drugs before graduation, but that doesn’t mean I want to waste them. If I try to polish them all off by myself, I’ll die. And since my current partner in crime over here—” he tips his head slightly in my direction, “—doesn’t use, I have to resort to spreading the wealth to the fucking amateurs.”

“I’m not an amateur,” Ryan sniffs.

“Yes, you are,” Declan says flatly. “Look, whatever you want, I probably have, but I’m not selling you anything in the middle of the common room. Let’s go.”

Ryan finally gets off my lap, but I barely have a second to enjoy the comfort before Declan hooks his middle finger around mine and drags me off the couch. I blink. “Wait, why do I have to come along?”

“I need an adult, Ryan scares me,” Declan says blandly, and I laugh, because the truth is, I don’t think Declan Campbell is scared of anything.

Declan. Declan Campbell. It’s still weird that I don’t know his middle name, so I let myself be towed down the hallway and say, “Does the L stand for Lucifer? Because that would make me unbelievably happy.”

“What makes you so sure it stands for anything? Maybe it’s just a letter. Like Ulysses S. Grant,” he says over his shoulder. He stops to unlock the door to his room, then gestures me and Ryan inside ahead of him. Once the door is closed and locked, he looks around at Ryan again. “What do you want?”

“Got any oxy?” Ryan asks. He looks way too cheerful about it; I wonder if he’s even done it before.

If Declan’s raised eyebrow is any indication, he’s similarly unimpressed. “Do you really think your parents won’t notice if you’re on narcotics all day?”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “As long as I’m technically conscious, they won’t really care. They’re looking for a captive audience, not a conversation.”

Declan raises one finger and turns it in a small circle. “Face the other side of the room.” At Ryan’s hesitation, his mouth goes tight with irritation. “Sorry, Marten, but I’m not actually a moron. I’ve got hundreds of dollars’ worth of contraband hidden around this room, and I’ve got no interest in letting you see where it’s kept. Face Javi’s side of the room, or get out of here.”

Ryan finally turns around. Half my attention is on making sure he stays facing that way, but half of me is curious to see how many of Declan’s hiding places are the same as mine. He opens the closet and takes his camera bag down from the top shelf. One of the side pockets is full of film canisters, which wouldn’t be at all strange, except for the fact that his camera is digital. He pops the top off one canister, taps a pill out onto the corner of his desk, then takes another two from a different container. Once he has returned the bag to the shelf in the closet, he wanders over to stand next to me.

“Have you taken oxy before?” he asks Ryan.

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Please. Don’t act like you’re the only Patton boy who knows how to party.”

“Cut the shit and answer the question. I need to know if you’ve got a tolerance for this before I decide what I’m giving you,” Declan says. Ryan glowers, which is answer enough. “Fine. I’ll give you a ten-mill and two fives. Take the ten at breakfast after you’ve started eating. If you don’t feel it within half an hour, take one of the fives. You can take the other five when the high starts to wear off, but this is all I can sell you in one day. I’m not giving more than twenty mills to someone who’s never done it before.”

“Ooh, I’ve done it plenty,” Ryan purrs. “Garen can tell you that much, can’t he?”

“Ew,” I say. Declan snorts.

Ryan holds out his hand for the pills. Declan holds out his empty hand for the money. “Thirty bucks.”

“Eric told me the standard price is a dollar per milligram,” Ryan says.

“Eric’s right, for once in his pathetic life. But you annoy me, so I’m selling to you at a fifty percent markup. Be grateful—he’d have to pay double the street price.” Declan waits, but not for long. He snaps his fingers. “Thirty, or get out. I’m not interested in haggling here.”

“Fine, fine,” Ryan grumbles. He fishes the bills out of his wallet and exchanges them for the pills. Declan looks pointedly towards the door, but before he goes, Ryan cocks an eyebrow and says, “Do you need an adult? Everybody knows that Garen has wanted to climb you like a tree since he got here at the start of the semester.”

I can’t even speak because I’m so offended by the idea of Ryan Marten thinking I’m too aggressive with my flirtation. Declan, on the other hand, is amused enough to clap Ryan on the shoulder as he shows him to the door. “I think I’ve got it under control. If anyone else in the squad needs chemical assistance to get through the day, tell them I’m willing to sell until breakfast. After that, they’re on their own.”

Ryan allows himself to be pushed through the door, and a moment later, I allow myself to be pushed up against it. Declan’s hands are trailing over my body, but not stopping anywhere with intent just yet. He says, “It’s kind of funny that everybody in this school can see how badly you want my dick.”

“It’s even funnier that they’re all too stupid to realize how much you love to take mine,” I retort.

We only manage a minute of kissing—not nearly enough time to get anywhere interesting—before there’s a knock at the door. It’s some random asshole who wants Vicodin, shortly followed by another random asshole who wants Adderall, then Xanax, then Percocet. For half an hour, I lounge around on Declan’s bed while he makes a quick two hundred dollars. Most of his treats are stashed away in the camera bag, but I see him dip into drawers and side pockets of gym bags once or twice. His new customers are coming in too frequently for us to bother trying to hook up when we’re alone, so I lose interest after a while and start playing games on my phone.

At least, I lose interest until Declan says, “G, go wait in the hall for a minute.”

“What?” I say, looking up from my game.

“I need you to go out into the hall,” he repeats.

That’s when I realize that the guy who’s buying is digging bills out of his wallet not so that he can pay, but so that he can roll them up to use as a straw. I don’t mean to, but I think I shiver. Declan looks at me like he knows, but I don’t want to be that guy who can’t handle being in the same room as a drug he’s not even doing. I roll over onto my stomach and return to my game. “I won’t watch, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s not a big deal.”

It’s a huge fucking deal, actually, but Declan obliges. I listen to him rummaging around on his desk, cutting a line or two for the guy, and finishing up the transaction. By the time the door opens and shuts again, my hands are close to shaking. Declan comes close and curls his hand over the back of my neck.

“I’m bored of playing dealer for the day,” he says. Lies, probably. “Let’s go outside for a bit.”

We both go out to the parking lot for a smoke or two, and by the time we get back, the dorm is mostly deserted. The lobby and common room are both empty, with all our classmates down at breakfast, meeting up with their parents. Declan is quick to take advantage of the solitude.

“Hope you had breakfast at home, because we’re skipping it,” he says, pinning me to the wall in the middle of the hallway, halfway to his dorm room. “Everybody else will be off with their families until after dinner. We’ve got my room to ourselves, and I haven’t gotten any since Friday—”

“Aww, babe,” I coo, putting as much mockery into my words as I can when he’s got his hands on me. “Have you been waiting for me? That’s so cute, I didn’t realize you wanted to be exclusive—”

“You’re an asshole,” he says. He sinks his teeth into my bottom lip and gives it a sharp tug as punishment. “And I wasn’t waiting for you. None of the Ward girls got back until last night, and then all my usual girls were too busy catching up with each other to have me over. It just happens to have worked out that you’re the last person I—”

“Shut the fuck up and take me to bed, you moron,” I interrupt.

At this point in my life, I sort of figured there wasn’t much left that could shock me. Turns out, I’m wrong as fuck, because I’m stunned when Declan grabs at my thighs and hauls me halfway up the wall. I have to scramble to tighten my legs around his waist, but I’ve got no idea what to do, or if I’m doing this right, because this doesn’t happen to me. I pick guys up all the time, fuck ‘em against walls and doors, bounce them on my dick in the middle of a room if they’re small enough and I feel like showing off—but I can’t remember the last guy who could take my weight like Declan’s doing now, his hands cupping my ass, my back against the wall, and not a single word about the fact that I’m over one-eighty.

I’ve only ever been with one guy who was stronger than me, and when he wanted to prove that to me, he sure as hell didn’t do it by picking me up to kiss me against walls.

My muscles go rigid at the thought, and I want to shove away from the wall, from Declan, I want to get room to breathe so that I can say, put me the fuck down right now, but I can’t find enough air for that. All I can manage is a strangled, “Bed.”

Declan nods and mutters something that might be a yeah against the mark he’s sucking onto the side of my neck; he backs off from the wall, but he doesn’t put me down, just turns us around and carries me a few steps further down the hall until we get to his room, then pins me to the door. I’ve got one arm thrown around his shoulders for support, but my free hand scrambles over the surface of the door, trying to feel around for the knob, because the faster I get this open, the faster I can be on the bed instead of up in the air. When I finally get the door open, Declan doesn’t do anything other than carry me in, push the door shut, and back me right up against that side of it.

“Bed,” I repeat, more insistently this time, trying to swallow my impending panic. Why can’t he just put me down? Why can’t I just ask him to put me down? It’s the world’s biggest relief when he finally swings me around and deposits me on his bed, crawling right on after me to cover my body with his as he kisses me again. This is better. This is good. Even with his weight on top of me, I don’t feel crushed, or like he’s trying to manhandle me. I’m comfortable like this, though I’m coming up with some sneaky plans to wrestle him around so that I can be on top.

He’s already got my uniform jacket mostly unbuttoned when a panicked voice says from the other side of the room, “Uh.”

Declan and I both look around so suddenly that our heads smack together, but I don’t feel anything other than nerves and dread, because Javi is standing right next to his desk, his eyes as wide as teacup saucers. He seems mostly to be staring at Declan’s face, but every few seconds, his gaze darts down to where Declan’s hips are still bracketed by my thighs. Because, like an absolute fucking idiot, Declan hasn’t gotten off of me. Instead, he says, in a scarily neutral tone, “Javi. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

Javi’s eyebrows travel impossibly higher. “I can see that.”

“Why aren’t you at breakfast with your family?” Declan asks. He still hasn’t gotten off me.

“I, um. I forgot my phone. And I wanted to come get it,” Javi says. He has given up on looking at our faces and is now fully focused on the way our hips are fitted together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so fucking baffled. “Vanessa might text me, you know?”

“Yes, she might,” Declan agrees. The dorm room is dead silent; I have to press my lips together to keep it that way. A minute passes, and I think I’m the only one who’s blinking. Declan tips his head towards Javi’s hand. “And I see that you have your phone now.” Javi looks at him, then down at the phone in his hand, then back at Declan. He nods. I glance back to Dec in time to see his eyes flicker expectantly towards the door. “Then I guess you should be heading back to breakfast now, shouldn’t you?”

“Yes?” Javi says uncertainly.

Declan gives him a bland, patronizing sort of smile, then returns his attention to the fat fucking hickey he obviously intends to leave at the join of my neck and shoulder. Javi hasn’t moved, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around how supernaturally weird and blase Declan is being about this, when the dorm room door opens again and Declan mutters, “Jesus fucking Christ,” a sentiment that is echoed much more loudly by Sam, who’s standing framed in the doorway and looking simultaneously stunned and delighted.

“What the fuck, Dec?” he says, half laughing. “Uh, you know you’re on a guy right now, right? Like, you know that Garen’s a dude?”

Declan shifts halfway off me, just enough that the other two can see as he yanks open my belt buckle and shoves his hand right down the front of my pants so that he can grab my stubbornly half-erect dick. I let out an embarrassing whine that I try to muffle against Declan’s shoulder, but it’s barely audible anyway over his annoyed pronouncement, “Wow, what do you know? Guess you’re right, Samuel.”

“What—did you run out of girls or something?” Sam asks.

“You’re a fucking moron,” Declan says flatly. “Now, in case you both haven’t noticed, I’m kind of busy here, so can you be on your way? Or is there something I can help you with?”

“Right now, you can mostly help me by taking your hand out of Garen’s pants,” Javi croaks, though he has dropped his phone back on the bed to plaster both hands over his eyes, so I don’t get why he’s complaining.

“Just leave, you assholes,” I say, but it comes out more breathless than I’d like. Declan’s hand is still on my dick, and he looks around to give me a curious, approving little stare, like he’s pleased to know that I’ve got no problem kicking our friends out of a room that isn’t even mine. At any rate, he leans in to mouth at that same spot on my neck again, despite the fact that no one else has moved. Why am I into a guy who’s so weird? Is my taste really this awful? Is this how guys feel about getting stuck with me and my exhibitionist ass most of the time?

But Sam just shakes his head, sobering up a little as he says, “Can’t. I actually came up here for—I mean, I was sent, I guess?” He doesn’t get a reply to that, probably because he hasn’t said much worth replying to. “Dude, your mom is here?”

“What the fuck, I’m seeing her for dinner on Thursday anyway,” I say. It doesn’t matter that we’re talking about my mom, or that my friends are still here, staring; I can’t help but dig my fingers into Declan’s shoulders when I feel the hard ball of his tongue ring against my jugular. “Tell her to go away, I’m getting laid right—”

“No, uh…” Sam clears his throat and tries again, wincing a little as he says in that same questioning voice, “Not you? Declan, your, uh… your mom is here?”

Declan freezes. One of my hands is between his shoulderblades, but his back isn’t moving, so I’m not sure he’s even breathing. And he sure as hell isn’t taking his teeth off me. His jaw is as locked down as the rest of his bones, and I can only take maybe twenty seconds of that stillness before I have to squirm and say, “Dec, teeth.”

His jaw unlocks, and he lifts his mouth away just enough to be heard when he says, “You’re mistaken.”

Sam makes a face. “There are really only so many ways to interpret, ‘Hi, I’m looking for my son, he’s a senior here and his name is Declan Campbell.’ And just for the record—why the fuck didn’t you ever mention that your mom is so hot?”

Declan is off the bed in a fucking second. I scramble up after him in case he needs to be restrained from taking a swing at Sam, but he goes to the closet instead. He grabs a few of the film canisters and starts tipping pills out onto the desk in twos and threes.

“Dec, you don’t have to talk to her, if you don’t want to,” I say, staring at the pills. “One of us can go down there and tell her to fuck off back to Kansas or Nebraska or wherever.”

“It’s fine. I just want to fortify myself—” Declan pops two of the ten-milligram Percocet into his mouth and swallows them down, “—and get this over with.” He returns the bag to the closet, scoops the rest of the pills up, and stashes them in the pocket of his uniform jacket. He hitches his chin at Sam. “Where is she?”

“Uh, down in the dining hall. She’s at the same table as Charlie and Taylor and their families.”

My body goes cold, right down to my bones. “Wait, their whole families? Like, the Walczyks—are they all there?”

Sam’s fear of Declan melts into something a lot closer to pity when he looks at me. It doesn’t make me feel any better, not even when he says, “His brother’s not there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Of course he’s not; there’s a restraining order. I don’t know if that makes his absence better or worse. I scrub my hands over my face and say, “Nah, just his fuckin’ parents.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure they looooove you,” Sam says.

The funny thing is, they actually used to. Back when Dave and I first got together and they met me over winter break, they thought I was the sweetest, cutest little thing they’d ever seen. We hadn’t even been dating for two months before they started making sly little ‘jokes’ about us getting married after college. Needless to say, their love for me probably disappeared around the time their son was arrested because of me.

“Hey,” Declan says, catching the front of my uniform jacket and backing me up against his desk. It’s so strange to have him touch me like this in front of our friends, with the door open, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Don’t worry about them. Charlie’s parents fucking adore me. I’ll keep them off your ass, if you can do something for me, too.”

I nod. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”

“When you meet my mom, I want—” he says, stopping right in the middle of his own sentence to kiss me deeply. Javi and Sam both awkwardly avert their eyes. Declan pulls away, knocks his forehead against mine, and finishes, “I want you to be on your worst behavior. Okay?”

My worst behavior. Acting like a fuck-up, making somebody’s family hate me, proving to the Walczyks that I’m exactly as horrible as they want to believe I am. I can do that. I nod, and Declan kisses me again before he heads for the door.

We don’t even make it to the dining hall. A woman is standing just off the path, smoking a cigarette and texting someone on her cell phone. She’s beautiful in that same strange, dirty-pure way that Declan is—Midwestern wholesomeness wrapped up in something sharp and poisonous as a snakebite. She has clear, freckled skin and bright, golden-brown eyes. Her strawberry-blond hair falls halfway down her back in a thick curtain of loose curls. She has a kind of pageant queen vibe to her, but the kind of pageant queen who loses her title when topless photos of her are leaked to the press. She’s wearing a white cardigan over her pale pink dress, but the Easter basket color scheme isn’t enough to hide that it’s a club dress: short, skintight, and showing way too much leg to really blend in at a Parents’ Day breakfast. And alright, I know Declan’s story, I know his mom was young when she had him, but I didn’t expect her to look this young. She looks like she’d be more likely to hang out with Stohler than with my mom.

She finally catches sight of the four of us on a random glance up from her cell phone, and her face splits into a smile. “Surprise!”

“Hi, Alicia,” Declan says. He doesn’t return her smile.

“Declan. God, look at you,” she laughs. She slips her phone back into her purse and holds her arms out. “What, I don’t get a hug?”

Declan seems very inclined to tell her that no, she doesn’t get a fucking hug, but it must not have been much of a question, because she gets her arms around him before he can say anything. He doesn’t move, and after a few seconds, she releases him and holds him at arm’s length. “Jesus Christ. You’ve gotten so tall.”

“Yeah. Weird how that tends to happen between the ages of like, ten and eighteen,” I say. I look over at Declan. “Wanna go in for breakfast?”

“No, wanna skip it,” he says. He turns his head towards Alicia, but his eyes are fixed several inches above her head. “I can give you a tour of the school, if you want. Show you around. And then you can, you know. Leave.”

He takes a step towards the path that will lead him further into the residential quad, but I snag his arm so he can’t go any further. “We don’t have to do a full, sit-down meal, but you still have to eat something.” I give him a look that I hope says you just stuffed a bunch of drugs in your mouth. He returns with a look that is probably meant to say eat me. “Oh, fuck off with that face, Campbell. Wait here for like, thirty seconds. I’ll go grab something for us to eat as we walk.”

The second I get inside the dining hall, my eyes go right to the table where Declan and I are supposed to be sitting. Charlie and his parents are seated so that their backs are turned to the door, and the idea of getting any closer and drawing their attention to me is making my stomach turn over. Instead, I head for the closest table, which happens to be full of freshmen and their families, all of whom blink up at me as I wedge my arm between a couple of them.

“Hello there, frosh parents. Don’t mind me, ’m just gonna steal some food so I don’t have to go to my own table,” I announce. The conversation only falters briefly before they let me get on with it. I build a quick sandwich out of a bagel, some scrambled eggs, and a few slices of bacon, then stuff a couple of bananas in my pockets—a dick joke I can’t wait to make once I’m back outside—and shove a muffin in my mouth. I grab the coffee carafe out of a freshman’s hand and say around the muffin, “You’re too young for coffee anyway.” The words are totally garbled, but whatever, nobody tries to stop me from leaving with it.

Outside, Declan is still refusing to look at Alicia, even as she continues to talk at him. I try to hand him the breakfast sandwich, and he glowers at it. He looks fully prepared to snatch it out of my hand and smash it on the ground. I set the coffee carafe on a nearby bench so that I can take the muffin out of my mouth and say, “Dude, eat it.”

“Eat me,” he says, and I smirk.

“Maybe later, if you ask me a bit more nicely. And if you fucking eat the sandwich I so generously made for you,” I say. He sighs like I’m the worst person alive, but he takes the sandwich anyway. I retrieve my coffee carafe and take a long sip right from the mouth of it.

My unexplained presence is apparently too much for Alicia, because she says, “And who are you?”

“I’m Garen,” I say. “I’m the nineteen-year-old cokehead go-go boy who’s been tryin’ to fuck your kid for the last three months.”

Alicia stares at me. I chug my coffee. Declan smiles serenely and says, “So, this is the residential quad. The dining hall is behind you, and the dorms are all back that way.” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder. “I live in Whitman Hall. Garen’s a day student, so he doesn’t live on campus. He has a house with his step-boyfriend and their dog.”

“Step-boyfriend?” Alicia echoes.

“Stepbrother-slash-ex-boyfriend,” I say. “It’s kind of a thing. Anyway, let’s go, I can run this tour better than your bastard-child can. Been here longer—I’m a super-senior.”

I lead the pair of them in a big, zig-zagging circuit of the campus, ignoring the usual landmarks in favor of pointing out different places I’ve had sex or gotten wasted.

There’s the dorm room where I lost my virginity to my best friend, there’s the gun room where I had a threesome with these two guys whose names I don’t remember, there’s the roof where I smoked pot for the first time, there’s the academic building where I blew a teacher one time, there’s the administration hall where the bathrooms have marble counters that are great for snorting lines.

Declan trails along next to me, too lazy and high to contribute much to the conversation. Whenever I say something particularly awful, he touches my arm like he’s trying to thank me. I don’t know why he bothers, though; the worse I get, the more entertained Alicia seems to be. She laughs at my stories, asks questions that I ignore. It’s really not going at all as planned.

I manage to waste the entire morning dragging her all over campus, insulting her, and talking over her attempts to make normal conversation, but when noon rolls around, we bump into Javi and his family, who are on their way to the dining hall for lunch.

“Oh, that’s great,” Alicia says. “I’m starving.”

“I thought you were going to go after you saw the campus,” Declan says flatly. He seems to be sobering up, which I know must be the exact opposite of what he wants.

Alicia shrugs and follows Javi’s mom into the dining hall. “I can stay for a little while longer.”

Once she has disappeared inside, Declan rubs a palm over his face and says, “Christ, I wish she wasn’t here.”

“Do you want me to tell her to leave?” I ask, but he shakes his head.

“No. I don’t want to tell her to leave, I just want her to not have come here in the first place. She stopped being my mom when I was seven years old, and she hasn’t even fucking spoken to me since I was ten. I don’t want her here, but I shouldn’t have to tell her to get out. She should fucking know she’s not welcome.”

But Alicia plainly has no idea. When we go inside, she has already made herself comfortable at the table with Javi’s family… and Charlie and his parents, of course. Any hope I’d had of Mr. and Mrs. Walczyk not noticing me is shot to hell when Javi says, “This is Garen. He’s new in our squad this semester. Garen, this is my dad, and my sisters, Gabi and Adriana.”

His sisters seem to be a couple years older than him, thankfully; I’d feel weird about being an asshole in front of kids, but as it is, I think I’m good. I say, “Nice to meet you all. Where’s Mrs. Santos?”

Javi shrugs. “She’s not a fan of Parents’ Day. She’ll be out here for graduation next month, but her accent’s pretty thick, and she doesn’t like to feel like she’s holding up the conversation.”

“Oh? Where’s she from?” I ask. I sneak a glance across the table at Charlie’s parents. They are both just flat-out staring at me.

“Tijuana,” Mr. Santos answers.

“No shit? Cool city, I bought an eight-ball there once,” I say, and next to me, Declan snorts. Javi’s dad doesn’t seem to have any idea how to reply to that, but Charlie’s parents and Declan’s mom don’t look nearly shocked enough for my liking, so I plow onward. “It’s a shame she’s not here, I would’ve liked a chance to meet her. My Spanish is really basic, though. It’s pretty much limited to, like, ‘hola, papi, yo quiero chupar tu polla.’”

One of Javi’s sisters chokes on a bite of her food, and the other bursts out laughing. Javi kicks me viciously under the table, then again even harder when I wink at his dad, who looks away, alarmed.

Declan taps the tines of his fork against the back of my hand. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll teach you later,” I say before tonguing the inside of my cheek a few times. I’m having fun, up until I hear Mr. Walczyk muttering something that might be for Christ’s sake across the table. And then I just sort of feel like shit.

“Declan, I have something for you. Your dad gave it to me,” Alicia says suddenly. She unclasps her purse and begins digging around inside of it, eventually surfacing with a garish orange envelope that she props up against the water pitcher. When Declan doesn’t react, she adds, “We don’t talk much. Only when he’s bored of his new bitch. Kelsey, Chelsea, whatever her name is. Sometimes I go to Colorado, and we hang out.”

I reach over and feel around in one of the inside pockets of Declan’s uniform jacket until I find a condom. I tuck it into Alicia’s purse and say in a stage-whisper, “Might want to remember that the next time you two are hanging out. I’m pretty sure your parents won’t be willing to adopt the next one, too.”

Declan shrugs. “Wait a couple years. Maybe I’ll get my head blown off in the Middle East, and they’ll get empty nest syndrome.”

“Declan, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Mrs. Walczyk says reproachfully. Declan mouths, sorry, but obviously doesn’t mean it. She clears her throat and politely asks Alicia, “What does Declan’s father do?”

“He’s in, ah… horticulture? Colorado’s a great place for, uh. Certain types of farming,” Alicia says hesitantly. We all wait, but she doesn’t offer anything further.

I’m the first one to get it, and the second I do, I blurt out, “Wait, Dec, your dad’s a fucking weed farmer?”

“If I’d known that, I might’ve tried a little harder not to get myself thrown in foster care,” Declan says. He flicks the corner of the envelope in front of him. “But I guess that would explain how he can suddenly afford all eighteen years of child support. Kind of expected a bigger envelope, though.”

“It isn’t child support, Declan,” Alicia snaps. “He just wanted to send you something for your birthday. Belated birthday, whatever.”

Declan turns the envelope over a few times, but it’s unmarked. He tears the flap back and pulls out a bright blue and green striped card. There’s a glittery white birthday cake in the center of it. He flicks the card open and blinks down at the message inside. He’s very still for a moment.

I bump his shoulder with mine. “Dec?”

His jaw is locked tight, so when he makes a noise of acknowledgment, all it comes out as is a hum. I crowd closer so that I can read over his shoulder. Happy 17th, Dylan. From: Bryan (Dad). Below that, there’s a crookedly taped, five-dollar gift card to Foot Locker.

“What can you buy at a sneaker store for only five dollars?” I ask.

“Pair of shoelaces, maybe,” Declan says.

“Great. You can use them to hang yourself the next time you’re reminded of the fact that your dad can’t remember your name or how old you are,” I say. He doesn’t say anything. I pluck the card from his hand and hold it above one of the tealights. The glitter begins to glow and crackle, peeling away under the touch of the flame. It takes a few seconds, but eventually, the corner of the card flares up.

“Set the flowers on fire,” Declan suggests. I move the burning card closer to the centerpiece, but Javi snatches the card out of my hand and dunks it in the water pitcher.

“Garen,” he warns, then sharper and quieter, “Declan.”

I look back over at Declan just in time to see him slip two little white pills into his mouth. He catches my eye and sticks his tongue out so I can see the perfect row of circles—two Percocet nestled on either side of the bright silver ball of his piercing. He swallows, flashes Taylor a bored smile, and says, innocent as anything, “Sorry. Family time gives me a headache, needed some medicine.”

I don’t know how many milligrams those pills were, but they must be strong, because within fifteen minutes, Declan is completely and obviously stoned. The conversation has carried on—Javi’s dad and Charlie’s parents seem perfectly eager to return to more appropriate lunch discussion, Alicia is texting someone again—but Declan has completely checked out of it. He isn’t even checking his phone or paying attention to me, anything that might be a suitable explanation for his silence; he’s just sitting there, blinking slowly at whoever is talking, a vacant half-smile on his face.

My hand rests half-curled on my own knee, and my chair is pushed so close to Declan’s that our thighs are flush against each other. It doesn’t take much to slip my hand onto his knee and squeeze. Declan turns to face me, his torso twisted enough to brace an elbow on the table. He props his head up on his hand and watches me eat for several minutes. I’m mostly operating under the assumption that he’s too high to remember to look away, but on the off-chance that he expects something in return, I take a sip of water and meet his eyes over the rim of the glass. He doesn’t look away. Instead, he licks his lips and mouths, touch me.

I am, I mouth back. He shakes his head slowly from side to side; I mimic the movement. He sighs and digs his phone out of his pocket. The screen is angled towards me so that I can see as he types into a blank message window, want you 2 touch my dick. get me off. get creativ & i bet we could find a way 2 get yr fingers in my ass.

With my right hand still settled on his knee, I lean in and cup my left around his ear so that no one else can hear me whisper, “You do remember that your mother is on your other side, right?”

He snorts and says, “And you do remember that I have issues when it comes to my parents, right?”

He really must, because when I give in and slowly work my hand up his thigh and under the napkin on his lap, I find him already hard. He inches his chair forward until his body is flush to the table edge so no one can see my hand on him. I drag his zipper down and pull his dick out; it seems like a better idea than just putting my hand in, because I don’t trust him to remember not to come all over his pants, and anyway, the napkin is covering everything up.

I’m still picking at the food on my plate, but I’m more focused on watching everyone at the table, Declan included. He’s still mostly facing me, and he’s doing a pretty good job of keeping his expression blank while I stroke him off, but every now and then, he seems to forget himself. His eyes will flutter shut, or his lips will part, and I’ll have to stop touching him until he can get himself under control. The closer he gets to coming, the more pissed off he seems when I stop. He’s staring at the table with his teeth clenched together and a flush rising in his cheeks when, across the table, Mrs. Walczyk says, “Are you alright, Declan?”

Declan gives a jerky nod, but doesn’t seem prepared to speak… possibly because he’s in the middle of coming all over my hand and trying not to let it show on his face.

I clear my throat so that everyone who is looking at Declan will look over at me instead. “He’s fine. He just hasn’t been feeling that well today, I guess. Maybe—”

“I was speaking to Declan, not you,” Mrs. Walczyk says coldly, and my mouth clicks shut. They’re the first words she’s said to me in years, and I had no idea she’d be able to make me feel so small this quickly. I guess she and her eldest have that in common. Shaking, I withdraw from Declan’s lap and carefully wipe off my hand on my own napkin under the table, leaving Declan to get himself sorted on his own. Neither of us really talks for the rest of the meal.

Alicia sticks around for most of the afternoon, too. There’s another round of the campus, this time with the other families. She asks to see the dorms, and Declan reluctantly allows her to poke around his room for a bit. I sprawl out on his bed, trying to look as slutty and comfortable there as I possibly can. When that doesn’t get a reaction, I climb up on Javi’s desk and disable the smoke alarm so that I can have a cigarette without leaving the room. Alicia doesn’t blink, but she does pluck the cigarette from my mouth and sneak a quick drag at one point.

As the drugs wear off, Declan gets closer and closer to the breaking point. When we’re back outside and have met up with Javi’s family again, Mr. Santos asks to be shown the senior obstacle course. Javi leads the way, but Declan doesn’t move. He just snaps.

“Why?” Declan asks, grabbing Alicia’s arm and pulling her to a stop before she can follow the others. “Why are you here?”

Alicia’s smile dims. “Declan, don’t ask me something like that. I’m your mom, and I feel like I’ve hardly spent any time with you. Now Gram tells me you got into West Point, and you’re going off to the Army. I was so proud when I heard that, I went right out and told all my friends how—”

“Oh, so that’s what this is,” I interrupt when it finally dawns on me. “That’s why you finally started giving a shit about your kid after all these years. You’re, what, thirty? Thirty-one? And you’re single, too, right?”

“So?” she says.

“Soooo, I’d bet all your friends are starting to settle down, aren’t they? They’re getting married, having kids, and they’re in the gross part of having kids—they’ve got these useless little babies that don’t do anything but cry and puke and eat and shit all over themselves. But you really lucked out, I guess, because hey, you’ve already got a kid, and the hard part’s all over!”

I grab Declan by the shoulders and drag him out so he’s standing between his mom and me. “Turned out pretty good, didn’t he?” I say, hooking my chin over his shoulder and gliding my hands down his arms from biceps to wrists. “Good enough for West Point, at least, and that’s what really matters, isn’t it? Having something to brag about to all your friends. When their kids are taking their first steps, you’ll be saying, ‘Declan’s doing so well at the Academy, top of his class.’ When your friends’ kids are a bunch of preteen brats, your boy will probably be U.S. Army Captain Declan L. Campbell. And it doesn’t fucking matter to you that you haven’t taken care of him since he was seven years old. You’ll take the credit anyway, ‘cause that’s what works best for you. But you know what would work best for Dec? For you to get out of his fucking face. He doesn’t need you here, and he sure as shit doesn’t want you here. So just leave. Okay?”

Alicia’s bottom lip is wobbling, and her golden eyes are shining wetly. She’s staring at Declan, not me, but when I glance sideways at him, he looks bored. Sober and tired and so fucking bored.

“Do you want me to leave, Declan?” Alicia asks.

He’s back to avoiding her eyes; I think he might be staring at the strap of her purse instead. “Yes. And this time, I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from showing up in seven years and trying to pretend you didn’t fucking bail when I was in second grade. I’d kind of like you to just stay gone.”

“I’m your mom, Declan,” Alicia whispers. One of the tears has finally tripped over the rim of her lashes and led a bead of mascara down to her chin. Declan doesn’t seem at all fazed, and I can’t let myself feel bad for Alicia if her own kid won’t. When her words and her waterworks don’t change anyone’s mind, she looks away and says, “Alright. I’ll go. But it’s for you, it’s because you want me to.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” I sneer. And she leaves. She moves slowly, obviously hoping that someone will have a change of heart and try to stop her, but no one does, and eventually, her only option is to fuck off, once and for all. Declan’s shoulders drop, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. I’m still mostly plastered up against his back, so I say very quietly into his ear, “You good, dude?”

“Just glad the bitch is gone,” he says.

“Tell me, Garen,” says a voice behind me, and oh god, I don’t have the energy to do this right now. “Do you make a habit of trying to tear families apart? First your own, then ours, now Declan’s. Does that make you feel good?”

I release my grip on Declan’s wrists and turn slowly on my heels. Mrs. Walczyk’s eyes—her sharp hazel eyes, so similar to her sons’—are roving over my face like she can’t decide which part she hates the most. I hope she notices the scar that Dave left on the side of my nose.

“Trust me, Mrs. Walczyk. Nothing that Dave did to me ever felt good,” I say. “Don’t try to blame me for the fallout of other people being assholes. It’s not my fault that Declan’s mom is a selfish cunt, and it’s not my fault your son turned out to be a violent psycho.”

“You pursued our son,” Mr. Walczyk snaps, edging forward to stand next to his wife. They’ve got their arms around each other, like they have to stand in solidarity against me and what an asshole I am. “You seduced him, you fought with him, you baited him, you tormented him.”

Something in me breaks, and I spit out, “Yeah, maybe I did all that. But even at my absolute worst, I never raped a fifteen-year-old boy in the backseat of a Lexus my daddy bought me, so I’m still doing better than one of your kids.”

Mrs. Walczyk goes white with shock, and Mr. Walczyk reels back like I’ve taken a swing at him. Just over his shoulder, I can see Charlie staring at me, his face blank. And behind Charlie, there’s Javi, and Javi’s dad, and Javi’s sisters, and Sam, and Sam’s family, and Taylor, and Taylor’s parents, and Taylor’s brother, and Steven, and—I’ve still got Declan standing right behind me. There are so many people, so many stunned faces, and every single one of them is probably picturing me crying in David’s car, with my wrists pinned and a dick stuffed in my ass. They’re seeing everything I never wanted anyone to see.

I can’t breathe, and I can’t be here anymore. I turn and walk, and I think somebody tries to grab my arm to stop me, but I shake whoever it is off and keep going. There are voices, maybe, some conversation and some arguments, but I can’t really hear any of it. I don’t think I can drive right now, not with my hands shaking this badly. The only place I can think to go right now is Declan’s room.

The instant I have cleared the doorway and realized where I am and what’s in here with me, everything is okay.

I go for the camera bag first. There are still a few pills in each of the little cannisters in the side pocket—Oxycontin, Ritalin, Percocet, Xanax, Valium, Adderall. I might go for that last one, if I can’t find what I’m really looking for, but I’m not ready to give up my search just yet. Once I’m sure there isn’t anything else in the bag, I shove it back onto the shelf and sit down in the desk chair. That’s where he was right before he surfaced with the coke, right? Somewhere around here.

I don’t remember hearing him open any drawers, but I go through them anyway, just in case. They’re neat and mostly empty, so I don’t have much to search through. There’s a tiny bag taped to the underside of the top drawer, only accessible through the drawer below it. My heart jumps when my hand brushes the plastic, and I scramble to pry it free from the tape. But it turns out to be H, not coke, and that’s the last fucking thing I want. I don’t need opiates to bring me down, not when I’m so fucking low already. I jam the bag back in place with a half-torn piece of tape and slam the drawer shut.

Think, Garen, think, fuck. I was here for it, I should be able to remember this. He was at the desk, and I didn’t hear him open the drawers, I didn’t hear him move the desk to get something he’d taped to the back, I just heard… what was it, a click? That’s it. A faint little click, plastic on plastic. His desk surface is almost bare. Just a few textbooks, his laptop, and an electric pencil sharpener on the back corner. I grab that and yank the front cover off. Tucked inside the compartment where the pencil shavings should collect, there’s a little baggie with about a gram of cocaine in it.

A choked, too-loud sound tears out of my throat, something kind of like a sob. I’ve never been so fucking relieved in my life. I open the bag and tap a little bit of the powder out onto the desk surface. Truthfully, I sort of just want to pour it all out and faceplant into it, but I need to control myself. That’s why I’m doing this, to get some fucking control. I reseal the baggie and grab an index card from the top drawer so that I can form the powder into a long, fat line.

The door opens, and I barely glance up. Thankfully, it’s Declan, not Javi, or Taylor, or anyone else who’s going to give me shit for this. The most he’ll do is snap at me for going through his stuff. I preempt the complaint by saying, “Hey. My wallet’s in my backpack, over by the bed. You can take however much you think is enough to cover this. I promise I wasn’t trying to steal it, or anything.”

Instead of reaching for my backpack, he reaches for my wrist and steers my hand away from the desk. “Don’t touch my coke.”

I roll my eyes and try to push him off, but his grip is too strong and my hand is shaking too much anyway. “Dude, I told you, I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay as much as you want. Please, I just need to do this, just once, and I don’t know who else in the squad might be holding right now. I promise I can pay for it, Dec, please just let me—”

“You know, the more you say ‘please,’ the more you sound like a desperate addict who’s doing everything in his power to throw himself back down the rabbit hole,” Declan interrupts, cocking his head to the side. “Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

Nothing about this is funny. A lump forms in my throat, and I have to look down at the desk, because if I look at Declan, I’m going to cry, and if I cry in front of Declan, he’s going to realize how fucking pathetic I am, and if he knows how pathetic I am, he’s going to start thinking about how someone bigger and stronger and better probably could’ve stopped Dave from doing what he did, and if someone else could have stopped Dave, then that means I should have stopped him, and I couldn’t, I didn’t, and I fucking hate myself for it every day.

The line of coke is still sitting on the desk. I stare at it, and it feels like it’s staring back.

“I need this, Declan,” I say hoarsely.

“I don’t care. You’re not getting it from me,” he says. “I told you this weeks ago, when we smoked on my birthday. I’m not going to be responsible for you ending up back in rehab.”

“I take full responsibility,” I say, and I’m not entirely sure, but I think I might be laughing? And that’s weird, I shouldn’t be laughing, but I don’t know how to handle this if I can’t make it into a joke. I say, “I’m an adult, okay? I know what I’m doing. I know what I want. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it. You do coke all the time, you know it’s not a—”

“Shut up,” he sighs, and he ducks down and swipes the coke right off the edge of the desk, into the palm of his hand, then brushes it off into the trash can under his desk.

Just like that, a perfectly excellent line is wasted. I stare at the trash can for a minute or two—as long as it takes for me to convince myself it would be totally fucked up to go after it. Finally, I look up at Declan and say, “You’re such an asshole,” and go for the rest of the bag.

“Don’t touch my coke,” he says again, snatching it away from me and stuffing it in his pocket, slapping my hand away when I reach for him now. “Christ, Anderson. No one’s ever—I’ve never heard someone say what you said back there—”

“Fuck you.”

“—and I don’t know exactly how I’m supposed to react to this, but I’m pretty damn sure it shouldn’t involve letting you go on a drug binge. Is there someone I should be calling?” he asks. When my only reply is to stare blankly back at him, he makes a very vague, frustrated sort of gesture. “Do you have a sponsor? Someone whose job it is to talk you off a ledge?”

“My friends do that,” I say hoarsely. “That’s—I don’t have a sponsor, I just have my friends.”

“Okay. I’ll… where’s your phone? You can call Goldwyn—”

“No. He’d drop everything to come take care of me, and I don’t want that.”

“You can call your roommate—”

“He’d do the same as Jamie, and I don’t want that.”

“What about the hot girl? The one who’s good at laser tag—”

“Stohler. She helped me out this past weekend with getting the dance job, I don’t want to bother her again.”

“Fine, the short guy who cheats at laser tag—”

“Ben. He’s got enough going on in his life right now. I told you, I don’t want to bother anyone.”

“Fucking Christ, Anderson, at least try to work with me on this. You can—” He breaks off and glances towards the door, then the window, like any way out of this room would be preferable to standing here and trying to talk about emotional trauma with me for the second time in one day. It would be funny, maybe, if it were under different circumstances. Or if he didn’t try again, in a tight, uncomfortable tone, “You can talk to me about it. If that’s what you need. If that’s a… thing that people do with their, uh—” He winces and waves a hand vaguely towards his own chest.

For a very strange second, I think he’s trying to say tits, but that doesn’t make sense, because I don’t have tits, and anyway, Declan says that word just fine, usually about three times a day. Then I realize that I think he’s trying to gesture towards his heart. “Feelings?” I say flatly. “Is that the word you’re looking for? Are you asking if I need to talk about my feelings?”

“Yes,” he says, very stiffly. He looked less uncomfortable and bewildered the first time I had my tongue in his ass.

I don’t know what my answer is, but I don’t get time to give it, anyway. The door bangs open, and there’s Charlie, thankfully followed by Javi and Taylor, not Mr. and Mrs. Walczyk. For a very long minute—maybe several—he and I just stare at each other.

“Charlie.” The name comes out of my mouth, but I’m not sure I intended to say it. I stand up. “I-I’m sorry, I never meant for you to find out about this, especially like—”

“I don’t believe you,” Charlie interrupts, and everything else sort of… slows down.

My whole body goes cold at once, like I’ve stepped outside my house in the middle of January without remembering to grab a coat. All I can do is shiver and stare. Slowly, stupidly, I say, “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not that fucking difficult to comprehend, Garen,” Charlie snaps, and for the first time since he came into the room, I realize that he is furious with me. “I don’t believe you, I don’t believe my brother would do something like that. That’s not who he is. He’s not a fucking rapist. You just said that to piss off my parents, and I get that you hate them, but you shouldn’t have said that. You could have lied about anything else, it didn’t have to be—”

“I wasn’t lying,” I say, my voice hitching up half an octave in my panic. “Charlie, I’m sorry if this doesn’t fit with the image you want to have of your brother, but it happened.”

“No, it didn’t.”

I’ve spent the last three and a half years imagining all the worst reactions people might have to finding out about this. My mom might make me press charges and go through a whole trial before the statute of limitations runs out. My dad might shoot Dave, or at least have him shot, call up somebody he met in the Corps when he was my age and just have Dave disappear. Travis might realize that I’m irreparably damaged and leave me for good. Everyone might look at me like I’m weak and dirty and worthless.

And somehow, in all this time, it has never occurred to me that someone might not believe me. That someone—someone I consider a friend—could look me right in the eyes, hear what happened, and think I’m making it up.

“Why the fuck would I lie about this?” I ask. “I don’t—I just told you all about the worst experience of my entire life—the scariest, most painful, most humiliating thing that has ever happened to me—worse than rehab, worse than getting kicked out of my house, worse than any of the times I ended up—any of the times your brother put me in the hospital. The worst thing I’ve ever been through, and you think I’m making it up? Why the fuck would I do that?”

“I don’t know! That’s just the kind of person you are!” Charlie snaps. “You do—everything you do is for attention, okay? Everybody knows that. All you care about is getting people to look at you, to notice you, a-and you know what else?”

“What,” I say flatly. My whole body is shaking harder than ever. “Come on, Charlie, what else?”

“Guys, don’t,” Taylor says quietly, trying to edge around Charlie to stand between us, but Charlie elbows him right back out of the way.

“He wouldn’t have had to rape you. You gave it up for him anyway, everybody knows that, everybody knows what a fucking slut you are. When you were still in the dorms, you and James Goldwyn lived in the room right above mine, and I could hear you bringing guys back every single night. Everybody knows you’re like, the easiest guy in PMA history, everybody knows that you’re desperate to get guys to sleep with you. And you know what? You—you fucking embarrass yourself chasing after them. There’s a no-contact order between you and David—”

“That’s to protect me, not him!” I say, kind of hysterically, and I can hear Taylor trying feebly to intervene again, but Charlie talks right over him.

“Your own dad had to kick your gross ass out of the house to stop you from crawling into your brother’s bed at night—”

“He’s not my brother,” I try to protest, but it’s so hard to get the words out, because I feel like I’m really about to burst into tears, and why is he saying this, why can’t he just believe me? “He was never my brother, that’s not fair, and he—”

“And Declan!” Charlie continues. Declan looks around at him, but it immediately becomes clear that Charlie isn’t actually talking to him, he’s talking about him, he’s saying, “I saw the fucking pictures, alright? I saw the texts you left on my phone after his birthday party.”

Oh, fuck. I want to bash my head against the wall, I want to punch Charlie in the mouth so he’ll shut up, I want to look at Declan, but when I do, his expression hasn’t changed at all. It’s like he hasn’t even heard, but I don’t know how he could miss the way Charlie’s still hissing, “What happened, Garen? Did he get completely wasted one night and let you suck his dick, and now you’re stalking him, too?”

“Wait, what?” Taylor says, his eyes so wide I can see the whites all the way around his irises. Apparently, good gossip is more important than keeping the peace, like he’s been trying to do for the past ten minutes. Javi grimaces at me, like he wants to help, but is pretty damn positive that talking about what he saw this morning in the dorm won’t make anyone happier.

Charlie’s focus on me doesn’t waver. “I saw the texts, I know what’s going on, I know that you keep begging him to hook up with you again. It’s sick, Garen. It’s so fucking disgusting, the shit you said in those texts, talking about how all you want is to have him fuck your throat and come in your mouth or whatever, it’s fucking disgusting. Was he still a minor when you did it? I bet he was, I bet you’re the real rapist, and you’re just—”

“You’re done talking,” Declan says. His voice is so cold that Charlie actually obeys.

I don’t know what to do, or where to look. The others don’t seem to know, either. The thing is, Charlie’s words are close to being the truth. I said those things, I did those things. And Declan was still just seventeen the first time I went down on him. He might have been over the age of consent, but he was still technically a minor in every other sense, and Charlie’s right, I was wrong, I was just like Dave. I feel sick to my stomach; I have to press a closed fist to my mouth to steady myself, because I’m genuinely terrified that I might be about to puke.

But Declan… Declan doesn’t look nervous. Or ill. Or anything, other than pissed.

“Charles,” he says, very slowly, “I am now going to generously pretend that my sex life is any of your business, and in return, I expect you to be equally generous in giving me your full, undivided, and totally silent attention. Nod your head if that sounds like a reasonable agreement to you.”

Charlie’s head jerks in one awkward, almost involuntary nod.

Declan takes one step forward, then another, until he’s right in front of Charlie’s face. I can tell that it’s taking a concentrated effort for Charlie not to step back, but he stays right where he’s supposed to, which is probably why Declan’s voice is barely more than a whisper when he says, “You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Dave is family, and you want to believe the best in him. I can appreciate that, on some level. But in order to preserve the image of your perfect brother, that means that Garen has to be the bad guy, doesn’t it? Garen has to be a liar, and a stalker, and a whore, and a… what else, Charlie? A predator, right? You think he’s the one who takes advantage of people?”

Declan actually laughs, taking a slight step back as he does so. When he speaks again, his voice is louder, sharper, more mocking. “Christ, the hoops you’re jumping through to turn this whole thing around are just unbelievable. You’ve seen the photographs of what Garen looked like after your brother put him in the hospital! You know Dave was arrested for beating him up, you know about the restraining order, you know your brother’s in anger management classes now so that G’s family doesn’t press charges, you know that Garen was only fifteen years old when your grown adult brother started going out with him. You’re not an idiot, Charlie, and deep down, you fucking know that Dave is a sick fuck who thought it was fun to go Deliverance on an underage boy. Sorry, buddy, but that’s a fact. Your brother is a rapist, and—”

“Then what the fuck is he?” Charlie snaps, flinging a hand out in my direction. The movement is sudden enough to make me flinch like a battered housewife. “There’s just as much of an age difference between you two as there is between him and Dave—”

“You said you were going to be silent,” Declan says flatly.

Part of me expects Charlie to hit him, or at least tell him to go fuck himself. After nearly four years of friendship, there’s no way that Declan can still scare him into silence with just the tone of his voice. But Charlie’s mouth clicks shut again, and Declan appears satisfied.

“Alright. Since you’re so eager to talk about what’s going on between me and Anderson, we’ll fucking talk about it. Assuming that’s fine with you,” he adds, turning to look at me.

I haven’t spoken a single word in maybe ten minutes, and my throat is too dry for me to manage anything now. Instead, I kick off my boots so that I can climb up onto Declan’s bed and settle my back right into the corner of the room. His pillow is right next to my thigh, so I shift it onto my lap and pick at a loose thread on the edge of the pillowcase.

Declan still seems to be waiting for some sort of response from me. I shrug. That must count as a yes, because he turns to face Charlie again and says, “Here are the facts of the matter.” He raises one finger into the air. “I’m the one who made the first move, not him. He isn’t stalking me, or taking advantage of me, or begging me for anything.” He raises a second finger. “The age issue bothered him, too, so we didn’t fuck until after I had turned eighteen. But in case you need me to help you with the math, he's only fourteen months older than me. The age gap between him and your brother is more than twice that. It's not the fucking same.” A third finger. “Out of all the times he and I have hooked up—and trust me, we have reached the point where I’ve stopped counting—I was drunk once. As a general rule, he doesn’t like to fool around when I’m fucked up. Consent is kind of a touchy subject with him. I’m sure you can figure out why.” A fourth. “He’s my friend, and he’s supposed to be your friend, too. He admitted the worst thing that happened to him, and you called it bullshit. You insulted him, and you aired out all his other secrets in front of his friends, and you wonder why I choose not to tell you assholes anything about me or my family or the shitty things that happened to me when I was growing up.” His hand falls back to his side. “Now, there are two options for how we can proceed. Option one: you look Garen in the eyes, you apologize to him, and you fucking mean it. Option two: you get the fuck out of my room, and you don’t talk to me until you’re prepared to be someone I can stand to be around again.”

Charlie’s eyes slip from Declan’s face to mine, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. He knows I’m not lying. He has to know, doesn’t he? I don’t understand how anyone could ever look Dave in the eyes and not know what kind of person he is. But Dave’s his brother, and I’m beginning to think that maybe that means more than I expected it to. He swallows and says, “Is there an option three?”

“I stab you in the neck with a ballpoint pen,” Declan says.

Probably against his better judgment, Taylor raises his eyebrows and says to me, “That’s a protective boyfriend you’ve got there.”

“They sound more like prison husbands than boyfriends,” Javi mutters.

And that right there, that word is the part that’s too much for me. I squeeze my eyes shut and snap my head back so it thunks loudly against the wall behind me. “He’s not my fucking boyfriend, you guys. He’s just this straight boy who sometimes gets bored of high-school girls and lets me suck him off in his truck. Can we stop talking about it? Can we stop talking about all of it? Can I just go home, please?”

“Yeah, of course,” Taylor reassures me, at the same time that Charlie says, “Not until you admit you lied about my brother,” and Declan announces to the room at large, “Garen’s sleeping here tonight.”

He says it the same way he said Garen’s coming to hookah with us tonight back in February, when he first decided I was worth talking to. He says it without asking me a question or waiting for my answer. If he’s daring someone to object, he isn’t disappointed.

“Uh, do I get to weigh in on this?” Javi says. His normally beaming face is contorted into a wince. “Sorry, I’m not—I mean, it’s fine that you guys are together, or whatever. It’s not my business who you sleep with—”

“Glad we’re clear on that,” Declan says.

“—but you make it my business when you bring it into the room where I sleep,” Javi says. He keeps sneaking sideways glances at me and Taylor, like he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t cross a line with the resident fags. When neither of us immediately jumps up to attack him, he goes on, “It’s nothing against G, I swear. We’re still totally cool, but… dude, I don’t think we’re at the level of ‘cool’ where I can handle hearing Dec’s balls slappin’ against G’s ass in the middle of the night.”

Taylor presses the heels of his hands to his temples, the way little kids do when they get brain freeze. “Oh, Christ. I’m never going to be able to un-think that thought.”

Declan’s steady gaze is focused on Javi’s face. “Vanessa has been sleeping here at least once a week for the last four years. Do you think I like getting woken up at three in the morning because you two can’t fuck without moaning that you love each other every eight seconds?”

“That’s different,” Javi protests. “I hang out with Garen every day. We’re in the same squad, we’re friends. The only reason you even hang out with Nessa is because she’s my girlfriend. Besides, she and I are a couple, and you and Garen aren’t. You’ve never had any of your other girls spend the night—”

“None of my girls ever needed to, and I never wanted them to. This is different. I want him here tonight, so he’s staying here. If you have an issue with that, you can sleep on the couch in the common room. I don’t care. Right now, I just want all three of you to get out and go bond with your families for the rest of the day. Leave us alone, alright?”

It’s technically a request, but it doesn’t leave much room for argument. Javi seems to have learned his lesson about what happens when he tries to protest Declan’s declarations, because he slinks back out into the hall with Taylor. Charlie shuffles to the door, but lingers there, his eyes periodically flickering back in my direction.

“I don’t ask a lot from you, Dec. We’ve been friends for four years, and I’ve never once tried to tell you what to do. I don’t want to start now. But it’s… this is about family. The things he’s saying are about my family, my brother, and I can’t be okay with that. A line has to be drawn at some point, and right now, Garen’s on one side of it, and David’s on the other. I’ve got to stick with my family, and I’m hoping you’ll realize that he’s—” Charlie gestures to me. He still looks angry, but there’s something almost apologetic in his eyes now. I can’t tell if the apology’s for me or for Declan. “He’s not worth it. Okay? He’s not—this whole thing right here, it’s about family versus some skank you’ve been banging. Just remember that, alright?”

“This might have escaped your attention, Charles, but I don’t have a family. And if I wanted one, I’d pick one that wasn’t trying to close ranks and protect a rapist from social disgrace.” Declan tips his head towards the door. “See yourself out.” He doesn’t flinch when the door slams behind Charlie.

If I was in a room with any of my other friends, I wouldn’t be alone on the bed anymore. Jamie would bury me under the blankets and curl up there with me until I felt like I could breathe again. Ben would wrap his skinny little arms around me in that horrible, wonderful, parental way of his. Travis would crawl onto the bed and wrangle me into his lap; he would kiss me and hold me and stay with me all night.

Declan gets his laptop from his desk, sits down on the bed with at least six inches of space between us, and says, “We could watch a movie.”

I don’t want to watch a movie. I don’t want to stay here tonight if Javi’s going to get pissed at me for it. I don’t want to fuck up Declan and Charlie’s friendship. I don’t want Charlie to think I’m lying. I don’t want the rest of the school to hear about what happened. I don’t want to go home alone. I don’t want any of this, and I don’t know what I want instead.

But it happens anyway. Declan’s movie folder is mostly full of straight porn and action movies with more violence than I can stomach right now. I end up pulling up The Land Before Time II on Netflix and daring Declan to object. He doesn’t. I don’t think he’s even watching, to be honest; every time I glance over at him, his brow is furrowed and his gaze seems more focused on the keyboard than the screen.

The Great Valley is an absolute clusterfuck of Sharpteeth and lava when Declan suddenly asks, “Was it the same one he has now?” I don’t want to pause the movie, but I don’t know what he’s talking about, so I make a curious sound. “Walczyk’s Lexus. Was the one he raped you in the same one that he has now?”

He must be able to feel how rigid I’ve gone next to him, but he doesn’t rush to take the question back. It’s surreal to hear anyone say that word and actually be talking about me. Knowing about me. I press the space bar, and the movie freezes on a close-up of Littlefoot. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Just answer it,” he says. “When I visited Charlie over the summer, his brother was driving an SC430—”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me, I don’t know shit about cars,” I interrupt.

“I can tell. Your Ferrari engine has been running loud for the last few weeks. You should change your oil,” Declan says. “I could do it for you, if you wanted.”

I play the movie and turn up the volume. He pushes my hand out of the way and pauses it again. “It’s a black, two-door convertible. It has—”

“Yes. Okay? Yes, that’s the same car,” I snap. “He had it when I met him, and about a month into our relationship, he took me out for dinner, and afterward, we parked that car somewhere so we could make out in the backseat. I didn’t want it to go any further than that, and I sure as hell didn’t want to get fucked, but no matter how many times I said no, he wouldn’t stop. He just held me down and fucked me, and I cried, and it hurt, and after? After, he told me that he loved me. And I was stupid enough to think he meant it. So, I figured that he just got carried away, or things just got out of control, and it wouldn’t be like that the next time.”

“Was it?” Declan asks.

I close my eyes and tip my head back against the wall. “No, it was worse after that. Instead of doing it after dates, he’d… we’d get into these fights, I guess. We’d be arguing about something, and he’d shove me around, and maybe he’d hit me a little, and then he’d try to start something. I’d try to get away, but he just… he said sex was how we could fix things between us. Said it was the only thing I was really good for, anyway, the only thing I could offer to make up for what a bad boyfriend I was. So, he’d hit me, and he’d fuck me. Said we were just too passionate to do things any other way. Sometimes, he’d take me out and get me really fucked up—I’m talking about like, so wasted that he’d have to carry me to his room. So high, sometimes I didn’t even feel it—I didn’t even realize he was fucking me until halfway through. That’s mostly how it was last year, when we got back together for a month.” It’s not funny, but I find myself laughing out, “Christ, I don’t think I was sober for any of it. I’d go to his place and get blackout drunk because I could barely stand to let him touch me otherwise. I wasn’t even conscious sometimes; I’d wake up, or come out of it, or whatever, and he’d be on top of me. In me. I wouldn’t have any idea where I was, and I’d still be kind of fucked up, so I couldn’t get away from him. He’d just hold me down again. Once I’d slept it off, he’d drive me home in, you know. That same fucking car.”

“I don’t understand how you could ever deal with being in it after the first time,” Declan says quietly.

My eyes flutter open, and I let my head roll to the side so I can face him. “I found plenty of ways to deal with it.” I press my thumb to the side of my nose and inhale sharply like I’m doing a bump of coke. Declan doesn’t laugh, but I do. “It doesn’t matter. I wish the stupid thing didn’t even exist anymore, but what am I gonna do about it? Fuck off to New Haven and light it on fire? That would be kind of fucked up. Cathartic as hell to have it burned off the face of the earth, probably, but really fucked up.”

“Okay,” is all Declan comes back with. It isn’t much, but it’s understandable; I wouldn’t know what to say to me, either. I’m just glad he hasn’t kicked me out yet.

The rest of the night passes in the same way. Declan and I watch a bunch of shitty cartoon films—all my choosing—on his laptop. We skip dinner with everyone and their families, order pizza instead and have it delivered to the dorm. By the time Javi returns around eleven o’clock, I’ve changed into my PT sweats and a t-shirt and am curled up under the blankets in Declan’s bed.

It’s an awkward moment as is, but it gets even more uncomfortable when Declan strips down to just his boxers and joins me. The dorm beds are extra-long twins, so it takes some effort to fit two fully grown men into one of them. He’s making a big show of it, too. I can’t tell if he’s covering up his own nerves with bravado, or if he’s just trying to piss off Javi, but he throws his own I will leave if you try to snuggle with me rule right out the window and pulls me in close. I end up on my side, curled against him with my head tucked against his collarbone and my hand on his chest. One of his arms is curled protectively around my shoulders, and the other is sort of wrapped around my middle in a half-hug. His fingers are tracing tiny circles over the back of my t-shirt, and his chin is nestled on top of my head.

It’s a position I’ve slept in so many other times with so many other boys. None of them have ever been as rigid and obviously uncomfortable as Declan is right now. All of his muscles are drawn up tight, and the rise and fall of his chest is far too controlled to be entirely natural. I have no idea why he has wrestled us into a pose that’s designed to make us look like a couple; if I’d asked to sleep like this when he stayed at my house over break, he would’ve laughed in my face and walked out. He must look a lot more relaxed than he feels, because on his way to the light switch, Javi gives us a bemused, complicated sort of look, like he doesn’t know whether to be sick or be happy for us. He compromises by locking the door, flipping the lights off, and retreating to his bed.

“Just… please don’t have sex with each other while I’m in the room, okay?” he says. “Seriously, please, I don’t wanna hear that shit.”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up about it, I’m going to record the sound of me gagging on his dick and set it as your ringtone,” I warn. Javi wails and shoves his head under his pillow. I tilt my head back to look up at Declan. “I can sleep on the floor, if you want. Or I can drive myself home.”

“No. I need you to stay here, but I need you to be quiet until Javi goes to sleep. Won’t be long—he’s usually out within five minutes, stays pretty much dead until morning,” he whispers back. Something about his tone sets me on edge. He’s not even close to sleep, and he seems like he wants to keep it that way. For now, he’s only waiting.

Sure enough, only a few minutes go by before Javi’s snoring. Well, roaring, really, the motherfucker sounds like a goddamn bear. But the second it’s clear that he’s out, Declan squirms out from under me and rolls sideways so that he can face me.

“I need to go out for a little while,” he says, his voice barely more than a breath. “If Javi wakes up while I’m gone, tell him I’m in the bathroom, or I went out for a smoke or something. Okay?”

My stomach lurches.

“What? No, that’s not okay,” I hiss. “Why did you want me to stay over if you were just going to bail on me in the middle of the night?”

He doesn’t exactly cover my mouth, but he does press the pad of his thumb to my lips, a pretty clear request for me to shut up. “Stop it. I’m not bailing on you. There’s just something I need to go take care of, and I need you to work with me on this. I need you to be here. You understand? If anyone wakes up in the middle of the night, you need to be sleeping here. If anyone asks, we went to bed, and we slept through the night. Okay?”

“Why?” I ask, and I force myself to stop right there, because if I keep talking, I know that it’s going to turn into why won’t you stay with me? And I can’t have that fight with another guy. I’m so, so tired of trying to figure out why guys won’t stay with me, and I can’t have this shit with Declan, too. Instead of waiting for him to reply, I shift back until I’m against the wall, with a few inches between us. “Fine. Whatever, just go do whatever it is you think you have to do.”

Declan slips out of bed, and I pretend not to pay attention as he gets dressed quickly and quietly. He sneaks out of the room, and that’s it. He’s gone. I peek across the room, but Javi is still completely asleep, and I don’t feel any less alone.

I readjust so that I can watch the numbers ticking away on the clock on Declan’s nightstand. It’s twenty after eleven. If I were home, I probably wouldn’t even be in bed yet. I’d be down in the living room with Travis and Omelette. The dog would be curled up on the couch with me, and Travis would be doing his homework, asking me a bunch of questions about today. In that sense, I’m glad I’m not there; I want nothing more than to shed my skin and get rid of everything that has happened today.

In the end, the closest I can get is to just let myself fall into a shaky, restless sleep.

I wake up to the sound of the door closing. The glow of the numbers on the clock—two forty-eight—are bright enough for me to see who it is, but I’m still asleep enough to murmur, “Declan?”

He’s holding his boots and his jacket instead of wearing them, but that’s as far as his concern for keeping quiet goes. He drops everything on his desk chair and strips himself out of his jeans, kicking them towards the nightstand and crawling back into the bed with me. Or, on top of me, I guess; he’s kind of crushing me with his weight, but it’s worth it for the way he cups my face between his palms and kisses me. His hands are cold and shaking, and he smells sort of weird, like cigarettes and smoke and fuel, like he abandoned me in bed to go hang out at a gas station for three hours.

I nudge him back out of the kiss with every intention of asking where he’s been, but before I can get the question out, he whispers, “Luca.”

“What?” I whisper back.

He bumps his nose against my jaw so I’ll tip my head back and give him access to my neck. He kisses his way down my throat, flicks his tongue over my collarbone, and comes back up to say into my ear, “My middle name is Luca. No idea where the fuck Alicia got it from, or why she liked it so much, but that’s it, that’s what the ‘L’ stands for.” He rolls us both onto our sides and presses a hand to the small of my back, urging me closer until our bodies are flush against each other. “What other kind of stupid things have you been wondering about? My favorite color is white, and I was thirteen the first time I fucked a girl, and I like to dip my fries in Ranch dressing.”

“That’s really gross. Both those things, actually. The Ranch dressing and the fact that you have sex with girls,” I whisper, then immediately hate myself for saying anything that might break this sudden spell of honesty.

But Declan just laughs, breathless and a little too loud. I hush him, and we both glance over at Javi, but he’s still dead asleep. Dec slips his hand up the back of my shirt and goes on, “I had a hamster when I was five, but it died after a month, even though I made sure I fed it every single day. I like Pepsi better than Coke. One time, I got so high I forgot what fingers were called, so I called them my ‘upper toes,’ and Steven still tries to find a way to make fun of me for it at least twice a semester. The other guys in the squad sometimes call me the ‘baby of the group’ because I’m the youngest, and it pisses me the fuck off.” His free hand returns to my face and guides me in so that his mouth is near my ear again, making his words seem like a secret even though he has been whispering since he returned to the room. “I like you more than anyone else I’ve ever fucked.”

I shiver and bury a hand in his hair to anchor us both in place. I don’t want to have to look him in the eyes as I say, “Do you really mean that? Even after what I said today, after what I told you about Charlie’s brother?”

Declan tries to pull back to look at me, but I won’t let him move. Eventually, he gives in, just buries his face against my neck and says, “Yeah. Mean it.”

“Where did you go?” I ask. “You were gone for like, three and a half hours. I don’t understand what’s going—”

“I have something to show you,” he says, squirming in place. “Fucking let go of me, I did something for you, and I want to show you.”

I release him, and he leans over the edge of the bed to fish around in the pockets of his discarded jeans. He eventually surfaces with his phone and unlocks the screen, momentarily blinding us both with the brightness of it.

“Jesus, Dec,” I whine, trying to hide my face in the pillow, but he shakes my shoulder.

“No, you have to look. I’ve got to get rid of this as soon as you see it, but first, you have to look.”

He’s doing everything in his power to shove the phone down my throat, so I finally take it from him and squint at the screen. At first, all I see is just… glow. A bright, orange-white glow. “What am I looking at?” I ask. Declan taps the screen, and the image starts—okay, so apparently it’s a video, not a picture. The sound is turned down low, but I can hear a faint rushing noise, pierced with periodic pops and crackles. The glow is shifting all over, flickering and dancing over a mostly black background, just like… flames. My heart stops.

“Dec,” I whisper, “Dec, you crazy son of a bitch, is that—”

“The Lexus, yeah. You said you wanted it gone, and now it’s gone. You said it would be cathartic to have it burned off the face of the earth,” he says. “Is this what you wanted?”

It isn’t. I don’t know what I wanted, but I don’t think this is it. This might be better. I nod, and Declan grins, kisses me, reaches up to delete the video. I lean out of reach and say, “Wait. Let me… can I watch it again, before you get rid of it? I wanna watch it again.”

“As many times as you want,” he says.

We restart the video, and I stare, transfixed. It’s only thirty seconds of footage, but it’s long enough for me to see that he busted out the rear windshield so that he could start the fire in the backseat, right there, right where it happened. The flames eat through the leather of the seats, growing larger and larger, spreading to the rest of the car until I’m sure there’s no hope of it being salvaged. The video ends, and I restart it. Declan kisses me. The car burns, and so do I.

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