Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2021 11:08:23 -0600 From: Roman Jeffries Subject: Miles from Home: Chapter 16 Thank you, readers, for continuing with my story! I always appreciate hearing your impressions and comments, and you can send them my way at romanjwrites@gmail.com If you would like to be added to the notifications when a new chapter is posted, please just drop me a note there. ***************************** August Sophomore Summer ******** "Your move, Fancy." The sound of Matteo's voice pierced through my spiraling thoughts and abruptly startled me back to the present. But the only response I could muster for him right now still wasn't much: "Huh?" I shook my head and glanced over at Matteo. We were seated side by side on the couch in the living room of the small house where he still lived with his mom and younger sisters. Matteo was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, laughing at my absent-mindedness while his fingers punched away at the buttons on his xbox controller. "Dude, get your head in the game," he smirked. "I know I'm gonna win, but it's usually way harder to kick your ass at least." "Whatever," I replied with a half-hearted attempt at a laugh. I couldn't summon the levity for our usual trash talk right now. "Game's not over yet." I fixed my eyes back up on the TV screen in front of us, but my focus only lasted for another minute before my mind wandered off and dissolved the video game into a mere blur. Even though I felt like I was being an ass to Matteo by being so distracted today, I just couldn't keep my head here in the moment. With me heading back to school in only two days now, I knew this would be the last time we'd get to hang out this summer, and I felt guilty that my energy was so down. I owed Matteo better than this. We'd become real friends over the course of working together these last few months. Actually being attentive right now was the bare minimum of what I should be doing to show my appreciation for that. The heaviness I'd always felt at times like this when I had to say goodbye to a friend and move on would've been more than enough to drag down my mood all on its own. But even as real as that feeling was with Matteo today, it wasn't my only reason for being so down. No, I was completely preoccupied with the much bigger reason why I felt like shit today: Pete doesn't love me. I'd been repeating those words to myself over and over, grinding them deep into my brain ever since our evening together on the mountain last weekend. Pete doesn't love me. Fuck, he'd all but said it himself. Pete doesn't love me. And because he doesn't love me, I never told Pete any of the things I'd meant to while he was here. I didn't tell Pete that I was in love with him. I didn't tell Pete that Tom knew. I didn't tell Pete that I'd wanted to come out to my parents about us. I didn't do any of it. And then I certainly didn't tell Pete how much what he said hurt me. Because what would be the fucking point when we 'weren't anything serious?' Because Pete doesn't love me. "Dude!" Matteo called out again, trying to snap my attention back to the game on the screen. I straightened up in my seat a little when he nudged his shoulder into mine too, Matteo's bare skin feeling sticky and hot against my own in that brief moment of contact between us. The air inside his house was stuffy as we sweated through the middle of a late-summer heat wave without AC. We both shucked off our shirts upon arriving here after we'd finished one last workout together at the campus gym this afternoon. I looked over and noticed a bead of sweat was sliding down that valley between the solid muscles of Matteo's pecs right now. "Sorry," I mumbled, my fingers fumbling with my controller as I tried to force myself to focus. "Got distracted." "No shit," Matteo laughed, looking over at me quickly out of the corner of his eye again. But this game was doomed. It wasn't going to be much of a contest between us if I couldn't get control of my thoughts today. There really wasn't much hope of that happening, though. I hadn't been able to keep a grip on myself ever since that night with Pete. No matter what I tried to distract myself with, like lifting with Matteo this afternoon and then hanging out with him afterwards to put off saying goodbye to each other just a bit longer, nothing had ever worked this week to take my mind off of Pete and how he only thought of us as friends with benefits. Because Pete doesn't fucking love me. And that was all I could think about. Any illusion I'd had that I could keep a hold of myself had been shattered by my constantly racing thoughts and the pit in my stomach I hadn't been able to shake ever since the moment I'd heard Pete tell me that we were `no big deal.' I knew I was unraveling. But I felt powerless to stop it. And it didn't fucking help matters that I knew it was obvious to my family- and especially to Tom- that I'd been upset about something all week. But as much as I didn't know how to control how I was feeling, I had even less of a clue about how to talk about any of this. No, fuck that. It was all too embarrassing. I loved Pete. But Pete doesn't love me. With my parents, it was easy enough to blame my moodiness this week on not wanting summer to end and on dreading leaving home to go back to school. That seemed logical and perfectly normal for me. But with Tom? Shit, I'd just been flat out avoiding Tom and his questions ever since Pete's visit, even though I knew that was a total dick move. I was sure I was being a lousy brother, and I hated myself for it. Damn it, this was also Tom's last week at home before leaving for his first semester of college in California, but I'd dodged him at every chance I had. I just couldn't face him right now. I was too haunted by the look of shock and then pity on Tom's face when I'd pulled him aside after bringing Pete home and asked him to keep quiet about the fact that he knew about us. I hadn't known what else to do. It was all just too fucking humiliating to even think about admitting it out loud to my brother: Pete doesn't love me. And now I was losing it because this had never happened to me before. I'd never loved anyone who didn't love me back. I'd always been too careful for that. And no matter how much I scolded myself that this shit happened to people all the time, that now it was finally my turn, that I should just suck it up and fucking deal with it and be happy that Pete was even my friend at all and be grateful that he still wanted me... none of that reasoning helped. Because Pete doesn't love me. And it hurt like fuck. I felt like such a fool. Ever since Pete's visit, my stomach had twisted into tighter and tighter knots while I replayed every detail of those days he was here and obsessed about how I could've missed the signs that this is how Pete really felt about us. Fuck, I'd looked forward to Pete being here all summer and to how great it would be to see him again, thinking all along that he felt the same way and that he loved me too. And, on the surface, everything was great during the time he was here. Pete was just as awesome and funny and smart and beautiful as he'd always been. And Pete seemed to love New Mexico and my family as much as I did. He'd charmed the hell out of both of my parents. He was an instant hit with Matteo and all the other friends I'd made here. We went to White Sands with Tom. We sucked each other off a few more times when we'd managed to be alone together. And that was hot as fuck and only further affirmed that my dick was absolutely, completely all in on how fucking good it felt to do that. Being around Pete again just reminded me, concretely, why I was so fucking in love with him in the first place. But... But Pete doesn't love me. And this- all of it- was `no big deal' to him because Pete couldn't take me seriously. He didn't fucking want me like that. And, damn it, when I really thought about how I'd behaved, could I even blame him? No. No, I'd freaked out on Pete at every step of the way. I'd hesitated at each and every juncture that took things further between us, probably leaving him to wonder and to second-guess if I even wanted any of it. Then I'd vowed to myself that I wouldn't ever talk to Pete about how I really felt about what we were doing. And then I'd spent the summer hooking up with someone else. Fuck, any one of those things was bad enough to probably make Pete doubt if he could trust his heart with me- if he'd ever even wanted to in the first place. God, I was such a fucking idiot. Maybe, in some alternate universe where I'd treated Pete better, where I'd been less halting and hesitant, where I'd been more honest with him, where I'd been more clear about how important he was to me, Pete could've loved me. Maybe Pete could've taken us more seriously if I'd actually behaved like I was truly in this with him. But I hadn't. I'd balked and retreated and frozen and shut down too many times for that. So when I thought from Pete's perspective, it only made sense that he couldn't see us as anything more than just friends- and now just friends with benefits. Because, really, I was a fucking lousy bet for Pete. If I were Pete, I wouldn't dare let myself love someone who acted the way I had. And as Pete's friend, I would've warned him against getting involved with anyone else who was pulling even half the shit I had on him. I'd proven that I was too much of a risk for Pete to put his faith in me. Even if maybe he could've gotten there with me, Pete was only doing the smart thing. Pete doesn't love me. But if I put myself in Pete's shoes, I got it. "Max!" Matteo interjected, calling me out and elbowing my side. Once again, I'd missed too many beats in our game as it was drawing to a close. Startled, I shook my head and tried to refocus on the present. But, just like every other time today, it only worked for so long. Because Pete doesn't love me. And I really didn't know what the fuck I should do now. The thing I'd looked forward to most about going back to school was completely changed. So instead of all the excitement I'd felt about being back together with Pete again, now I was only dreading being back at college. And I was drowning in too many questions I'd never expected I'd have to worry about for the year ahead: Could I handle just being friends with benefits with Pete? Should I keep hooking up with him? Would it hurt more for me to do that than to not? Could I fool around with Pete without fooling myself that this meant more to him than it actually did? Could I even stop myself from hooking up with Pete if I decided I wanted to when it felt so fucking good and when I wanted him as badly as I did? And should I try to switch dorms to avoid the temptation, and the torture, of having Pete right there day and night as my roommate, knowing now that I loved him but he didn't love me? Holy shit. Pete doesn't love me. And now everything about the future felt completely different. And completely fucked up. I shook my head now, physically trying to clear my thoughts because I was abruptly self-conscious once again that I was wallowing and probably being rude to Matteo. I looked up because it had also suddenly registered that the room had gone quiet. Our game was over, and the TV screen in front of us was sitting motionless on the home screen. Matteo must've noticed me snapping back to the present because I felt him nudge my leg with his. The skin of Matteo's bare knee felt hot to the touch as he pressed it a little harder against mine. And that's when I realized I'd been completely unaware that Matteo's knee had been right there, touching me, already. And he wasn't pulling it away. I looked over at Matteo. He was looking at me, his face studying mine intently. Our eyes locked. Matteo's deep brown ones held mine in a silent staring contest that finally dragged all of my focus back here and to this moment. The air in the room felt thick and heavy all of a sudden, and I could feel sweat beading up on my brow now. But Matteo's knee still didn't move away. This was... what the fuck?... This was fucking weird. Why was Matteo looking at me like that? I was here now, but I was speechless as the seconds silently stretched out between us. Matteo finally laughed out loud a little. It wasn't like his usual boisterous laugh that'd become so familiar this summer, though. This one sounded nervous, and Matteo's eyes broke our staring contest to drop down somewhere lower than my own. I was painfully self-conscious now that I'd probably been acting weird as fuck all afternoon. I knew this was the moment I'd been delaying, the moment when we had to say goodbye to each other. Matteo had become a good friend, and my moodiness and distraction was spoiling everything and making it all worse than it had to be. Even with as much practice as I'd had over the years, I'd never been good at this. And even though my focus was now back here in the present, that still didn't mean I knew what to say to Matteo now to break through all the awkwardness I felt. And, still, neither one of us was saying a word. Matteo scooted his leg out to straighten up on the couch. The motion made even more of his leg brush up against mine, the hairs on his calf tickling against my own. And, still, Matteo didn't move it away. "Oops," he said, finally breaking the silence. His lips curved up in a slight smile. It was the kind of lopsided one he had that brought out a hint of a dimple in his stubbled cheek. "Sorry, man." "No worries," I replied, trying to smile back as I groped for the words to say goodbye to Matteo. Nothing came to me, though. Knowing this moment was coming today didn't mean I was ready or prepared for it. I felt myself starting to sweat a little more. I could feel Matteo's leg on mine still. My eyes dropped down and noticed for the first time just how close we were sitting next to each other on the couch. We both were rooted in our seats, completely still in a way that was starting to feel unnerving. Matteo's skin really did feel hot to the touch too, sticking against mine. I didn't look up at his face because I couldn't stop myself from staring down at that contact between us as it dawned on me even more how strange this all was. Holy shit. What the fuck was happening here?? And how long had I been oblivious to it? Suddenly, my mind was back to racing again. But this time, it wasn't about Pete. No, this time my mind was running back through the months I'd known Matteo now. I thought about how he'd been so surprisingly cool with me hooking up with his ex. I thought about how much time we'd spent together outside of work. I thought about how many of those times we'd ended up just the two of us apart from all the friends and teammates Matteo already had here to hang out alone, just like we were today. I thought about all the times we'd spotted each other lifting at the campus gym after work and then showered, naked, next to each other afterwards. I thought about how that meant I knew exactly what every inch of Matteo's body looked like and didn't even have to think that hard to picture the built muscles in his arms and chest or the rounded curve of his ass or the length of his uncut dick. I thought about all the times I'd heard Matteo talk about how he wished he could've gone away to start college with the freedom of a blank slate where no one knew him. I thought about the times he'd joined me in calling out the kids at our camp who used "fag" as an insult. And, suddenly, I thought about all the times that maybe Matteo had been trying to tell me something all along that I just didn't have the ears to pick up on. Holy shit. My heart was beating fast now. If I didn't know what to say to Matteo before, I had even less of a clue now. Was I right?? Or was the heat and the awkwardness of the moment just playing tricks on me? Matteo pushed his leg harder against mine, his muscled thigh crowding up even more tightly against my own. Time crawled by silently. My mouth had gone dry, my heart was racing, and my mind was reeling. I could feel Matteo still watching me, but I was still too stunned to move. Or to speak. Oh shit, I'd been completely oblivious to all of this. Not just this afternoon, but maybe this whole fucking time too. Oh shit oh shit oh shit Matteo leaned forward to set the glass of water he'd been drinking down on the coffee table in front of us. That motion broke the stillness, and I finally looked back up at his face. I'd never noticed Matteo's eyes before. They were this really vivid dark brown, and the afternoon sun filtering in through the blinds was hitting them just right. I couldn't turn away. "Just tell me if you want me to stop," he said. Fuck, I didn't even know. I didn't even know how long it had been that this afternoon had been building up to this, to us sitting here, touching, alone and shirtless in his house because I'd been so preoccupied. Had this just happened, or had Matteo been trying to make this happen? Oh shit, had Matteo maybe been trying for this all along, and I'd just never fucking noticed? The seconds stretched on silently as Matteo studied my face looking for some kind of signal. He looked nervous as fuck. I still couldn't speak though. I didn't know what the fuck to say because I'd never even seen this coming. Matteo reached out his hand and placed it on top of my thigh right above my knee. I was just wearing the thin shorts I'd had on for the gym and some boxer briefs underneath. And, suddenly, they started to feel constricting when I felt Matteo's hand make contact with my leg. He traced his fingers up a little further, slipping under the edge of my shorts and pushing the fabric upwards to expose more of my thigh. I swallowed over the dryness I felt in my throat and closed my eyes because my head was fucking spinning. I leaned back a little into the couch. I bit my bottom lip and inhaled sharply when I felt Matteo's fingertips brush inside the edge of my boxers and tickle over the hairs on the very upper part of my inner thigh, right next to my balls. Then I felt him shift closer. Matteo wrapped his other arm around my shoulder and draped it just over my bare chest. He'd turned and was facing me now. And his other hand stayed on my upper thigh, feeling at the muscles built from all my years of running. I reopened my eyes and looked at Matteo's. They were glazed over. He had little beads of sweat building up on his upper lip, glistening on the five o'clock shadow of his stubble coming in. I looked down at his hand on my leg. I watched Matteo bring it right up to my dick, cupping it and squeezing me through the thin fabric of my gym shorts. And I was fucking hard. I let out the breath I'd been holding in without realizing it. It felt like my chest was on fire. I was breathing hard now, my pulse racing, and Matteo grabbed the outline of my dick in his hand and squeezed it harder. I lifted my ass off the couch to push more of my dick into his hand, reacting reflexively to the feeling since I'd been too upset to even jerk off once in the week since Pete had left. Matteo's other hand had fanned out across my chest and down to my nipple now. With his fingers, he started playing with it, getting it to stand up pointed and hard. My head dropped back against the couch, and I sighed. I felt Matteo's breath on my neck. And then he was kissing me on that spot where my neck met my shoulder. His lips felt so incredibly soft on my skin I couldn't believe it. They were feathering kisses up and down my neck. Over my collarbone and then back up to my earlobe. He gently sucked it in his mouth and I moaned out loud. His tongue played over the edge of my ear as his hand nudged my legs further apart. I spread them for him, and Matteo's hand went to the top of my shorts to tug down at the waistband. I looked down at his hand just above my dick and saw that the thin material of my shorts was doing nothing to conceal how fully hard my dick was underneath. Matteo's lips kept nuzzling at the edge of my ear as he pulled the waistband down. "Oh God, Matteo, what the fuck are you doing?" "Just relax, dude," he said, licking at my earlobe again. Right then Matteo's hand disappeared inside my boxer briefs. I felt him wrap it around my dick and squeeze, now with no layers of fabric left between the heat of his skin and mine. My underwear already had a wet spot where precum was leaking out of my slit, but I saw it grow bigger now. Matteo pulled my dick out from my underwear and then ran his fingers over the head of my dick, slicking them up with my cum. Then he started playing with my foreskin. I shuddered. Matteo was nibbling across my jawline now, his lips inching closer towards mine. He pulled his hand away from my dick, and I could see it was sticky with my precum. I watched his hand as he moved it slowly up to his face. Matteo stuck out his tongue and rubbed my precum on it, licking it up and tasting it. I couldn't fucking believe it. My dick got even harder than I thought was possible. Then Matteo took his index finger and slowly pushed it across his lips, getting them shiny with the wetness from my precum too. As I stared at Matteo's mouth, I felt his hand go back to my dick, his fingers reaching behind my balls and starting to rub at that spot behind them. I closed my eyes and then felt Matteo's lips press against mine. At first, I just arched my back and met his kiss. But then I felt his tongue on my lips. And slowly, lost in the sensations, I let Matteo's tongue into my mouth. I had tasted myself before, making out with Pete after he'd sucked me off and swallowed my load. But tasting myself on Matteo's tongue before I'd even cum felt completely different. He leaned into me more and started stroking my rock hard dick even harder. His left hand was on the back of my head, stroking my neck, pulling me in deeper to the kiss. I reached up one of my hands to his head. His hair was freshly buzzed short, so it bristled electric against my palm. I could feel Matteo's other hand grab my other one now. He moved it and placed it on top of his hard dick that he'd freed from his own shorts sometime before, urging me to stroke it. I took it, my fingers wrapping around its girth and feeling the weight and shape and texture of it. Matteo's skin was hot, and he was hard as fuck as I squeezed him and started slowly jerking him while we made out. After a minute, Matteo moaned into my mouth and broke away from the kiss, panting for breath. I watched him drop his eyes down, darting between my hard, leaking, uncut dick in his hand and then his own hard, leaking, uncut dick in mine. Matteo's eyes returned to mine, and he exhaled one ragged word: "Fuck..." I still didn't know what to say. I couldn't fucking believe this was actually happening either. Matteo started scooting forward on the couch, his dick sliding out of my grip, and then he dropped down into a crouch on the floor. He pulled my shorts off my legs from where they were puddled around my feet. Finally free from that constraint, I spread my legs wider, and Matteo leaned forward, running his palms over the tops of my legs, his hands feeling their way across the hard muscles of my quads back up towards my dick. His mouth followed close behind, licking and kissing a trail along the inner part of my thigh where my skin was so sensitive it made me squirm into the couch and moan out loud. I caught Matteo looking back up at my face, briefly, as one of his hands grabbed the base of my dick and then pulled my foreskin back so my head was exposed and leaking just inches away from his face. He looked like he was in a trance. My throat was too dry to speak, so I just nodded to him when his eyes met mine looking for permission. I pushed my hips forward a little, aching for release now after a week of not cumming. And then Matteo went for it, plunging about the top third of my dick in his mouth all in one abrupt motion, his teeth scraping painfully against the underside of my shaft as he slid down. He pulled back, wet his lips, caught his breath, moved a hand over to my hip to steady it, and then went for it again. This time he took a little bit more and managed to keep his teeth out of the way. And this time I felt Matteo's tongue start to flatten and press against my shaft, massaging it and then pulling up to tease my foreskin and wash over my head. I felt Matteo's hand leave my hip, and then I watched him drop it down to his own dick, jacking himself as his mouth got to work on mine. His other hand released its grip on the base of my dick, and then his fingers started inching down lower. They passed my balls and then they passed that sensitive spot behind them and kept going. His fingers slid back towards my hole and found it and pressed against it. I'd never felt like that there before. Just then, I also felt a vibration on my dick. Matteo was moaning, and he had about half of my shaft buried in his throat. That hum increased in frequency and reached a fevered pitch, and then I felt a hot rope of Matteo's cum splatter across my shin. Before my mind even processed what it was that'd just hit me, my own dick started to fucking explode, right into Matteo's mouth. I moaned loudly and bucked my hips. I looked down at Matteo and saw him move his hand back to grab the base of my dick, steadying it and pulling his mouth off as it spasmed with each additional blast. The second shot of my cum streaked across Matteo's cheek, and then a third and fourth dribbled out over my bare stomach and down onto the hand Matteo kept around the base of my dick. "Fuck," I panted, short of breath. Matteo's hand, now covered in my cum, was still gripped onto my dick. He squeezed it and pumped it a little more, milking a few more drops out from my slit. "Ughh," I winced, reaching down and pushing Matteo's hand off of me. "Don't." My dick was just so sensitive after cumming like that I couldn't take it. I leaned back into the couch, closing my eyes for a second and trying to catch my breath. When I reopened them, I saw that Matteo still had my cum on his face and on his hand. He was on his knees between my legs, but he was looking down at his hand, the one that had my cum on it and not his own. After another second, Matteo's head snapped up to looked at my face. Matteo looked stricken. And like he was about to freak out. "Oh shit," he cursed under his breath. And then Matteo's breathing quickened as his eyes grew wide with panic. "I'm sorry, dude!" "What?" I asked, shifting to sit up a little more and sliding back from him on the couch. Matteo franticly wiped the dry part of the back of his hand across the streak of my cum that was still painted on his face. Then he abruptly sprung up to his feet and stumbled back and away from me. I could see his dick was still half-hard and hanging out of his shorts, but he wasn't even looking at me anymore. He was staring down at his hands. "Fuck, dude, I'm so sorry," he said, his breath sounding labored as he started pacing around the room, avoiding my eyes. He spotted the half-empty glass of water he'd left on the coffee table, lunged for it, and then spat my cum out of his mouth into it. "Oh shit," he repeated. Then Matteo finally looked back over at me. His eyes looked desperate as they scanned my expression. "Just please don't tell anyone," he pleaded, and then he buried his face in his hands, and his shoulder slumped. "Fuck, dude," he whispered through his fingers, his voice breaking. "I just thought..." He slid his hands away from his face to look at me, shaking his head before his mouth dropped open as he struggled for what to say next. "I mean, I don't know. It looked like maybe...," he shook his head. "I figured you were... Oh fuck, man, I'm so sorry." Matteo's face cracked after he said that, and he looked like he was about to cry now. And for the second time this afternoon I was too blindsided to even know what to say. The expression of fear and shame and regret on Matteo's face at that moment hit me like a gut punch. So I just dumbly sat there on the couch with my dick still wet and exposed as Matteo went back to pacing around the room, getting more and more agitated with each second. "Fuck, just promise me you're not gonna say anything," he said finally, a hard edge starting to creep into his voice as he stopped to look at me again. Matteo stepped towards me, with a tension setting into his broad shoulders as he did. He was towering above me while I was still naked and exposed on the couch, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that Matteo was bigger than me. In a flash, it crossed my mind just how fast he could throw a baseball and how much more he could lift at the gym than I could. "I won't!" I said, finally finding my voice and recoiling back into the couch a little. Hearing that, the tension in Matteo's shoulders dropped slightly, but then I saw him look down at my cum he still had streaked across his hand. "Oh shit," he cursed under his breath again. Then he turned away and grabbed that same glass, spitting into it another time. "Have you done this before??" "No!" And just like that, the lie flew out of my lips before I even thought about it. Matteo looked so fucking relieved to hear it though. I scrambled up to my feet, picking my clothes up off the floor. "So you're clean?" Matteo asked as I was slipping back into my underwear and my shorts. "Yeah, I am," I said, stepping forward now that I was half-dressed, wanting to reassure him. "It's okay." Matteo's head snapped up at that, something blazing in his eyes. "What the fuck did you say??" "I said it's okay." I took another step towards Matteo and reached out a hand to grab his shoulder to calm him, but he jerked away before I even touched him. "Oh, God, this is so fucked up," he muttered. "You should just go." "What?" I flinched. "I mean it, just go." "Matte-..." "... -Jesus fuck, just go already!!" he said, his voice raising to a shout. Matteo's bare chest was rising and falling rapidly now, and his hands clenched into fists. "Okay, okay," I relented, holding up my hands before slipping my shirt back on. "I'll go." I started heading for the front door, but I paused before I got there, hoping Matteo would change his mind and that we could fucking talk and not leave things like this. When I looked back at him, though, Matteo was staring past me, his eyes fixed on the couch and, I now noticed, the sprays of his own cum sitting pooled up on the floor in front of it. "Matte-..." "... -Just get the fuck out of here," he shouted over me, and his voice had that hard edge to it once again. I walked the remaining few steps to the door. But I paused once again before grabbing the doorknob to open it. "I mean it," Matteo said, watching me hesitate. "Don't fucking tell anyone about this." "I won't," I said, feeling my own shoulders sink as I grabbed the doorknob. "And I'm going." I looked back at Matteo for another long moment, hoping that he'd calm down. But no dice. His face looked anguished, like he was wavering somewhere half-way between crying or punching me. Or maybe it was both. Fuck, it looked like Matteo didn't even know. "Bye," I said, simply, pulling the door open and stepping outside into the bright sunlight and blazing late afternoon heat. My heart was racing a mile a minute as I walked out to my Jeep. And there was this buzz ringing through my ears now too, a dull white noise that drowned out the sound of me starting the engine. If the stereo was on as I drove, it didn't even register. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck I was home before I even knew it. The route and the motions of getting there were so automatic it didn't matter that I wasn't even thinking about it. I parked and sat in the Jeep in front of our apartment for a minute. The buzzing sound grew louder in my ears. My chest felt tight and my breath was short. I realized that I was about to cry. "Stupid," I scolded myself out loud, trying to shake myself out of it. I grabbed my gym bag from the passenger seat and headed inside. Wiley greeted me right at the front door with reckless joy, just like always. Dad and Tom were both home too, perched on the couch in the living room. The used bike Tom had bought to take with him to college was completely disassembled, the parts scattered across the floor in front of them so they could clean them one by one before putting everything back together. "Hey, how was the workout?" Tom asked, smiling up at me as I closed the door behind me. "Fine," I mumbled, not elaborating. I dropped my eyes away from the two of them and down to Wiley as I leaned down to pet him. I looked back up in time to catch a loaded look exchanged between Dad and Tom. I couldn't face either of them right now. So I headed down the hall to the bedroom Tom and I shared, and Wiley trailed behind me. "Miliano?" I heard Tom call from behind me. I hesitated for a moment, but I didn't turn around. "Just a minute," I called back, my voice sounding more strained than I'd hoped as I slipped into our bedroom. Inside, the room was sparse, and the walls were all bare. Almost everything Tom and I had was already stashed away in some duffle bags and boxes that were piled in the corner. The stark visual reminder of how little time we both had left here only made the tightness in my chest worse. I dropped my bag and slumped to a seat on the edge of my bed. Wiley immediately crowded next to my legs, leaning his weight against me and whimpering for attention. I scratched at his fur absently. The buzzing in my ears grew louder and my stomach felt heavier as I stared blankly into space, trying to do anything but think. A shuffling sound at the door a minute later snapped me out of it. "Hey, can you come help us?" Dad asked from the doorway. "I could use a hand." Bullshit. My dad was a genius with any kind of mechanical project like this. He could take any kind of parts and intuitively figure out how they all worked and fit together, so he didn't need my help any more than I needed his scrutiny right now. "Uhh, in a minute," I stammered, hopping up to my feet. "I think Wiley needs to go out, so I'm gonna walk him real quick." I didn't wait for an answer from my dad. I was up and brushing past him back into the hallway with Wiley following behind me before he could even say anything. "Mijo," Dad called from behind as I reached the living room. I saw that Tom was watching me too. I paused in my tracks for a second, but I didn't turn around to face my dad. "I'll be right back," I said, the words coming out hoarsely. I slipped on Wiley's leash and darted out the door with him. We made it to the end of the block and turned the corner, but then my heartbeat was thundering too quickly for me to keep going. And that fucking white noise ringing in my ears kept growing louder and louder too. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. The panicked look on Matteo's face flashed across my mind, haunting me. My sweat turned cold, and I felt like I couldn't fucking breathe. I sat down on the curb. But I still felt light-headed even after hanging my head between my knees and closing my eyes. Wiley was nosing at me, trying to nudge me to keep going, but I couldn't get up. Oh God, what the fuck had I just done? And how the fuck did I miss this? In all the shame and panic I'd seen on Matteo's face today, I knew I'd caught a glimpse through a crack in the surface into something that ran deep. And it fucking tortured me: Had I just made it all worse? Oh God, I fucking lied to Matteo. I lied and told him I'd never done this. Shit, shit, shit. What if I'd told Matteo the truth? What if that was something that could've made him feel less freaked out and alone in this? But I hadn't. I was a fucking liar. My stomach churned. I fished my phone out of my pocket and stared at it. Should I call him? `Get the fuck out of here.' Those words Matteo shouted at me thundered across my head. I realized I didn't know what I would say to Matteo anyway. Or if he would even pick up the phone right now. I dropped my phone down to the ground at my feet. Wiley whimpered and nudged me again, pressing his weight against my body and trying to nose his way into the empty space where my head was hanging between my knees. "I fucked up. I fucked up. I fucked up," I chanted under my breath, covering my face with my hands, hunching over even more on the curb. I tried to fight down the nausea I felt growing in my stomach. But then, like a bubble inexorably breaking to the surface, I remembered what Matteo had said to me: `I thought maybe you wanted.' Oh no. No. No. No. Oh God. Oh fuck. Had I done something unconscious to make Matteo think that?? Had I unwittingly thrown off some signal that he picked up on even if I hadn't meant it? Did he do this because he thought I expected it? Or-... Oh shit. Matteo had hung out with me and Pete last weekend. What if that was it? What if I'd done something around Pete that made it fucking obvious? Maybe you could tell just by the way that I looked at Pete. What if that had been how Matteo had known? What if that's what had made him think that? That I wanted...? And then another thought burst to the surface: THIS is how I made Pete feel. Oh my God. No. NoNoNoNo Seeing Matteo break and freak out and panic and recoil from what he'd done. Wondering if what Matteo was going through was all my fault, if somehow I had made him do something he couldn't really handle because he thought it's what I wanted... Oh God. This is what I had made Pete feel. Every time I had freaked out on him... Every time I had shut down... Every time I had shut him out... I did this to Pete. And this is why Pete doesn't fucking love me. The vice in my chest twisted tighter, and the buzzing in my ears ratcheted up to a crescendo. My breath was ragged. I rocked myself back and forth on the curb as the weight of what I had done to Pete and to Matteo crashed on top of me. Wiley whimpered again and pulled on his leash, trying to nudge me on. But I pulled him into me and closed my eyes. With my face buried in his fur, the sobs I'd tried to control finally escaped: "I'm fucked up. I'm fucked up. I'm fucked up." **************** To be continued.