Outside the science building. You walked out and I was already there with coffee. You pretended you weren’t glad to see me. I pretended I didn’t notice.
Thursday night argument. We fought about something stupid. You ended up on my floor, laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe. I remember thinking I wanted to hear that laugh for a long time.
The poison. You found the coolest gift.
First morning in the cabin. Sunlight on your hair. You didn’t freak out. I tried not to stare. Failed completely.
Our date at the vegan place. You were nervous. I was worse. You looked unreal in the candlelight, and I couldn’t stop wanting you.
Your lab week. You were exhausted and quiet. I brought takeout and sat with you until you leaned on my shoulder without thinking. I didn’t move for a long time.
My game. You in the stands. You pretending you were only there to kill time. I found you after and walked you home slowly, hoping you wouldn’t notice I never wanted to say goodnight.
And everything else. Every look. Every laugh. Every night you let me close. I kept all of it. I kept you, even when I told myself I shouldn’t.
My throat tightened so fast it scared me.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“I started writing them after our trip,” Damon said. His voice shook in a way he was trying to hide. “At first, it was just so I wouldn’t forget. Then it turned into something else.”
“What else?”
He exhaled slowly. “A way to remind myself that this wasn’t nothing. That I wasn’t imagining it. That you weren’t imagining it. That we were doing something real, even if we wouldn’t say the word.”
I stared at the paper. My vision blurred. I blinked hard.
“You kept this?” I asked.
“Every day,” he said. “I kept thinking if I lost you again, I’d want to know I didn’t invent you. I didn’t just imagine us.”
My chest hurt. The cold air didn’t feel cold anymore. Everything in me felt raw and hot, like I had been stripped open.
“I’m not good at saying things,” Damon said, stepping even closer. His hands stayed at his sides. He was giving me every choice. “I am good at showing up. I am very good at touching you. I am good at trying to make you laugh when you look like you’re carrying the whole world. But I’ve never been good at telling someone what they are to me.”
I could not speak.
“I loved you when we were kids,” he said softly. “I didn’t know it was love. I thought it was a crush that never went away. I thought it was a bad obsession that would burn out if I kept busy enough. It didn’t burn out. It just grew.”
My body went still. My heart stuttered.
“I loved you the summer we kissed,” he continued. “I loved you the next summer when you were eighteen and brave enough to touch me first. I loved you when you left for Chicago, and I told myself I would be fine. I loved you when I tried to replace you with noise and bodies, and it never worked. I loved you when you walked into that basement and looked at me like I was a miserable joke you couldn’t stop wanting anyway.”
His voice caught. He swallowed, eyes on mine.
“I love you now,” he said.
The words were quiet, just Damon standing in front of me with the wind cutting at my face, saying it like he had finally stopped being afraid of the sound of it. So why was I afraid?
“I love you, Seth,” he said again, slower this time. “I love you in every stupid way I’ve ever tried to hide. I don’t want to be your secret fling. I don’t want to be a disaster you survive. I want to be the person you come home to. If you’ll let me.”
Something in me cracked so cleanly I almost laughed.
All the pressure in my chest, the old fear, the waiting, it all loosened at once. It didn’t vanish. It just stopped owning me.
I stared at him, breath coming in short pulls, chest rising and falling, tears burning my cheeks as they spilled. “You are such an ass for making me cry.”
His mouth twitched into an honest smile. “I know.”