Chapter Thirty-One [Liam]

I've been waiting for him for what seems like forever.

Or maybe I'm just not a patient person.

Eli finally arrives at the lake, rosy-cheeked and puffing up aor, arms bared past the short sleeves of his t-shirt and no skates on him. That makes sense. It's mid-July. The lake has long thawed and I didn't ask him here to skate.

"Hey," he greets me breathily, hands in his jeans' pockets and maroon beanie on his head despite the summer weather.

"Hey." I smile. "I was starting to think maybe you were standing me up."

He snorts. "I had to walk."

"You could've asked me to pick you up."

Eli just shrugs.

I bite back a knowing smile. "Friends give each other rides," I muse.

He rolls his eyes, shaking his head in light dismissal.

I cock my own head to the side. "We are friends, right?" I don't mean it to sound insecure, but to my ears it sort of sounds a little too much like it.

He looks at me again, hazel-gray eyes meeting mine at the same level. "Yeah, of course." He nods. "I'm not so sure how good of a friend I've been, but you've definitely earned that title."

I smile, starting to walk. Eli keeps up, walking alongside me, shoulder to shoulder but never touching.

There are a few people scattered around the lake, enjoying their morning, but most tourists take to the mountains and the shops downtown during summer time. Neither of us really talks, and I like that I can kind of enjoy comfortable silences now.

After a while, I realize that I'm just walking wherever he's going.

"Where are we going?" I ask. I said I can handle comfortable silences, after all, not that I enjoy mindless walks with no direction.

Eli just shrugs.

He really does that a lot. Sometimes it's a nervous tick, sometimes it's just a normal Eli thing. And I like that I know that, and that I can also kind of tell the difference now.

We take a turn past some trees I'd never have gone through if I were on my own or with friends, and he keeps walking for a while — the lake hidden from our sight behind the vegetation — until I can see the water again.

No people, though.

It's like a little corner tucked away in the woods. A pocket of nature concealed from sight of regular lake visitors.

"This is nice," I tell him.

"You never been?"

I shake my head. "Have you?"

"Not so much lately," Eli answers, sitting down on the damp floor. I hesitate before joining him, because I really don't like to sit on wet things. But I'm afraid I'll look like the affected brat I've been trying to grow out of being if I just stand, so I sit down, mirroring his position with my legs folded in front of me and my knees close to my chest.

The corner of Eli's twitches slightly like he knows what went through my head, but he doesn't mention it. "Discovered this place with the guys, in freshmen year. Used to come here a lot in sophomore year," he says instead.

I narrow my eyes at him. "This was your hook-up spot, wasn't it?" I ask dryly.

He doesn't react, simply staring ahead at the blue-green water.

I gasp. "Oh, my god — it was! You and your friends bring girls here to hook up!"

He shakes his head. "Shut up."

I grin. "You brought me to your hook-up spot," I tease. "If I were of impurer thoughts, I would've been blushing right now, Mr Blake."

Eli rolls his eyes.

"Oh, shit," I exclaim, looking at him. "You probably brought Natalie here too."

He pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, dipping his head toward his knees.

I cackle. "That poor girl," I coo. "If only she knew."

The shadow of a smile that was beginning to crack Eli's impatient front fades.

I wince. "Sorry."

"It's fine." He shrugs. "I mean, it's not, but it's not your fault. I really made a mess of the Natalie thing."

"It's not that dramatic." I try to reassure him.

He shakes his head in dismissal of my kindness. "I lied to her for a year."

"You didn't lie," I say. "Unless she pointedly asked you 'Are you gay?' and you looked her in the eye and said 'No', then you didn't technically lie."

He gives me a look that dangerously resembles a glare. "That is such a Liam Astor thing to say."

I snort. "Well, I am Liam Astor."

He rolls his eyes, but there's a fond smile there, which slowly melts into a rueful one.

"I did lie, though," he says quietly. "I let her believe our relationship was the same thing to me as it was to her. I cared about her, but she was in love with me."

"Love is such a strong word," I reply, squirming a little on the ground.

"But she used it," he says. "A few weeks before my parents' crash. She said she loved me." He looks at me. "And I said it back."

For a second, I have nothing to give him but silence. And it's not a comfortable one. The thought of Eli telling someone he loves them — someone who happens to be my friend, on top of everything — makes me feel weird in an unpleasant way that I am not ready to deal with yet.

I clear my throat. "In your way, I'm sure you did love her."

"Yeah, but she didn't mean it platonically. And I let her believe that I didn't either."

"You'll have the chance to make it right some day," I tell him. When you finally decide to be open about who you are to the world without fear, I add only in my head. However long that may take.

The silence that follows is slightly less awkward than the last, but not quite the peaceful one from before. Eli just stares ahead at the lake, seemingly unbothered by it. But I find it hard to just sit in it.

Once upon a time, we would have filled this silence with a hook-up session. Everything was just so simple and straight-forward in the beginning. Back when Eli was mostly monossylabal, unless he was responding to my provocations. Back when it was all just physical and I would never let myself care for a boring jock, and he would never let anyone see the vulnerability behind the calculated image he displayed to the world.

Back when we were mostly lying to ourselves.

"What's your favorite color?" I ask.

He turns his head to the side to give me a confused look. "What?"

"You said I was a good friend... I know all of my friends' favorite colors."

"All of them?"

"Mhm." I nod. "Mack is yellow, Nat is pink, Chloe is black — like her heart — and Gus is green."

Eli swallows a laugh and I smile.

"What?"

"Owen's favorite color is also green," Eli says.

I laugh. "We should probably never let them know they have something in common. Gus would flip and go off about how they're meant to be."

Eli snorts, then looks thoughtful for a while. "Dean's is gold."

I frown. "Gold?"

Eli shrugs with a smile. "Dean's is own special kind of person."

I can't help but smile at that as well. What would Eli think, if he could read all the mean thoughts I've had about his friend? Maybe I'm not quite over being an affected brat.

"But I guess I do know my friends' favorite colors too," Eli muses. He gives me a shurg. "What's yours?"

"Blue," I answer. "But, like, deep blue. Like the lake in the middle, where you can't see the bottom. Or the high sea."

"Or your eyes."

I'm taken aback, meeting his honest gaze. "I guess, yeah," I say, sounding less brazen than I'd like.

I can't find any words to add to that, and Eli doesn't seem to be raking his brain for anything to say either. But this isn't a silence I'm comfortable sitting in either.

I can't explain all that I'm feeling. Nor the strange wish I have to shut all of it down and simultaneously completely revel in it. It brings back to my mind what I said to Eli months ago about his weird combination of fight and flight instinct. In the past few days, I guess he's been trying to go against it.

I clear my throat again, trying not to sound too obvious. "So, what's yours then?"

Eli shakes his head. "I don't know." He looks out toward the water again, and I do the same so I'm not looking at him anymore.

"My mom used to say she liked them all," he says. "She said it was impossible to choose a favorite. On Christmas, she liked red, green and gold. Blue, white and silver for the New Year. She liked pinks and yellows in the Spring, oranges and green in the summer. Black only on Halloween, because she liked to keep to the season."

He looks down at the soil beneath his feet, arms loosely tied around his knees, and I realize despite my efforts I've found myself staring at him again.

"My dad said his favorite color was whichever one my mom liked that day," he adds.

I smile. "Your parents sound kind of amazing."

He looks up at me. "They were. He lived for her and she lived for everyone else."

The brief silence that follows is one I can bear. Mostly because it's not a silence at all. A breeze ruffles the tree branches and ripples the water as well. Thought that last one doesn't make a sound, I still find it sort of fills the silence in a way.

"There was bad stuff too," Eli says, making me look back at him. And when I do, I can't believe I let the rippling lake water distract me from him. Because it's kind of the most wonderful sight.

"When they were alive, I used to have stupid fights with them all the time," he tells me, still looking down at the floor. "My mom never let anyone go to bed angry with anything, though. Still. I used to make fun of the way she wanted nothing but peace and love, always talking about how much it annoyed me. I complained all the time about the way my dad was always on my ass because of hockey.

"I know we had petty fights all the time, but I can't remember a single one vividly." He shakes his head. "The clearest memories are all of the good stuff. The bad is almost kind of... fuzzy."

"That's good, right?" I speak only when it becomes clear he's done. "That you can hold on to the good stuff only."

"Yeah, I guess." He shrugs, looking at me. "You know how when you grow up and you start seeing your parents as people? Not just the people who feed you, clothe you and house you, who you might have some really fun memories with — but, like, real people, with issues and serious flaws? People who don't have it all figured out and made a shit ton of mistakes and most of the time are just winging it at life, same as you?"

"Yeah..." I answer, though I might have started that realization later in life.

"I was just starting to go through that," Eli says. "I had just found out my mom nearly ran off on her wedding day, because she was nervous about marrying her high school sweetheart too young."

I laugh and he smiles.

"I was starting to realize the only reason my dad was so hard on me sometimes is because he projected onto me some of the dreams he never got to fulfil," he says with a kind of longing lurking beneath his voice. "I really love all the great memories I have with them, but I would've kinda also liked to have more of the worse ones. Like... Mom and Dad were amazing, but I wish I'd had more time with... Richard and Sarah."

I need a minute to take that in, and I don't think Eli's in a rush for an answer. He watches the lake water while I watch him.

"I think I get that."

He looks at me again. "Yeah?"

I laugh. "Kinda. I think I get the principle, but I'd be lying if I said it's easy to put myself in your place."

"That's good." He shrugs. "Means you have two good, living parnts who'd do anything for you."

"Yeah," I muse, sounding a little unsure. "And I guess... I have a hard time seeing them as people. Real people with real flaws, like you said. As opposed to the man and woman who need to be there to catch me if I fall. Because, fuck, I think I'm going to fall a lot and I need mommy and daddy. Not the money, but the coddling."

Eli snorts. "And you should have it," he says, nodding mostly to himself. He tilts his head pensively, in a slightly uncharacteristical manner. "Acknowledging the privileges you have in life doesn't mean you have to feel guilty about them. Or renounce them in some way, to try to balance out some kind of stupid cosmic scale," he speaks evenly.

He smiles a little. "I guess it would kinda be a little insulting if you did do that," he adds.

"Yeah," I laugh. "I guess it could be."

"People are going to judge you for the money you have, same as they judge me for the money I don't. You just have to remember that their words come from a personal place, made of the shit they had to take in their lives. Same as yours come from your own feelings on everything you've had to deal with."

I raise my eyebrows. "That's... surprisingly wise... And really helpful."

Eli breathes out a laugh. "Thanks. My therapist said that to me. Or something like it."

I smile. "I'm glad therapy is helping."

He nods. "Slowly but surely."

"The best way to do anything."

The slow-forming smile on his face makes me warm in the stomach again. I bite my lip, caught between trying to staunch that feeling and not ever wanting it to go away.

"Thank you, by the way," Eli says.

I frown. "For what?"

"A lot," he says. "I don't think I could've done it without you. This year, I mean."

It takes me a minute to reply. "You're welcome, I guess. Glad I could help."

There's a pause and a question resurges in my head, but I have to swallow around a golf ball stuck in my throat to speak.

"What's next, then? Calgary?"

"Yup."

"That's cool." I nod. "Proud of you."

Eli gives me a strained smile and I respond a little tightly. Not a comfortable silence.

"You staying in the closet then?"

Eli presses his lips together, looking down at his feet. "I'm happy, okay? Or... I think I could be now."

I nod. "Glad you think that way. And you might even be happy — and I really hope you are — but you won't really be honest."

He looks at me, something like a plea in his eyes. "I'm honest with you," he whispers.

I nod again, feeling my throat constrict further and further. "Yeah. You're honest with me."

And this would probably be a good time for me to be honest with him. Now that it's just the two of us.

I can't put a name to the speeding of my heartbeat, and the fullness in my chest, and the tingling on the tips of my fingers. Not quite yet. Or at least I don't want to. But you don't have to name your feelings to share them.

"I hope you get what you want eventually," I say instead. Coward.

He gives me a drawn smile. "Thanks."

I want to kiss him. That thought comes to me like one that's always there, in the back of my mind, and occasionally jumps out to the front, eager and demanding. I think I can see in his eyes that he wants to kiss me too. But he won't, and neither will I, because people could turn into our little hide-out any time and see us.

It's crazy, though, how my feelings for the one boy I'd never really given too much thought to changed and grew so drastically over a single year. How interconnected our lives have become. How much your view on life can change after allowing yourself to get to know one person. And, really, the only hard part was breaking the ice.

***

And this concludes the first book!

For those of you who were excited about the sequel — and especially the ones who freaked out a little about the time jump — please read the author's note after this chapter :)

I'd love to read any thoughts on this final chapter and the book in general if you have any. Or even expectations for the sequel.

In the author's note, I will have some questions about this book if you want to answer them, but I know not everyone will want to read it. If you want info about my plans for the sequel, a space to leave more in-depth thoughts on this book, or an update on my plans for other projects, please read it.

If this is where you leave us, then thank you for reading! Hope you liked it :)