Page 51 of Caden & Theo

We don’t talk much as we walk across campus. It’s warm enough that the air feels heavy, but not hot. Just humid spring. The scent of magnolia clings to everything. We cut around the library and up a side path to the hill behind the art building—the one spot on campus no one seems to care about. Which is probably why it’s ours.

We settle near the top, under one of the big trees that hasn’t quite bloomed yet. He spreads out the blanket and collapses backward like he’s already exhausted.

“This is your plan?” I tease. “Lying here and doing nothing?”

“No,” he says, pulling out a container of strawberries. “Also, feeding you fruit.”

I smirk. “Very romantic.”

He shrugs. “It’s low-key. We’re low-key.”

Right.Low-key.

He hands me a strawberry, fingers brushing mine. Our knees touch. His foot nudges mine under the blanket like it means nothing.

I eat the strawberry and lie back, closing my eyes.

“So,” he says after a few minutes. “Two years.”

“Two years.”

“That’s wild.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It kind of is.”

I open my eyes. He’s watching me. He has that soft kind of look he only ever gives me when no one else is around. The kind that makes my stomach do something complicated.

We lie here in silence, wind moving through the grass, music playing soft and low from his small boom box—some sleepy R&B song I don’t know the name of, but it fits the mood too perfectly.

“I love you,” he says quietly, like it’s the first time, even though it’s not.

I glance around—no one’s close enough to hear—and say it back. It still hits me like it’s new.

There’s a pause, and the world exhales around us. Somewhere down the hill, someone’s playing Frisbee. Laughter floats up on the wind. A bird dives into the branches overhead. But right here, where our arms brush and his pinkie keeps nudging mine, it’s like nothing else matters.

And still, I don’t move. Not to take his hand. Not to lean in. Not to kiss him even though I want to. Because we don’t get to have those moments in public. Not here. Not yet.

I tilt my head to look at him—really look—and for a second, I think he might be fighting the same urge. His mouth twitches like he’s about to say something, but then he just sighs and settles onto his back, one arm bent behind his head.

We stay this way for a long minute. Not touching, notnottouching.

“I wish I could,” I say quietly.

He turns to me. “What?”

I swallow. “Hold your hand. Out here. Just… be normal.”

His face shifts, softens in that way that makes it worse. “You are normal,” he says.

“You know what I mean.”

He nods. “Yeah. I do.”

I push my sleeve up higher and let the warmth settle into my skin. “At Louisville, I don’t really think about it anymore. I’m just… out. I don’t have to come out every time I talk to someone, you know? People don’t make it weird. It’s not perfect, but… it’s mine. My space.”

Caden nods, looking somewhere past the trees. “That sounds nice.”

“Itisnice,” I say. “I didn’t realize how much I was shrinking before until I stopped.”