Readers, thank you for sticking with my story! I appreciate your patience with the slow trickle of postings lately.
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October Junior Year
"Let's get out of here."
Pete groaned those words out into my chest as he woke in my arms from the fitful sleep he'd cried himself into after that disastrous dinner with his father.
And even though I must've drifted off at some point over night too, it hardly felt like I'd rested at all. The nausea churning in my gut this morning made it clear that sleep hadn't brought any real reprieve from the tailspin of thoughts swirling in my mind. Pete and I were both still dressed in all our clothes from that dinner too, and that only reinforced the unsettled feeling that this morning was just a surreal hangover from the awful night before.
"Let's go for a hike then," I said to Pete when I finally sat up in the bed. I hoped a physical change of scenery this morning would soothe Pete in the way that getting outdoors usually did. And, thankfully, he did look relieved by that suggestion now.
Pete was mostly quiet as he drove us from campus out to an obscure trailhead in the mountains. But as we hiked with the fallen leaves crunching under our feet, the solemn expression still clouding his face gradually began to relax. There'd been no other cars parked in the lot when we arrived here, so Pete even reached out to take my hand and hold it in his while we walked through the wider stretches of the trail. I could hardly fault Pete for the silence that still hung over our morning though. I felt at a loss for words too, so I was grateful for the seclusion of this spot that made it possible to at least have the reassurance I felt from the touch of Pete's hand in mine.
Still, it wasn't until we reached the end of the trail and were perched alone atop a peak overlooking the blanket of New England fall foliage covering the hills around us that Pete finally spoke up:
"I'm not going to go to my dad's fundraiser tonight," he announced simply, his gaze still fixed off in the distance taking in the view.
"Good," I affirmed, smiling at Pete when he turned to look over at me and meet my eyes.
Pete just nodded at that and leaned his shoulder to rest against mine. He looked back out across the landscape, falling quiet for a few more beats.
"I've been scared of my dad for my whole life," Pete continued, his gaze dropping down to somewhere near his feet now.
I covered Pete's knee with one of my hands, but I didn't say anything to interrupt him. I sensed that I should just give him the space to say whatever he needed to right now at whatever pace he could muster.
"And I want to be done with that shit," Pete added eventually, twisting his head back up to level his eyes with mine again. "I've always done whatever he wants, even when I know it's not right. And I don't think I can live with myself anymore if I keep on doing that."
Pete's voice caught in his throat for a second at that point, so he paused and swallowed dryly before he went on: "... And I don't want to see you lose respect for me if all I ever do is roll over and just let him control me."
"Pete, I wouldn't-..." I tried to interject to reassure him, but he spoke over me:
"-... But I have to do this for me, too," Pete added, his voice getting steadier again. "Because I need Dad to know that I'm not going to just shut up and keep on doing my part anymore."
I nodded at that, and Pete dropped one of his hands down to cover the one I had on his knee. "And, Max? I can't let him just get away with how he talked about you last night either."
As soon as Pete mentioned that, I felt something in my jaw twitch involuntarily.
"What??" Pete asked, alarmed as he must have picked up on that shift in my expression.
"Well," I snorted under my breath. "You don't even know the half of it." And then I recounted everything else the Senator had said to me last night after Pete had walked out of the restaurant.
Pete's face darkened in anger when he heard what his father had demanded that I do for him. But he didn't look the least bit surprised though.
"I'm still not going to go tonight," Pete responded when I finished filling him in. "But I will tell Dad you tried to talk me into it."
"But, Pete, I wasn't telling you to ask you to do that. You don't have to lie like that for m-..."
"-... No," Pete cut me off, his eyes taking on some of the same fire I'd seen in them at dinner last night. "If I'm going to stand up to Dad like this, I know it's gonna get ugly. So I need to know that you'll be safe from that."
"But you're not alone," I protested. "We're in this together."
"No, this is between me and my Dad," Pete insisted, squeezing my hand that he held in his. "And I won't risk you becoming collateral damage when he blows up at me like I know he's going to as soon as he realizes that I won't let him make my choices for me anymore."
"You mean like coming out?" I asked, wondering if that was one of the choices Pete was thinking about now.
Pete grimaced at my question. "Not that one yet. I don't think there's any way I could pull off that bandaid without you getting swept up in the shitstorm too. But..." Pete trailed off and exhaled slowly. "I've gotta do something. Because I'm fucking sick of it. Him pushing me around. And I know that's never gonna stop unless I do something to change it."
I squeezed Pete's knee in affirmation.
"And ditching this fundraiser tonight is a start, at least..." Pete went on, turning and looking back out at the hills around us now. "But, God, it feels like such a small thing though."
"But maybe it's not," I countered, nudging his knee with mine. "And if it actually does help you to feel better to do that, then that alone would be fuckin' huge."
Pete laughed under his breath at that before he looked at me again. "I know Dad is gonna go ballistic on me over this."
Pete straightened up his posture and then shrugged some of the tension out of his shoulders before we went on: "... So what I meant is, what if it really is just stupid and pointless to even try to stand up to him? I mean, it's not like I have any reason to believe it will ever make Dad do anything different. And no matter what I do, I don't think I can ever have a real shot of getting out from his shadow for as long as I'm still here."
That last word from Pete punched me right in the gut, reminding me of the fear that had taken root in there last night. But I was certain that fear would never dissipate until I knew what Pete was thinking, so I pushed myself to face it:
"You said you hated it here," I said quietly.
Pete flinched when I reminded him of that.
"I wasn't talking about you," he responded quickly, squeezing my hand. "You know that, right?"
"I know," I nodded, gulping down the boulder-sized lump I felt in my throat.
Pete's shoulders slumped as he evidently picked up on how worried I still was. "But I think it has been getting to me more than I realized- being at this school that he fucking picked for me because it has his name plastered all over everything. And I just..."
As Pete trailed off, I felt that boulder travel down from my throat to settle in my chest, weighing on me so much that I could barely breathe.
"... Wish you could be somewhere different?" I completed the thought for Pete, the shakiness in my own voice betraying me as I asked the question.
The expression on Pete's face tensed again. He leaned his body into my side and squeezed my hand harder. "But I don't want to be away from you though."
"But you don't want to be here," I added, saying the part that I sensed was there but Pete couldn't quite bring himself to speak.
A beat of loaded silence passed as Pete's mouth dropped open to respond, but no words came to him.
"Pete, what do you need?" I asked, squeezing his hand with mine again.
Another agonizing beat passed. Then, finally, Pete answered:
"I have thought about it," he admitted quietly. "But then we-..."
"...-No, we're talking about you right now," I interrupted him firmly. "What have you been thinking about?"
Pete swallowed something down in his throat now. "Going abroad," he said in a voice just above a whisper. But then, quickly and much more loudly he went on: "Just for a semester though! Just to, like, get away from here for a minute to some place where I'm not always stuck under my dad's thumb."
And as soon as Pete admitted that out loud, I felt it: That boulder sunk from my chest down to lodge itself at the bottom of my gut.
Because, suddenly and with absolute clarity, I knew that what I wanted laid on one side of that unscalable boulder but what Pete needed laid out of reach on the other.
And just as suddenly, I also knew that I had to go with what Pete needed.
"Then I think you should do it," I said.
"Really?" Pete asked, his brows knitting upward skeptically.
"Yes," I nodded, squeezing his hand again. "I think you deserve a shot at being somewhere where you can actually be away from your dad for once in your life. And I think you're right that that's never gonna happen for you here."
"It's not because I want to be away from you," Pete insisted, his eyes searching mine.
"I know," I affirmed.
"And I don't want this to be the end of us either," Pete added, his hand gripping harder onto mine now.
"Me neither," I agreed. But my voice sounded ragged now because my heart was racing, even though we were just sitting still.
"It's just that for my whole life everyone has always seen me as my dad's kid first and then anything else only comes as a distant second after that," Pete continued. "Except for with you. And so I feel like I need to get away from here to find out if it's even possible for it to ever be more than just you who sees me that way."
"And you deserve that, Pete. You should have that chance."
Pete smiled grimly. "My dad would really lose his shit if I ever ditched his precious alma matter though. That was never part of his plan for me."
"Good. Fuck his plan," I smiled faintly, trying to feign a levity that I didn't feel right now.
Pete didn't buy it though. He leaned forward and kissed me.
"Max?" he asked when his lips pulled back from mine.
"Yeah?"
"I love you," he said, resting his forehead against mine, his fingers threading through my hair. "You believe me, right?"
"I do," I nodded, pressing my head against his.
"And this doesn't change that," Pete added, sitting back up to look at me again.
"I know. I-..." I stopped myself because my voice was getting thick and my chest felt tight as soon as my eyes met Pete's again.
Pete waited for me, though, giving me space like he'd learned that he needed to do for me too.
"... I want you to have what you need," I said finally. "And if you need this, then I want you to do it."
My shoulders were shaking now, and Pete's face twisted in concern as he caught that.
He leaned forward and kissed me again.
"Babe,..." he whispered into my lips.
But my eyes were stinging hot though.
It was crashing over me now. What this would actually mean.
... How many months we'd be apart.
... How many nights I'd be sleeping without Pete in my arms.
... How many days Pete just wouldn't be there with me.
An embarrassing gurgling sound escaped from my throat.
I clamped my eyes shut and reached up to pinch the bridge of my nose with my fingers to hold back the tears.
I sucked in a sharp breath, and then I opened my eyes so I could look at Pete again.
"Hey," Pete said, reaching out and cradling my cheek in his palm. "I won't if what you need is for me to stay here and-..."
"-... No," I cut him off, abruptly finding my voice again. "I know that there's going to be things that you need that I can't give you." I forced my eyes to level with Pete's again as my mind suddenly flashed back to the advice Juli had given me about this. "And I know I shouldn't be everything to you either. So I'm not gonna stand in the way of you having what you need."
"But I need you, too, Max," Pete replied, squeezing my shoulder with his other hand. "I need us to be okay."
"We will be," I swallowed thickly. "I mean, we'll figure it out. I don't want you to leave, but I'm not going to be selfish enough to put something that I want before something that you need."
Pete winced as I said that.
"You mean like I did when I was too chickenshit to ask you what was really bothering you last fall?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Pete, if I kept you from your chance to do this...?" I said, squeezing his knee with my hand as I did. "... If I knew that I was the reason that you never got the chance to experience what it could be like to be away from your dad...?" I trailed off and tried to exhale some of that tightness I felt in my chest. "Fuck, I know how guilty I would feel for holding you back. It would fuckin' destroy me."
Pete fell silent after I said that, and his eyes dropped down to the ground by his feet.
"I love you," I said after a minute, nudging Pete with my shoulder so he would look back up at me.
"I know," Pete replied, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand before lifting his eyes back to mine. "And I know now what that actually feels like, thanks to you."
"You should do this," I said more firmly than I'd been able to muster before. And then I leaned in and kissed Pete.
"I know," he agreed when we broke from that kiss.
I hugged Pete, holding him close. I could feel his breathing start to slow before he started laughing grimly into my shoulder.
"What?" I asked him.
"God, this is gonna be a fuckin' shitshow with my dad."
"Good, he deserves it." I said firmly, hugging him tighter. "And I've got you."
December Junior Year
I woke up alone.
My hands reached over to Pete's side of the bed, and the sheets were already cold. I wondered how long he'd been gone. I sat up and squinted into the gray light of morning in this unfamiliar place.
Naked and groggy from too little sleep, it took me a few hazy moments to remember where I actually was before I spotted Pete standing on the other side of our hotel room near the window. He was already dressed, wearing my sweatshirt over his jeans, and staring out at the view of Boston's skyline. Outside, it was snowing hard. With a sinking feeling, I realized that lousy road conditions might mean we'd have even less time together today before we had to catch our separate flights home for winter break.
I got out of the bed and walked up behind Pete, but he didn't seem to notice that I'd stirred. He was lost too deep in a trance. Standing behind him, I traced the path of his gaze, and I realized Pete's eyes weren't actually looking out at the snow falling on the other side of the glass. No, they were fixed on the dried streaks of my cum that were splattered on this side of it instead. Pete was frozen in place, completely engrossed in those visible reminders of when he'd fucked me braced up against this window just a few hours ago. This one night in Boston between the end of finals and flying home for break was our final chance to be together before Pete's semester abroad, so we had gone at it all night in this hotel room in the loud, manic way that we always would any time we had the chance to be away from the prying eyes and ears back on campus.
I wrapped my arms around Pete from behind and buried my nose in his hair, taking in a long breath and savoring his scent. Pete's hands reached up to cover mine, and he cradled them against his chest as I hugged him against my naked body.
"Hey," he said quietly.
"How long have you been up?" I asked, resting my chin on his shoulder now to look at the snow outside.
"Maybe half an hour," Pete replied, squeezing my hands in his. "I thought you'd be hungry since we never ate dinner last night, so I went and got us breakfast. I wanted to do somethin' nice for you while I still can, but I didn't want to wake you up."
I hugged him tighter. "We barely slept too, so you're gonna need more rest than that. You should sleep on the plane later."
Pete sighed. "I should miss my flight."
"Pete,..." I said, spinning him around now so we were facing each other. Pete's eyes were rimmed red when they met mine.
Pete hugged me, burying his face in my chest because he was unable to look at me without crying. I kissed the top of his head, and I just held Pete quietly. Minutes passed by in silence, neither of us quite knowing what to say as we stood here right on the precipice of parting for what was going to be the longest stretch of time since we'd known each other.
"I'm sorry," Pete croaked finally into my skin. "I don't know why I'm doing this."
"This?" I asked, nudging his face up so he was looking at me again.
"Any of this," Pete's voice cracked again as his hazel eyes met mine. "Mexico... Being away from you for so long... It feels like I'm just running away from my problems. And I know that's stupid because running away won't actually change anything. It's just the coward's way out."
"Pete, it's not-..." I tried to interject, but he spoke over me:
"...- No, this semester abroad was just a stupid impulse to stick it to my dad. And now it's only making everything worse."
Something trembled in Pete's jaw as he said that, and he dropped his head down to my shoulder again.
"It's not stupid, Pete," I hugged him tighter. "And it's not cowardly to stand up for yourself. I think you're being brave as fuck with how hard your dad keeps making that for you."
Pete didn't respond right away, maybe because there was no way for him to dispute how rough the last couple of months had been for him.
Just as Pete had predicted, his already rocky relationship with his dad had quickly deteriorated even more after Pete defied him and refused to speak at the Senator's campaign event during family weekend. What started with a heated confrontation that weekend had spiraled out further in every phone call between them that I'd overheard since then. Each conversation had devolved into the Senator shouting berating screeds at Pete that were loud enough for me to catch every cutting word from clear across the room.
And then, when Pete announced a few weeks later that he'd already enrolled himself in a study abroad program in Mexico City for the spring semester, the tension with his father erupted even more. The Senator was livid that Pete would decide something like that on his own. He flatly refused to pay for any of it, leaving Pete to cover all the tuition and expenses for the program himself from the savings he'd accumulated from every job he'd ever worked. But, still, Pete hadn't backed down. He grimly described it as cashing out early on his `fuck you fund' since he'd been saving it up all along to have a cushion that could allow him to go off on his own path after graduation.
And now, as we stood here on this final morning for us to be together before Pete went back to Montana for Christmas, I could feel in every stiff knot in Pete's body how much he was dreading the lion's den of tension with his father that awaited him there.
"I just didn't want to be a mess like this with you today," Pete mumbled into my shoulder when he finally responded to me.
"It's okay," I said, massaging soothing circles into his back. "I'm a mess too."
"But I shouldn't be," Pete straightened up to look at me again. "Because I know this won't be like that summer after freshman year when I never got to talk to you. Mexico City isn't going to be the same as being out in the wilderness, so I know we'll keep talking to each other. All the time actually. But..."
I hugged him tighter. And Pete went on after he exhaled a ragged breath:
"...But I already miss you so bad that I don't know if I can stand it. And we haven't even said goodbye yet."
"But this isn't goodbye. You know that."
My heart was racing now, so I leaned in and kissed Pete, pushing my tongue deep into the warmth of his mouth. Pete's tongue met mine immediately, and we were both breathless by the time that kiss ended.
"God," Pete sighed, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against mine. "I just wanna fast forward through these next nine months so we can be back together at the same place again."
"Babe, don't..." I nudged him to look at me again so he would hear me. "Don't be like that. You gotta live while you're-..."
...- But I couldn't complete that thought because Pete was kissing me again. His lips pressed into mine and muffled out the rest of my words.
My dick stirred to life.
And even through his jeans, I could feel Pete's dick hardening where it was trapped against mine too.
Pete grabbed my hips and pushed me backwards until I fell back into a seat on the bed behind us. Towering over me at the foot of the bed, Pete pulled off the sweatshirt while I fumbled open the button and the fly of his jeans.
Pete was already fully hard.
I leaned forward and took his dick into my mouth, my hands sliding around to grip onto his bare ass and pull him into me.
"Fuucckkk, Max," he groaned as my tongue worked on his shaft.
I pulled off of him, and Pete reached down to shove his jeans down. He got them puddled around his calves, and then he steadied himself with a hand on my shoulder while he pulled them all the way off. I slipped one of my index fingers into my mouth to wet it.
Freed from his restricting clothes, Pete grabbed his dick and guided it back into my mouth. As I took him back in, I reached behind him and pressed my wet finger against his hole.
"Please," he gasped, reaching down to steady my head with both his hands as he fed more of his hard dick down my throat.
I pushed my finger inside Pete.
"Mmmmmmmffffff," I moaned loudly onto his dick. My heart was racing so fast I had to pull up for air.
Pete was breathing heavy too, his eyes pleading with mine while my finger pressed deeper into him. His dick throbbed even fuller in front of my face when I found his prostate.
"Fuuucckkk," I moaned. "You feel so good, Pete. You're all wet."
"It's you," he panted breathlessly, reaching down to rub his dick across my lips. I let just the head inside and teased it with my tongue. "It's you inside me."
I was fucking Pete with my finger now, his ass already lubed up with the three loads of cum I'd fucked into him over the course of the restless night. I could feel my dick aching at how warm and how smooth Pete felt.
"Babe, I want to fuck you again," I said, lifting my mouth off his dick and looking back up at his face from across the sloid planes of muscle in his torso. "Please."
Pete brought his hands to my shoulders and pushed me down until I was laying back on the bed. My finger slipped out of his ass as I dropped backwards, and Pete stood back for a second to look at me splayed out on the bed, bone hard and throbbing, underneath him.
His chest swelling with each breath, Pete's eyes traveled slowly across my body until they met mine.
"I love you," I panted between my own quick breaths.
"I love you too," Pete replied as he crawled onto the bed over me. He planted his knees on either side of my ribs, and my hands reached up to grab his hips, holding him steady as I drank in the view of Pete's hard dick jutting out from his muscled body.
Pete grabbed both of my hands in his and then pulled them off of his hips. He pressed them back over my head and pinned them into the bed as he settled the length of his body on top of mine.
"Fuck, Pete," I moaned as I felt his hard dick digging into mine when he laid on top of me.
I ached to touch him, to feel Pete's soft skin under my fingertips, so I struggled to free my hands from where he'd pinned them over my head. But Pete held them firmly in place as he brought his mouth down to one of my pits.
Pete inhaled deeply before pressing his tongue into my pit.
"Mmmmmmmmm," Pete groaned indistinctly, whatever word that was meant to be lost as his mouth burrowed deeper into my pit.
"Please," I begged, writhing under him because of how fucking sensitive I was there. My hips bucked upwards, mashing my hard dick against his.
"Uggghhh," Pete moaned, lifting his head away so he could breathe. I craned my neck up, and my lips found Pete's. I kissed him. Hard.
Pete finally relaxed his grip on my wrists, so I freed my hands. With one, I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled Pete deeper into that kiss. And with the other, I grabbed onto one of his hips, and urged him to move down lower.
Pete sat back up on top of me, and my lips instantly missed his. Pete looked dazed as he reached behind him and grabbed hold of achingly hard dick.
"Max," he panted through his labored breaths while he guided the head of my dick to press against his hole. "I need you inside me."
His other hand rested on my chest, his fingers digging into my muscle as his ass pushed down onto my dick.
My head slipped past the tight ring of Pete's entrance. I cried out as I entered him again:
"Peeeeeetteee!!"
My hips bucked upward, pushing more of my shaft into the warmth of Pete's ass.
"Fuck me," Pete gasped.
I crunched my abs up into a sit up so I could hug Pete's body against mine while I slid the final few inches of my dick inside him.
Pete wrapped his arms around me, clutching onto me to steady himself as my hips found a rhythm, fucking my dick into the soft, smooth, warmth of his ass.
"Unnnghhhhhh," Pete moaned. Loudly.
He was sweating now, so I dropped my lips down to his neck to lick some of that salty sweet taste of him off of his skin. Then I kissed Pete, our tongues twisting together while I pushed my dick as deep inside of him as I could go at this angle.
"You feel so fucking good," I whispered into his lips when we finally had to come up for air.
"Max... Max," he panted back into mine. Then his hands pressed me backwards to lie back onto the bed again.
My breath caught in my throat as my eyes took in the view that I had of Pete from this angle, burning the image into my memory.
"Fuck, you're so beautiful," I gasped out loud without even meaning.
I couldn't help myself.
I reached up and took Pete's hard dick in my hand. My thumb grazed over his slit, slicking up his head with the pearl of precum that I'd spotted on it. Then I brought my thumb up to my mouth to trace that sticky sweetness over my lips.
"Maaaxxxx..." Pete moaned again as he watched, but his hips didn't miss a single beat as he rode my dick from this new angle.
My dick throbbed impossibly fuller inside Pete when I tasted his precum on my lips.
I grabbed onto Pete's hips with both of hands, my fingers gripping into the tight muscles of his ass. I held Pete steady now, picking up the pace of my thrusts.
"Fuck. Me." Pete groaned, his eyes meeting mine. "I need to cum."
"Cum for me, babe," I panted, pushing myself even deeper inside of him.
Pete reached down and grabbed hold of his dick that had been bobbing wildly between us. He stroked it in unison with my dick pumping into his ass. Once. Twice. Three times until...
"Maaaaaaxxxxxx!!!!!" he roared as the first shot of his load rocketed out of him and streaked across my chest.
"Fuck yes," I moaned as Pete collapsed down on top of me while the next waves of his orgasm washed over him. I could feel Pete's ass clenching even tighter onto my dick as he came.
"Unnnnhhhhhhhh," he moaned into my skin, struggling for breath.
Fuck, I was so close.
I hugged Pete's body against mine and rolled us over so he was on his back underneath me.
Pete lifted his legs up and wrapped them around my waist, his ankles digging into my back and pulling me deeper into him.
"Max..." he panted, still breathing hard in unison with me.
"Pete," I groaned. Any other words escaped me as all of my senses tunneled down to the sensations of my dick inside of Pete.
"Please, Max," Pete moaned, his hands gripping onto my head and guiding my lips back to his.
Pete kissed me.
I pushed inside him one last time.
And I held onto Pete for dear life as it all crashed over me.
Christmas Eve, Junior Year
Sunset blazed across the cloudless horizon, fanning out in smoldering shades of orange and pink and yellow and purple. But the warmth of those colors didn't at all match how frigid the air actually was on this clear New Mexico evening late in December. Shivering inside my Jeep, I could see my breath floating in thin white wisps in front of my face as I pulled over on the side of the highway near the edge of town. I parked, and Wiley stirred restless in the passenger seat next to me, confused about why we would stop but not get out of the car to explore.
"Just chill, buddy," I whispered over to him. I scratched the thick fur behind his ears until he circled into a seat with his nose pressed expectantly against the window. "I gotta be quick."
From my backpack stashed on the floor below Wiley, I pulled out my battered laptop with the fraying duct tape just barely holding it together. I cracked it open delicately against the steering wheel, powered it on, and started typing:
"Pete,"
"I know you're gonna be pissed that I'm writing to you right now. And I know you deserve something that's a way better present than just an email from me crashing on your Christmas- especially when you're hurting so much. But damn it, I can't stop thinking about you. So go ahead and call me a selfish asshole again, but I promise I'm only sending this because there's a point I think you need to hear."
"And while you're already pissed at me, I'll just dig myself in even deeper and start that point with probably the last thing you want to read about: how it still fuckin' haunts me how much I fucked up that summer after freshman year. I can't help it. Being back here, I keep thinking about it over and over again, like somehow it'll make me understand how I could mess everything up so badly. Even with the best of intentions. Even with me thinking I finally had shit figured out. Even with everything I did making so much sense at the time. And, yeah, it's easy now to see how much of an idiot I was looking back on it. But 20/20 hindsight on the past doesn't erase it or make it any better, no matter how much I wish I'd never hurt you. Or anyone else. Fuck, you gotta know I'd crawl over broken glass all the way to Montana if it meant I could have a do-over. But shit isn't that easy. I can't fix the past, and I know I can't fix the present or take away what's hurting you now."
"But thinking about how I fucked up that summer might not be completely pointless because it did make me realize I understand something now that I didn't get back then. And that's helping me to see that there is something I can do that might make a difference for the future- a difference that I hope will make what's coming suck a little bit less. So go ahead and be pissed at me. And go ahead and hate what I'm about to tell you. I know it's gonna make you mad, but please listen anyway. The fact that you won't want to hear this is exactly why I need to say it:"
I paused my typing there as I fumbled for the next words, acutely conscious of time slipping away from me along with the light fading on the horizon. Wiley could sense how agitated I was, so he whimpered and wedged his head between my hands and the keyboard, insisting that I pet him. My fingers scratched around in Wiley's soft fur restlessly as though the words for what was sitting so heavy in my gut were hidden somewhere in there. After a minute, I shook my head to jolt myself out of the fog blocking my thoughts, let out a deep breath, and started typing again as my heart pounded faster inside my chest...
"Don't let missing me make you miss out on being in Mexico."
"And I'm telling you that because I know being apart for so long will be fucking hard. I won't even try to sugarcoat it since we both feel how much it sucks already. But I'm not worried about me. And I'm not worried about us. Because being away from each other is not the worst thing. No, the worst thing would be if you wasted this opportunity to be somewhere with a real blank slate for the first time in your life by doing nothing with that time but moping around about how I'm not there too."
"And it was thinking about that summer again now that helped me to realize THAT'S what's actually worrying me: the possibility that this time in Mexico won't be what you need it to be if you never let yourself focus on really being there. Fuck, that's not how I want these next few months to be for you. At all. And as I've thought back about what you were probably feeling at the end of freshman year when you said you wanted me to just have a summer, I think it might've been something like this fear I have now. You'd just watched me get worn down and knocked around by my freshman year, but then you knew I was about to have a chance to shake it off and pick myself back up when I went back home. So I think part of the reason why you thought it was important to tell me what you did back then is that you wanted me to know that it was okay for me to take that chance for a reset. And, well, that's exactly how I'm feeling when I think about you now. You need this, Pete. You're doing this for a reason. And it makes me sick to my fucking heart to see you down like you have been ever since things blew up with your dad, so I want this time in Mexico to be something that lifts you up. But that won't ever happen if your head is always preoccupied with missing me or if you just spend all your time there on the phone with me. So I want you to hear that it's okay for you to focus on yourself and on making these next few months what you need them to be. And if you're too stubborn to listen to me about this, then I hope you'll at least listen to yourself:"
"Do what you will, always
Walk where you like, your steps
Do as you please
I'll back you up"
"You meant it when you told me the same thing, right? Well, I mean it too. I don't want these next few months to become something you regret because this time doesn't end up being what you need. Trust me, I know now after the hole I dug us into that summer and fall what it feels like to look back on a period of my life wishing I could take it back and do it all over again, and that's not something I'd ever want for you."
"And before you start to worry and read the wrong thing into this, let me be clear: I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to me or write to me while you're there. I know that we will. And I'm not saying that we should break up or that we should see other people either. That's the last thing I want. What I do want is for you to be yourself there. I want you to go out and explore the city. I want you to make friends and to have adventures so we'll have more to talk about than just how much we miss each other. Time flies when you're having fun, right? So let yourself have fun, and then the time for you to come flying back to me will be here soon enough."
"Okay, I'll stop now with this self-indulgence that I'm sure is only pissing you off since I'm obviously not paying attention to my family by sneaking away from them to write this to you. I gotta wrap this up and go get ready for mass because my abuela will be mega pissed if I don't clean up and look decent for baby Jesus tonight. But hear this and know this, Pete: I love you. I love you so fucking much my chest is getting tight and my palms are sweating just typing that. I wish I could be there with you right now. I wish I could hug you and get you off and make you laugh and do whatever else it takes to make you feel good. Because I've got just one Christmas prayer this year. And it's for you to be happy. It's all I'll be thinking about when I'm lighting the farolitos and singing at mass."
"Love and a Merry Christmas,
Max"
I exhaled slowly as I saved the email draft. Then I stashed my laptop in my backpack and drove the rest of the way back to my grandparents' house where my dad's whole side of the family was gathered together for the holiday.
Wiley bounded ahead of me straight up to the front door as soon as I parked and let him out of the Jeep, not even bothering to sniff around outside. He was wagging his tail and dancing with an eagerness he couldn't contain when I caught up to him and opened the door.
A blast of warm air and a jumble of laughter and overlapping conversations flooded over me as soon as I stepped inside the house. Lu, the toddler daughter of one of my cousins, yelped with joy and ran up to greet us in her Christmas dress as soon as she saw Wiley barreling through the door. Wiley had already picked Lu out as his easiest mark for sneaking some human food at this particular family gathering, so he laid down at her feet and gave his best pleading puppy dog eyes to shamelessly beg for one of the biscochitos she was holding in her hands now.
I caught up with them just in time to scoop up Lu before she dropped one of those cookies into Wiley's waiting mouth.
"Hey, where's tio Tom?" I asked her.
She pointed towards the living room, so I carried her over there on my hip with Wiley hot on our heels.
In the living room, I spotted Tom among the crowd of my uncles and cousins who were gathered to watch the game playing on the TV. Wiley abandoned hope of sneaking any cookies from Lu with this many people around watching, so he circled to a seat by my dad's feet with a resigned sigh.
Tom smirked up at me knowingly as I deposited Lu into his lap when he noticed that I had my backpack slung over my shoulder.
"Watch the game with tio Tom for a minute, okay?" I said to Lu as I handed her off to my brother.
"Did you ask tio Miliano how his run was?" Tom asked her as he started bouncing her around playfully on his knee.
"Did you go fast?" Lu asked me, giggling in delight while Tom's knee bounced faster and faster under her.
"Super fast!!" I replied brightly, twisting my face up into a silly expression that got a big laugh out of her. "But now I gotta be fast again and get myself ready so I can look nice for church too."
I pointedly ignored that smirk that was still stuck on Tom's face as I turned to head out of the room.
I peeked into the kitchen on my way back to the bedroom my family was sharing for the weekend. My mom, aunts, and grandmother were huddled together over the counter stuffing a mountain of tamales.
"Hey, mom, do you need anything in here?" I called out.
She looked up and nodded over to the dirty dishes piled on the counter by the stove where there were even more tamales already steaming next to a massive pot of pozole. "Help," she said simply.
"I got it," I agreed. "I'm just gonna shower real quick."
I made my way back to the bedroom and closed the door behind me. I fished my laptop out of my backpack, connected it to the internet, and pasted the message to Pete I'd drafted into an email. Then, just as I clicked the `send' button, I was startled by a loud banging on the bedroom door behind me.
"Seriously, Miliano, quit jerking off and get out here!" my brother's voice called out loudly. "I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't hurry the fuck up!!"
Then, the door swung open and Tom stepped inside with that smirk still plastered on his face as he closed the door behind him.
"... And I'm really going to kick your ass if you forgot to wish Pete a merry Christmas from me too," he added now that we were alone.
"Relax," I rolled my eyes up at Tom while I put away my laptop. "He knows."
The rest of the night flew by in a too-quick succession of my family's boisterous Christmas Eve traditions. And, mercifully, they did help to distract my mind from the ever-present ache I felt at missing Pete. But even with as hard as I was trying to keep my focus on being here in the present, I couldn't successfully resist the urge to sneak back onto my laptop after we returned from mass to check if I had a message from Pete.
And, sure enough, there was already a reply to my email waiting there in my inbox tonight:
"Max,"
"I call bullshit."
"You're giving me some good advice, but then you undermine it completely by immediately doing the exact opposite of it yourself. So, yes, I have no choice but to call you a selfish asshole since you still keep trying to act like it's your job to fix everything for me. But I do hear you. And I hear you because it really did piss me off that you snuck away from your family on Christmas Eve to write to me. All I want to do right now is scream at you to shut the fuck up, quit worrying about me, and just focus on enjoying being where you are now at home with your family... So, your point exactly."
"Ugh. Even Christmas isn't slowing Dad down with the tear he's been on. I'm wiped from all the walking around on eggshells I've had to do here this week, but I'll call you sometime tomorrow when I can be alone- probably in the afternoon when I go out snowboarding. In the meantime, please laugh at this fresh example of how much of a crazy person I am: I made a snowman hidden away in a spot out on the ranch where no one else ever goes, and I named it Max. Whenever I can't stand the bullshit inside this house anymore, I'll slip out there to talk to it and pretend that you're here with me. And so when I say that your email made me mad enough that I wanted to scream, I wasn't exaggerating. I just got back inside from yelling at a snowman in the dead of night that he needs to shut up so he and his family can have a merry Christmas."
"But there's one more thing I told snowman Max tonight that I'll repeat to you now too since I know for a fact that you love hearing all the sappy stuff way more than you'll ever admit: I love you so fucking much it hurts. In the best possible way."
"Pete"
"ps. For the love of God on Christmas, quit beating yourself up about that summer. We've been over this. I forgive you. About damn time you forgive yourself. Grrrr."
To be continued.