Home for the Summer (BOYXBOY)

44 | A Shorter Breath of Day

It was 7 PM when Nico and I took a walk past the expanse of trees, through our muddy block of earth, and to the shore.

It wasn't like the beach outside of my house. The sand looked like nobody had touched it. Until us. We sat against it, hand in hand, and watched the sun bleed down into the sea. Neither of us had to say anything. The sight was big enough to quiet our thoughts.

I let my mind soften as I watched stars pop into the sky, and only then did I feel this overwhelming contentment. In a week, Nicolas would be gone. In two, I'd begin my senior year of high school. In no time, my life would become a timeline of submitting college applications and struggling with homework and saving money, but right then, I was perfectly and unwaveringly happy. Beside the boy I loved, in front of a world I knew we'd one day conquer, I didn't need to worry anymore. Everything would work out. Because, it had to. Because, I wanted to believe it would.

We walked back to our tent in the dark. I wasn't scared.

"Do you ever wonder why your parents named you Apollo?" Nico asked me, balancing on a tree log.

I gave him a shrug and continued through the woods. "I don't know. I think they might've just liked the name."

"What does your name mean?"

"A couple of things. Sunlight, prophecy, poetry."

"So, you're destined to be a poet, then."

I smiled. "The name was probably my mom's idea. She's a romantic."

"My grandpa's name was Nicolas. Not much romance in that."

"Well, I think naming someone after someone else is incredibly human." I stopped, watching the sun fade away completely above us before continuing. "I mean, think about it: Your mom saw something in you that reminded her of her dad and named you after him. That's beautiful."

"It is," he nodded. "I just wish I had a name that was my own. A word for me."

"You do," I grinned. "Nico."

When we got back to the tent, we finished off a couple of sandwiches and struck a fire. Nico looked older in the red glow of the flames, like he had already lived through this upcoming school year and could tell me all about it: All he regretted and loved and cried over. The fire painted him wise. I took a mental picture of him then.

When we went into the tent at 9, we didn't sleep. There was a thunder in our chests that neither of us could shake, so we made out for a while, and had sex, and laid in each other's arms, and had sex again. After a while, Nico's eyes began to blink closed and I watched his chest rise and fall through sleep. There was something indescribable about his beauty. It wasn't just the look of a boy I thought was attractive, but of a boy who had lived through hell and knew what it felt like and still- somehow- smiled. He was beautiful, and radiant, and everything a survivor should be. He was the sun.

I didn't want to leave that tent in the morning, but I felt called out by the sky. Nicolas stayed asleep inside as I left. The air felt so crisp, like I could bite into it. Something in my throat told me to yell and if my boyfriend wasn't asleep, maybe I would've. Instead, I watched the sun and the clouds and the earth for a while longer, and eventually, we packed up our things.

Nicolas and I spent an hour carving our initials into a couple of trees before we left. I just kept looking over at him and thinking, this is it. This is love, and I'm feeling it, and my entire body is swimming in it. We marked as much of the world as we could before saying goodbye to the sky and driving home again.

***

"Apollo, you're spacing out," Benji said. We were all sitting in my bedroom: Me, Nico, Benji, Izzy, and Rowan. Everyone had already gotten their pre-school haircuts and, suddenly, it felt like the five of us had grown up. I wondered when the people around me stopped being kids and why I hadn't been paying attention.