Chapter 13: 10 | erstwhile

USUALLY HE WAS okay with humoring his best friend’s tendency to over-exaggerate the talent quotient of his favorite musicians (who changed on a weekly basis), but as Tobi gushed on about some new up-and-comer Spotify had recommended to him, Wyatt couldn’t muster the energy to pretend like he cared.

“They are the next big thing I’m telling you,” Tobi surmised, by all indications oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t been listening.

When his statement received no reply he managed to look up from his phone for long enough to tap Wyatt, who remained unresponsive, sulking.

They were seated outside and it was Friday; the mere fact which, on a normal day would’ve been enough to cheer him up for long enough to forget that he had real life teenage problems. Fridays to him symbolized choice: a gateway to two carefree days of partying, hooking up with cute boys, or just staying indoors in an oversized sweater, curled up with a cup of tea as he watched reruns of Desperate Housewives.

Even hours of listlessly scrolling through Instagram or going to stir up trouble on stan Twitter would’ve sounded like heaven if Rashad’s last text hadn’t sucked from him his capacity for excitement.

Please don’t text me anymore.

In a span of hours those words had taken on the form of some faceless, six two-ish person, and in his head they rang with the clarity of church bells, repeated on and on until they dissolved into one long and indiscernible chant. He hadn’t slept a wink the entire night, kept up in his consideration of not just the words themselves but their subtexts and ramifications.

Don’t text me anymore Carter. Seriously, don’t.

Okay, no, I don’t want us to talk because you’re clingy. Cute, but psycho… but still cute though.

I don’t want be with you. To you love is not just love, it is a religion. Nobody’s going to want to hook up with you, you know.

After smashing his phone to pieces his dad had walked up to his bedroom, heavy footsteps stopping only when they got to his door, and then tentatively asked if he was okay; a question he hadn’t answered.

Sprawled out on his bed, Wyatt’s stomach began to growl, and after considering the pros (eating) and cons (ruining his last word status) of leaving his room he decided to remain locked in, which was in itself problematic as he was left with nothing but his damaged phone and nonexistent dignity for company. He went to sleep in a bad mood and woke up feeling even worse.

On one hand he understood the rationale behind Rashad’s reasons. Hell, he would’ve broken up with himself if he could. His sheer disregard of logic and basic self-respect every time he found himself in a relationship was not a habit that was lost on Wyatt.

He was aware it when he got into fights with Tobi over whoever he was with. He knew it when he sent texts that read hey, i miss u or nudes to catch the attention of the other person each time he felt that they were growing distant.

There was something deeply flawed in him, he knew, for feeling that left alone or abandoned he would waste away to nothing, his identity sloughing off like dead skin. To see himself he’d need to look in through lenses of how others viewed him.

Wyatt knew these things but had never raised a finger to change any of it, and he wasn’t about to either, so he occupied himself by mulling over the way things had ended with Rashad. How jagged and complicated the closure he had asked for felt.

“Tobi,” he asked all of a sudden, surprising even himself. “Tell me what you think about Canyon?”

His best friends brow furrowed in confusion, before immediately smoothening out.

“Canyon Gomez,” Tobi clarified, “the dude who transferred here?”

Wyatt nodded.

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess he’s kinda making waves considering that he just got here and everyone knows him. He’s a’ight.”

Wyatt said nothing, knowing there was more to come, and he was not to be disappointed.

“Okay,” Tobi began, subtly leaning forward as he pulled his AirPods out of his ears. “So my lab partner, Becky has a cousin who goes to his school at California, right? And she tells me he was their―I quote her on this―‘golden boy’ over there.”

“I’m listening,” he prodded, leaning forward to match

“And, he actually left because,” Wyatt held his breath, “he needed some change. No scandal, nothing shady. Apparently he comes from this super loaded Mexican family. You could try looking them up.”

Wyatt nodded, deciding he probably would as he thought on this new morsel of information. As intended, all thoughts of exes and wrecked iPhones had flown out of his mind.

“Don’t tell me you’re into him.” Tobi groaned, throwing a leveled look at him as he made to put in his AirPods back. “After everything that happened with McCain I think you really need to return to your No Dating Boys Who Go to Mayfield rule. Things were complicated with Everett but not this complicated.”

He’d only dated two boys from Mayfield before Rashad: Lukas Brandt and Everett Conner. The latter was now in college, but they’d been on and off through Wyatt’s sophomore year until he decided he was actually straight. The former was a topic he rarely ever let his mind wander to. Not even Tobi knew.

“And, even if you wanted to go down that road, isn’t Canyon straight?”

Wyatt threw him a smile that could’ve meant anything, and in the silence that followed he considered what steps he would take from there on out.

“Speak of the devil,” he heard Tobi murmur and turned just in time to watch as Canyon cut a path through the courtyard with what appeared to be a posse. It looked like he’d integrated himself well since the last time they spoke, which wasn’t that much of a surprise seeing as he’d apparently been popular at his old school.

Wyatt would’ve rolled his eyes at the cliché, except he too had fallen victim to his magnetism.

True, he wasn’t conventionally handsome, with his dark eyes and a face full of freckles; but he was also tall with broad shoulders which deliciously filled out his Mayfield uniform, and eyes clung to him as he unselfconsciously threw his head back and laughed at something the girl beside him was saying, giving a momentary flash of blinding white teeth. For a second the emptiness in Wyatt seemed to pause, and his heart fluttered, pulling it to a full stop.

He’d learnt a long time ago to accept that among its many other complexities it was possible for the heart to multitask when it came to managing the finite set of emotions presented to the human race.

It was foreign, for example, to experience grief and desire in one fell swoop―and while he wasn’t sure exactly what it was he felt at that very moment (love at first sight, or lust) he recognized the heady feeling of attraction.

“You’re so thirsty,” Tobi chastised with a slight smile and shake of his head. “If we weren’t friends since preschool I’d think you were a Typhoid Mary or something.” He added in a stage whisper, “I’m still not sure you aren’t.”

Wyatt was about to reach over and punch him when all of a sudden he felt a prickling sensation settle over him, and sure enough when he turned it was to find the object of his desire was looking at him. A staring match ensued, accompanied with the pulse of something electric, which he’d felt form between them the day they first met. It stretched, rippled, and then pulled taunt.

A stretch of time passed before Canyon excused himself from his group of friends before breaking away from them and making a beeline straight for Wyatt, who looked away all too late, refraining from patting down his hair.

“How do I look?” he murmured to Tobi, who shrugged.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?” Wyatt pressed, gripped by a sudden need to receive validation.

“Good,” Tobi corrected through the mouthful of pasta he’d forked down. Swallowing, he pasted on a bright smile as he sat up. “My man,” he greeted, holding out his palm for a handshake. “What’s good my man?”

Wyatt let himself fade into the background as both boys delved into a sequence of complicated handshakes.

“Oliver,” Canyon said as they rounded the whole thing up in one of those bro hug maneuvers which had always appeared so homoerotic Wyatt. But then, everything looked gay to him.

“Hey, Carter,” he murmured, voice taking on an intimate tinge as he lowered himself down onto the bench beside him.

Wyatt offered up his hand for a half-hearted shake, and was therefore taken by surprise at the other boy’s strong grip. He felt a shiver run down his spine as he pulled away, and in the way of those aware of their overall effect Canyon shot him a playful smile.

A major instinct honed from all their years of friendship, was that they both knew when each other’s presence was beginning to constitute a nuisance and whether or not he wanted to, Tobi excused himself.

“How have you been?” Canyon began now that they’d been left alone. “I messaged you a while ago on Instagram, and you may or may not have seen that.”

So he was petty. Interesting.

“Sorry about that,” Wyatt answered with an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve kind of been swamped lately, so I took a social media break.”

Also, he added mentally, my ex-boyfriend told me he didn’t want to speak with me anymore and so I destroyed my phone. Yes, I’m still sane. Thank you for asking.

“Oh,” Canyon said, “figured it was probably something like that or my text got lost in the hundreds of requests you probably leave hanging.”

“I mean, that,” Wyatt teased, grateful for the feeling of ease he felt envelope him at that very moment. For the first time that day, he didn’t feel like bursting into tears or going on a rampage.

“But let me rectify,” he continued, motioning at Canyon to pass his phone. “Mine fell into water this morning, and we didn’t have a bag of rice at home, so that’s history.”

“Damn, sorry,” Canyon grimaced, fiddling around with his for a bit before handing it over to reveal the Instagram login page, where Wyatt put in his details, pushing the blue login option.

“Your four thousand followers will not be happy to hear that.”

“Five thousand,” Wyatt corrected smugly, turning the phone to Canyon so he could see. The latter squinted at his screen, shook his head and then stood up and slid into the bench beside Wyatt to get a better look.

“Five point one, actually. Look at you out here being Mr. Popular, go Carter.”

“Stop it,” he replied, trying and failing to recall the last time he’d smiled for so long and actually meant it.

There were a little over thirty message requests, several of which happened to be from spam run accounts, and he scrolled until he spotted Canyon (@chasingxcanyons), who, by all indication had texted him exactly a day after they met at the infirmary. It read: Hey! Sorry I forgot to get your number in the rush of today, lol.

He accepted the request, quickly typed in his number, and then on a whim he tapped on the account and felt his jaw drop.

“What the fuck?”

“What?” Canyon frowned, and then his expression eased up when he realized Wyatt’s discovery.

Canyon’s profile read that he had over forty-four thousand followers and followed only about seven hundred―one of whom happened to be him.

“I get around, I guess.”

“A lot, apparently,” Wyatt added, logging out of his profile and returning the phone to its owner, who slid it into his shirt pocket and then shifted imperceptibly and that their knees bumped.

They were sat so close that Wyatt noticed tiny details he otherwise wouldn’t have, like the almost imperceptible beauty mark that sat just above his top lip, below the shadow of a mustache.

“I never noticed this,” he murmured, lifting a finger, which he let hover for a split second before brushing over the spot.

He took in the bobbing motion of Canyon’s Adam’s apple, and pulled his hand away, letting it fall to his lap.

“You never looked close enough,” was the reply he got, and then and there he would’ve bet on everything of value he had to his name that Canyon wasn’t straight.

Seeming to realize that they were in public, Canyon cleared his throat and sat back.

“So,” he recovered, “the reason I came over in the first place. What’re your plans tonight?”

Was he… was he about to get asked out on a date?

Wyatt concealed his surprise well and pretended to think on it.

“Well, I’m pretty booked and busy,” he said, “but that could change if you tell me what you have in mind.”

“A party,” Canyon said, and it took him a moment to register that he hadn’t heard something more along the lines of the best night of your life.

“A party?” he asked to be sure, and when he received a nod Wyatt deflated, watching his hopes of cozy seventies-themed restaurants wash away in a wave of disappointment. Then a thought crossed his mind and he perked up.

“I’m intrigued,” he said, stapling his fingers together.

“My friends and a couple others are hanging out tonight,” Canyon said. “Nothing fancy, but we’re allowed to bring someone and I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

“Can Tobi come along?” Wyatt approached.

“Oliver? Yeah, sure,” he said in a measured tone, adding, “If you want him to.”

In other words: no, please.

“So,” Canyon pushed once a reasonable amount of time had passed, “will you clear up your schedule?”

Wyatt pretended to consider, thoughtfully rubbing at his chin. “How will I get there though? I don’t have bike or anything.”

“No worries. I’ll just swing by your place and pick you up.”

“You know my place?” Wyatt asked, alarmed, and Canyon rose up his hands in a show of surrender.

“No, I don’t, which is why you’ll tell me.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to mention that he was grounded, but he realized that letting slip this morsel of information would lead down a line of questioning he was in no way interested in entertaining―so he nodded in acquiesce and Canyon beamed, giving an adorable whoop of triumph before quickly composing himself upon noticing that his shout had drawn curious stares.

Outwardly, Wyatt gave a long suffering sigh, but inside him it felt like his heart had been pumped full of helium and it now floated out over his rib cage, lodging itself in his throat.