Ethan woke early to the sound of squirrels running up the old copper downspouts.
The room was gray, the kind of thin morning light that made everything look like it was waiting. The air through the cracked window felt fresher than it had in days, carrying the faint smell of cut grass from the quad. Somewhere distant, a lawn mower grumbled to life too early, then cut off again.
Tyler was still asleep beside him, one arm thrown across his face, the sheet twisted around his waist. For a moment Ethan just lay there, listening—to the slow, even rise and fall of Tyler’s chest, to the building’s old bones settling, to the low murmur of voices floating up from outside as early-arrival parents staked out parking.
He eased out of bed, careful not to jostle Tyler, and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Mark’s bed was still empty, his grandmother’s insistence on “everyone under one roof” winning out over convenience. The Coke-can ashtray sat on the sill, quarter beside it, both catching the weak light.
Tyler blinked awake as Ethan laced his shoes.
“What time is it?” Tyler mumbled.
“Too early.”
“So… graduation time,” Tyler said.
“Pretty much.”
Tyler pushed himself up onto his elbows. “You okay?”
Ethan thought about it, the way he’d answered that question so many times that year with a lie he almost believed himself. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I am.”
“Good.” Tyler yawned. “Go watch the circus. I’ll find coffee and try not to let Clay assign me to ice duty.”
They continued the joke even though Clay was finally graduating this year, ready to hand his clipboard off to someone else.
“See you out there.”
Tyler reached over, hooked two fingers lightly around Ethan’s wrist, and tugged him down for a quick kiss—simple and unhurried, like they’d been doing it for years.
“Don’t cry when they throw their caps,” Tyler said. “I don’t want to have to console you in public.”
“I’ll keep it together.”
By ten, the campus was dressed for ceremony.
White folding chairs spread in tight, disciplined rows across the quad, legs biting into the damp grass. At the far end, a temporary stage had been built over the worn slate path, draped in bunting and the college seal. The fountain ran again, throwing mist into the air that turned gold whenever the sun broke through the clouds.
Parents appeared in clusters, holding program booklets and Ukrop’s bags of snacks. Professors in polyester robes drifted toward the faculty section, adjusting their hoods, pretending not to be checking the time. Someone from the music department had assembled a brass ensemble under a canopy; the warm-up scales floated thin and bright over the murmuring crowd.
Ethan stood by the fountain, watching the water fall back into itself, hands wrapped around a paper cup of bad coffee.
Jason found him there, robe unzipped over his blazer, mortarboard in his hand.
“You look like a man waiting for a verdict,” Jason said.
“Just waiting.”
Jason handed him another cup. “Enjoy it. This is the one day we’re allowed to be sentimental and blame it on tradition.”
“You think you won’t be?”
“I already have a job in Richmond,” Jason said. “Pretending’s practically in the job description.”
Jason glanced toward the gathering line of black robes forming near the library steps.
“I should go let them alphabetize me,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to miss my big moment of getting a blank diploma case.”
He clapped Ethan’s shoulder. “See you on the other side, Harris.”
Ethan watched him jog up the walkway, robe flapping, swallowed easily by the long black line of seniors.
He found a spot near the back of the quad, where the rows of chairs met the heat of the sidewalk. The sun pressed down; the stones warmed beneath his shoes.
The bell rang—abrupt, unceremonious.
The brass band lurched into “Pomp and Circumstance.” The line of seniors began to move, robes whispering as they shuffled towards the stage.
From where he stood, Ethan could pick out familiar frames: Jason’s tall silhouette, Clay’s stiff shoulders, Luke’s lazy swagger, Tyler’s wave from across the crowd. And Eli—of course — was two rows from the front, taller than most of the students around him. His posture was perfect, shoulders relaxed just enough to signal confidence, tassel already angled like he knew where the cameras would be. Even from behind, Ethan could read the effort it took to look that effortless.
He tried not to stare. He failed.
The speeches washed over them—President, Board Chair, some retired judge who had donated money and therefore earned the right to be long-winded. Words like opportunity and responsibility and tradition floated in the thickening heat. The crowd responded where it was supposed to—polite laughter here, murmured assent there.
A grandmother in the row behind Ethan cried in quiet, steady intervals, dabbing at her cheeks with a balled-up tissue that left white lint on her face.
One by one, the seniors crossed the stage—shook hands, accepted empty cases, posed for a picture, smiled for their mothers, blinked into the bright future everyone promised them.
Ethan clapped with everyone else, but not for the stage. For the year that had somehow not ruined him.
When it was his turn, Ethan watched him, the tilt of his chin, the small, unguarded softness to his mouth for that one second. Then someone called another name, and the spell broke.
After the recessional, the quad fractured into a dozen different scenes.
Families clustered around the fountain, around the bell, under the magnolias. Faculty dodged hugs. Siblings threw confetti. Alumni tried to make small talk with each other without admitting they’d already forgotten names.
Jason found him again under the magnolia, robe half-unzipped now, cigar tucked behind his ear.
“You made it,” Jason said.
“So did you.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “They haven’t revoked it yet. Give ’em time.”
He pulled the cigar out, lit it with a practiced flick. “You did good this year, Harris.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“That’s how you know you’re not delusional,” Jason said. He took a drag, then handed the lighter to Ethan without thinking. “Hold that a second.”
It was a cheap Bic, not anything important, but the motion made something shift in Ethan’s chest anyway. Objects meant different things now.
“Where you headed?” Jason asked.
“Home. Then back in August.”
Jason nodded as if he’d already known. “Good. This place needs people who see it clearly and stay.”
“And you?”
“Richmond. Beige conference rooms. Middle management. Glamour.”
Ethan huffed out a small laugh. “You’ll survive.”
“Barely,” Jason said. “But barely counts.”
He clenched the cigar between his teeth. “Listen,” he said, turning serious. “We didn’t talk about it much, but… I saw what this year did to you. And what you didn’t let it do. That matters. If you ever need anything, you call me. Doesn’t have to be about this place. Doesn’t have to be about… any of it. Just call.”
“I don’t have your number,” Ethan said.
Jason smiled. “I wrote it in your Orgo book.”
“Jason—”
“Don’t make it weird,” Jason said. “I’m older. It’s my job to be sentimental in ways that will make you roll your eyes later.”
He drifted to the edge of the crowd instead, toward the shade.
That’s where Eli found him.
He’d ditched his robe, sleeves rolled, tie loosened, hair damp at the temples. He held the silver lighter from Bid Night—more nicked now, the shine dulled—but unmistakable.
“Guess this belongs to you,” Eli said.
Ethan looked at it but didn’t take it. “I never asked for it.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You sure you don’t need it where you’re going?”
“No,” Eli said. “I’m done lighting things on fire.”
Catherine’s voice carried across the crowd, calling his name like it was a performance. Eli glanced back.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You too.”
He pressed the lighter into Ethan’s palm. Their fingers brushed—just enough to register—and then Eli stepped away, swallowed by the blur of pastel dresses and camera flashes.
Ethan stood there a long moment, the lighter cool and heavy in his hand.
It wasn’t enough, not for everything that had passed between them. It wasn’t an apology, or an explanation, or a confession. But it was what he could give.
The lighter sat in Ethan’s palm, cool and small and heavier than it should have been.
The Delta Chi house after graduation smelled like beer and barbecue and whatever cologne a dozen boys had been given for Christmas two years ago.
Parents spilled out onto the porch, balancing paper plates loaded with ham biscuits and deviled eggs. Alumni leaned against the railings, cigars in hand, telling minor variations of the same stories they’d been telling since they were the ones in the basement scraping vomit out of the carpet.
Inside, the air was cooler, the music quieter. Somebody had put on a playlist that tried to split the difference between parental approval and nostalgia—Eagles, some old Springsteen, the occasional Hootie track everyone pretended not to like.
Ethan moved through it on autopilot—refilling ice, answering where-are-you-from-again questions, accepting praise for surviving a year that had almost broken him without correcting anyone’s assumptions about what that meant.
Tyler found him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, staring at a tray of sweating cheese cubes like they held the secret to the universe.
“You look like you’re planning a heist,” Tyler said.
“Just contemplating the lifespan of room-temperature cheddar,” Ethan replied.
“You want to get out of here for a bit?” Tyler asked. “Walk?”
“Can’t,” Ethan said. “Clay already caught me trying to leave once. Said I’m part of the decor until at least three.”
“Human centerpiece,” Tyler said. “Rough gig.”
He reached out, straightened the edge of Ethan’s tie. The touch was small, casual, but it sent a quiet jolt through him.
“Later then,” Tyler said. “I’ll rescue you once the old guard thins out.”
He squeezed Ethan’s elbow—quick, grounding—and disappeared back into the doorway.
Ethan stayed another half hour, maybe more. Time stretched in that particular way it did at events that weren’t for you but required your body as proof something had been accomplished.
He was refilling a cooler when he felt someone watching him.
Mark stood in the doorway to the den, hands in his pockets, hair slightly messed from someone’s grandmother hugging him too hard. His tie was crooked; his eyes were clearer than they’d been in the dorm.
He jerked his chin toward the hallway.
It wasn’t an invitation. It wasn’t exactly a command either. Ethan followed.
The den was half-dark, only one lamp on in the corner. The noise from outside came in blurred, as if the walls had decided to muffle the specifics out of mercy.
Mark stood by the window, curtain shifted just enough to see the lawn.
“I’m not ambushing you,” Mark said, before Ethan could say anything. “I just didn’t want to do this in front of my parents. Or yours. Or whoever counts as whose now.”
“Okay,” Ethan said cautiously.
“I saw you with him,” Mark said. “Out there. Under the tree.”
“With Eli,” Ethan said.
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Him.”
He let the curtain fall, turned. “He gave you that stupid lighter?”
Ethan’s hand tightened around it in his pocket. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Mark said. “One less thing in his room for Mom to cry over when she finds it.”
There was venom in the line, but it wasn’t aimed squarely at Ethan.
“I’m still mad,” Mark said. “Just so we’re clear.”
“I know.”
“But,” Mark went on, “I don’t… I’m not sitting around thinking you seduced my innocent brother and ruined his life anymore. That was a nice fantasy for, like, five minutes. Then I remembered who he is.”
Ethan almost smiled. “Who is he?”
“A guy who’s been lying to himself longer than any of this has been going on,” Mark said. “Even I can see that now.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I still feel like an idiot. And I still don’t know what to do with the fact that you and I lived in the same ten-by-twelve room all year and I never figured it out. That’s on me.”
“It’s not your job to figure me out,” Ethan said quietly. “Or him.”
“Maybe not,” Mark said. “But I wanted to believe I knew the two people I spent the most time with. Turns out, I didn’t know either of you as well as I thought.”
He shifted his weight, looking suddenly older in a way that had nothing to do with the gown hanging on a hook by the door. “I meant what I said the other night. I don’t hate you. I don’t forgive you either, because I’m not sure there’s anything to forgive. I’m just… not there yet.”
“That’s fair,” Ethan said.
“But I don’t think this is the end,” Mark added. “You and me. I think one day we’re going to be drunk at some reunion, giving each other shit for our receding hairlines, and this will be… part of the story. Not the whole thing.”
“Yeah?” Ethan said.
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Assuming we survive year two.”
He smirked, briefly, like the old Mark showing through a crack.
From outside, his mother’s voice floated in, calling his name, stretching it into two syllables.
“I gotta go let my grandmother tell me I look handsome ‘like your brother did at that age,’” Mark said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye. I’ll take that personally.”
“I won’t,” Ethan said.
Mark hesitated at the doorway. “You staying?” he asked. “Next year?”
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “I am.”
Mark nodded once. “Good.”
He disappeared back into the noise. The door swung half-shut behind him, the lamp’s halo shrinking.
Ethan stood there a moment longer, letting his shoulders drop.
By Monday, the Row looked stripped.
Tents were gone. Banners came down, leaving sun-faded rectangles on white paint. The lawn bore the scars: patches of dead grass where coolers had sat, ruts where someone had tried to drive out before the ground was dry.
McClintock’s hallways smelled like dust and bleach. Doors stood open, exposing bare rooms in various stages of abandonment. Someone had left a milk crate full of mixtapes in the lounge with a paper sign that just said TAKE.
Ethan’s side of the room fit into three boxes and a duffel: clothes, books, the lamp, a few odds and ends that didn’t belong anywhere else. His white coat brochure from pre-med advising sat folded in one of the boxes, more question mark than map.
Mark’s half was already empty. The Coke-can ashtray, the quarter, and a lone Westmore baseball cap were the only things left on the windowsill. Ethan picked up the quarter, turned it once between his fingers. It had weight, but less than it used to.
He set it back down beside the ashtray.
Some things could stay here.
He carried the last box down the stairs. The air outside felt thicker, sun leaning into the afternoon.
Tyler was by the Jeep, wrestling with a bungee cord across the back hatch. The boxes were already arranged in a kind of rough geometry: dorm room Tetris, practiced after a year of watching guys move in and out every August and May.
“That the last of it?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Tyler said. “Any longer and I was going to start throwing your stuff out the window and pretending it was a tradition.”
They heaved the box into place. Tyler slammed the hatch, tested the bungee, nodded, satisfied.
Ethan looked back at the building. Mark stood in the doorway, parents flanking him, grandmother parked on a folding chair just outside the shade line like she refused to concede anything to the heat.
“You ready?” Tyler asked.
“I think so,” Ethan said.
“Go do your curtain call,” Tyler said. “I’ll warm up the Jeep.”
Ethan crossed the patch of grass between the parking lot and the steps.
Mark’s mother hugged him first, leaving a powdery imprint of her makeup on his shoulder. “You boys,” she said, pulling back to look between her son and Ethan. “You made it.”
“Barely,” Mark said.
“Barely counts,” Ethan echoed.
Mr. Bennett shook his hand with a grip that was firmer than their first meeting but still carried the faintest whiff of my son’s world, not mine.
Nana patted his arm. “You take care of my grandson,” she said, voice unexpectedly sharp for someone wrapped in a cardigan in May.
“I’ll try,” Ethan said.
When the adults drifted toward the car, searching for something in the trunk, Mark hung back.
“So,” he said.
“So,” Ethan echoed.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to say ‘have a great summer’ like we didn’t spend nine months practically on top of each other in that shoebox.”
“I hear that’s the custom,” Ethan said.
“I’m not going to,” Mark said. “Because that sounds like something you say to the guy you copy notes from in Psych, not the dude who helped you drag yourself home from the Annex at four in the morning.”
“Okay,” Ethan said.
“I will say this,” Mark went on. “I’m glad you’re coming back in the fall. Even if I’m not happy with you yet.”
“That’s enough,” Ethan said. And it was.
Mark nodded, once, a punctuation mark. “See you around, Harris.”
“See you around, Bennett.”
They didn’t hug. They didn’t shake hands. It would have felt wrong. They just stepped back, giving each other space that wasn’t empty.
Ethan walked back to the Jeep.
Tyler had the engine running, arm slung casually over the wheel, the windows already rolled down to coax some kind of breeze through the old interior. The radio was off, for once.
“All clear?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah,” Ethan said. He climbed in. “Let’s go.”
They pulled away from the lot, tires crunching over the gravel. As they turned onto the main campus road, the bell rang once—deep, low, echoing across the green like it was saying goodbye and good riddance all at once.
Ethan looked back only when they hit the curve by the chapel.
McClintock’s brick facade caught the sun; one window on the third floor flashed. The quarter on the sill gave off a brief, dull glint, then disappeared as they angled away.
“Leave it,” Ethan said, more to himself than to Tyler.
Tyler shifted into the next gear. “Already did,” he said.
The road out of town bent once, then straightened. The bell tower shrank in the side mirror until it became just another dark line against the trees. Past the last gas station, the last strip mall, the last hand-painted sign for boiled peanuts, the sky opened up a little.
The air through the open window felt wider. Not clean, not yet. But his.
Tyler drummed his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “So,” he said. “Year two.”
“Year two,” Ethan said.
“Think we’ll survive it?”
“Barely,” Ethan said.
Tyler smiled. “Barely counts.”
The highway unspooled ahead of them, lane after lane of maybe. Ethan rested his head back against the seat, closed his eyes for a second, and let the hum of the engine and the rush of the air and the steady presence of the boy at the wheel be enough.
For the first time in a long time, it was.
Epilogue — Move-In Day
August Second Year.
The heat had sharpened, the sky hard blue. A new set of freshmen spilled across the quad, shoulders pink from orientation. Someone was already handing out rush flyers near the fountain.
Ethan parked behind the Delta Chi house, the tires crunching gravel in the same rhythm they had last fall. The porch looked new—fresh paint, cleaned columns, the ghosts sanded off. He laughed under his breath. Every house on campus had learned to look reborn by the start of term.
Tyler climbed out from the passenger side, stretching.
“We’re really doing this,” he said.
“Looks that way.”
They carried boxes up the side stairs to the second floor. The hall smelled faintly of Pine-Sol and old smoke, familiar in a way that didn’t sting anymore. Eli’s old room waited at the end, door open, sunlight falling in a perfect rectangle across the bare floor.
Ethan set the lamp on the desk, the framed photo of the creek beside it. Tyler dropped the last box and leaned against the wall.
“Can you believe it’s the same place?” he asked.
“It’s not,” Ethan said.
Tyler smiled. “Good.”
Outside, the bell rang for convocation, the sound bright and almost kind. Ethan looked out the window—students crossing the quad, the fountain catching light. On the sill sat a coin someone had left behind, edge dulled by time. He turned it once between his fingers, then let it fall back into place.
“Ready?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah. Coffee?”
“Always.”
They walked down the stairs and out into the heat. The door swung shut behind them, not a bang this time but a simple click.
From the window, sunlight stretched across the empty floor, catching the edge of the coin, flaring bright.
The same light, finally theirs.
Stay Connected
📖 Subscribe to Caleb Reed for weekly chapters and essays.
📸 Follow along on Instagram: @caleb_writes
🧵 Join me on Threads: Caleb_Writes
📘 Facebook: Caleb Reed
🦋 Bluesky: @thecalebreed.bsky.social
I'm going to miss these characters!
But I think you've set things up perfectly for a sequel :)