Adam breaks away from the kiss first, and his cheeks are glistening. And I don't know if those are my tears or his or both, and I lean forward, because I want to check. I want to know, but Adam jumps back like a frightened rabbit.


He moves away from me, slides gracefully from beneath the covers, and stands in one smooth, swift motion, and suddenly I'm looking up at him. He towers above me and he's gazing to the ceiling and breathing more heavily than usual.


"Dwayne," he beings, and I still love the way he says my name, love the way the syllable rolls off his tongue.


But my heart is breaking because I know what he's going to say and suddenly, I jump up. I don't want to hear it. I don't need this right now. I don't need him to confirm what I already know, because now that will be pain that I seriously don't think I can handle. And the hole is widening, splitting me, splitting my soul in two and nothing...nothing will be able to fix it now.


But he towers above me and I'm looking up at him and I realize sadly that this still isn't true. Nothing can fix me but the boy in front of me with glistening cheeks...with sandy blonde hair that sweeps across his forehead, because he's too careless to brush it away and soft, soft blue eyes..the boy with the deep, perfectly-pitched voice that's repeating my name over and over.


I hear it through a sort of fog, and I can't focus. I don't hear what he's saying, I can only guess, and my guesses aren't happy.


"I'm sorry," I choke out, probably interrupting him.


The voice stops and the soft, soft blue eyes are locked with mine.


"Adam," I continue, not quite sure where I'm headed with this. "I never meant...I didn't plan...you're the one thing that can fix me..."


"Dwayne, I'm n - "


"You are. I know it because...because when we shook hands when we first met, I felt the electricity course through my body. Because I'm just a boy from Texas who can handle a puck - and lasso some cattle - and not much else. Because I will never be perfect and because you are. Because...because when I'm around you, the hole in my heart seems to close, just a little bit each time. You don't even have to do anything. You're just there and you fix me. And that...it has to mean...you're...you're...you can bring me perfection."


Adam stays silent, but he's shaking his head.


"I'm sorry. I love you." The tears are slipping, unabashedly. I swallow the huge lump in my throat. "I'm sorry I love you."


Now that I've finally said the words aloud, I feel...relief, happiness, anguish, sadness. These and millions of other colorful emotions flood through my body at once. The weight is lifted off my shoulders...and immediately replaced directly on my heart.


I give Adam once long, lingering glance. Then I exit through the door, letting it click softly shut behind me...and I hit the ground running as soon as I'm in the hallway.


**


I'm breathing heavily by the time I burst out the main entrance and run into the quad. It's well past curfew, and the doors lock themselves behind me. I don't have my card key, so it looks like I'll be spending the night under the stars.


I sit on a bench that is cold beneath my flannel-clad legs. I hardly notice.


I can't believe I did what I just did.


Three years. Three long years, from the Goodwill Games at age thirteen to now, a sixteen-year-old junior at Eden Hall...I discovered my emotions, was finally able to handle them...finally able to hide them and now...now, in a moment of what I can only think was insanity, I have ruined everything.


I'm sure Adam had already begun to suspect.


But to actually have...the fact that I just...


I can't believe I did what I just did.


I replay the moments before the kiss in my mind over and over. I can't stop the images, can't stop the sound, and it's driving me absolutely crazy.


It had just seemed...in that moment, it had just seemed like it was the right thing to do. I hadn't even thought about it; it was as if I just knew that I could do it...and that I should do it and...so I had.


My roommate, my best friend on the team, my...crush...love-interest...Adam.


I wonder what he's doing right now. Sitting alone in our room...is he hurt? Angry? Stunned? Maybe a little bit of everything...


Better than a little bit of nothing, which is what I'm feeling right now.


I feel empty and hollow, like I've just expunged everything that was inside me...I've laid it all out on the line, everything I've considered near and dear...and secret...it's all exposed and Adam knows and Adam...doesn't want it. Doesn't want me is more like it.


I lie back along the cold, cold bench and gaze up at the stars. It is a clear, frosty November night, and the stars shine bright and huge, they look bigger than I've ever seen them before. I exhale and watch my breath hang in puffs in the air.


And I am sorry I love him, if only for his sake.


I'm sorry I have to put him through this, that he's put in a position where he has to hurt me.