Home is a Four Letter Word

chapter twenty-eight

Early May

Monday felt longer than usual.

Jake felt on edge the entire day, looking everywhere he went to see if Connor was around the corner, or lingering at his locker, or maybe even in the bathroom at the same time. But he never was. Jake didn't see him the whole day, and he didn't know if he felt disappointed by it or a little relieved because he truly wouldn't have known how to act if he did.

But when three o'clock rolled around like it did every other day they drove home together, Connor was standing outside of the art room tucked away in the back of the school hallway, waiting for Jake while pretending to be distracted on his phone. Although, this time when Jake approached him, he actually seemed invested in whatever he was looking at, not ready to throw the device into his back pocket and ignore it like he usually did.

"Hey." He hoped the nerves he had been biting down all day didn't reflect in his voice.

"Hey." Connor looked up for a moment, and then back down. "Did you see this?"

He turned his phone to Jake. Jake hardly had a second to look at Connor before he was staring at the article pulled up on his phone. He barely caught the headline before Connor flipped it back around and started scrolling.

"Is this about graduation?" Jake assumed from what little he got to see about Friday's mention.

"Yeah, but guess what?" Connor began to smirk as he scrolled.

"What?"

He grinned as he stopped scrolling and turned the phone to Jake again. "You're in the article."

"No shit?"

"Yeah." Connor nodded in affirmation.

Jake leaned in closer to read, and low and behold, there he was with a line written right underneath Kaylee's about his history with academics, football, and where he was going to college. Just like Kaylee's section used her class president portrait as a judge of her character, an action shot of Jake on the field at the first playoff game was used for his. Despite the picture they used, Jake let a smile reach his face for finally making the paper for something other than football—well additionally to football.

"Cool, isn't it?" Connor took his phone back again.

"Yeah..." Jake nodded. "Yeah."

Connor got up from where he was leaning against the wall, and as he did he tried to balance himself back to an upright position.

"Jesus." He mumbled to himself.

"What?"

"Nothing, this backpack is just heavy as hell." Connor pulled on the straps. "I cleaned out half my locker today and it might've been a mistake to put all the binders in one bag."

Jake smirked and offered his hand out. "Switch me."

"It's heavy."

"Okay, and?"

Connor did as he was told and pulled his backpack off while Jake did the same. Connor set his down on the ground immediately when he took ahold of Jake's—pulling it back across his shoulder with ease. It should be easy, there's only two notebooks in it. When Jake picked up Connor's bag he almost regretted it. He really wasn't kidding. But he pulled it onto his shoulder anyways, seemingly with ease so Connor couldn't tell he was fazed by it.

They both had black backpacks, but for some reason Jake couldn't help but think his backpack looked weird on Connor. He thought at first maybe it was too big, but Connor wasn't even that small. He was only an inch or two shorter than Jake—if he even was—and had a comparable body type, except Jake was more toned from the natural wear and tear of his life and football.