Oliver Loves Carson | ✔️

chapter twenty

Last chapter! An author's note will be posted after this.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Carson murmured.

Oliver avoided his gaze. He shouldn't have said anything. He felt heat rush up his neck, suffocating him, wrapping its fingers around his throat and his chest and his cheeks and slowly lighting him on fire. He cleared his throat. "Nothing. Forget about it."

"Oliver," Carson demanded, "tell me what that's supposed to mean."

He licked his lips. "Carson-" He began to protest.

"-Oliver."

Oliver sighed. "You're...you're perfect. And next to you...I look like some sort of idiot. I-I can't do what you do, Carson. I can't go out and socialize and be friends with everybody and look perfect all the time and manage all these extracurriculars and have this life! I'm not like that--I'm not like you. I'm not as good of a person as that--I just...I just can't do it. You're everything and I'm nothing but I like you so badly that I wanted this--I want this--to work more than anything. I always have. And sometimes--well, all the time, really--it feels like I can't breathe because you're so so good. And I'm just... I don't know."

Carson drew his brows together. "Perfect? Olly, what are you talking about? I don't know what kind of view you have of me, but my life isn't like that. And even if it was...who was asking you to be all that? Who was asking you to have that weight on your shoulders? That's not who I am--that's not me...I thought you would know that."

Oliver couldn't breathe. He couldn't feel. Or maybe he felt too much. His heart was beating so fast it was expanding to three times its size, so much so that he could feel it moments away from popping. His heart felt like a too-full balloon, his tightening chest making him claustrophobic.

"Do you really feel like that?" Carson asked. His face had fallen but there was a determination to him that made Oliver wary. "Do you really feel like I'm perfect and you're nothing and all of that stuff that you just said to me?"

Oliver didn't want to, but he nodded nonetheless.

Carson took a step back.

Oliver felt like running. His breathing sped up. Why was this happening right now? He had loved Carson for years--and he'd finally gotten a chance. And now, standing in front of the golden-haired boy, he might've ruined it all. He might've ruined the one thing that he really wanted. He had known that he would screw up, he really had. Oliver couldn't trust himself to do a single thing right.

"Well then..." Carson said, "... then maybe I think we should stop. This, I mean. Us."

All the breath left Oliver's lungs in a second. "What?" His voice wavered.

Carson gave him a sympathetic look that broke Oliver's heart into pieces. "Olly," he started, "Olly, this isn't good for you. You can't--you're not supposed to--feel like this. You know that, right?" Carson's face became devastated and his voice broke as if he were trying to hold in tears. When Oliver didn't reply, Carson added, "Olly? Please answer me."

There was a knot in Oliver's throat. "I don't.... I don't know what to..." he trailed off.

"Oliver, please," Carson said, and this time, a tear fell down his cheek. "please know that I like you so much and I could see myself... I could see myself loving you. I could, I really could. But I need you--you need you--to focus on yourself. And, you know, one day, maybe, if we're meant to be... we'll find our way back to each other, okay? Okay, Olly?"

Oliver couldn't talk, but when he nodded, it became apparent that it was all over.