OPEN [boyxboy] ✓

fifty-three:: when one door closed is another one opened.

[Face by Brockhampton]

FIFTY-THREE: when one door closed is another one opened.

His house still looked exactly the same.

There was still the missing pillar in the side gate from when Calum went riding into it with his dirt bike in the seventh grade. His mother had yelled at him back then, the memory still felt so funny looking back on it: he'd been trying to show me this new trick he learned and ended up moving too fast, falling into the gate, as a consequence, we'd spent the next week and a half repainting the nursery for his little sister. And it's easy to figure out how that would end before it even started due to Calum's 26 in art that year, there was baby pink paint on my old Radiohead t-shirt.

That shirt used to be my dad's and I remember stealing it from him to impress Calum who was in his grunge phase, messy hair and jeans that drug in the mud over his dingy and dirty converse. Back when middle school had hit us, Calum would try way too hard to fit in, I was just fine with him being my only friend but he always had this yearning for other people's acceptance and really, that should've been telling. That shirt was way too big for me back then and I never really grew into it, my sister wore it as a dress now.

Running my fingers over the doorbell, I tried not to think of the last time I'd been at this house but that was hard when everything was so him. Everything had felt like Calum and everything had a memory to it, the side window that looked so different from the others, it had been replaced by my dad the summer before 9th grade... Calum was helping me condition for soccer tryouts and he wouldn't let me give up despite how shitty I had been.

Pushing away those memories, I thankfully remembered the one step I always used to forget, I'd remembered tripping over it while staring at the back of a blond head, my bottom lip in my mouth as I tried to figure out why he looked so good in his sweaty football jersey.

I'd taken a few minutes to press the button, my mind running through scenarios, I could have left, I really could have hopped back in my car and driven to my house. My boyfriend was out of town again and despite me needing my friends' input, I still wanted to talk to him, but I didn't because I knew it would worry him -this was something I had to do on my own.

I was over Calum but there was this fear in the pit of my stomach that encased me when I watched the bell blink and minutes go by, me standing on his porch and deliberating.

It was nearing two minutes now and my hands were sweating, my therapist often told me to count out moments and let them pass but this moment was way too long and when I'd been nearing the 116th second, the door had started to unlock until it was opening and a short brunette woman with the deepest of eyes was standing on the other side, a shimmering smile on her face. When she'd seen me, she seemed to light up, her messy ponytail bobbing with her as she inched forward excitedly and enveloped me in a hug. "Julian."

"Hi." Just the sight of her made me calmer than before, I hadn't expected her to be here, it was two p.m. on a weekday.

"Well, I haven't seen you in forever sweetheart, how are you? Wow, you've grown so much."

And she was right... I had gotten taller, I had a new haircut, the clothes were more polished but I know the main thing was the fact that I was bigger than before. I'd gained so much since I was last there. A year prior, Calum was only a few inches shorter but he definitely had me on muscle mass. Since the pills made my weight fluctuate, a part of the few weeks without Paul, Andy and I hit the gym. I wasn't necessarily bulky and my arms were still scrawny as hell but I know my body was more firm, toned in a way and I didn't love how I looked but it was a noticeable change.

Olivia Cain had noticed and the way she grabbed at my face almost instantly, it made me feel both at home and anxious. It was almost maternal and my mother was always hard on me, come to think of it, his father was always hard on him. And Paul's family functioned the same, maybe hard and soft balanced out relationships, Paul and I were both the soft-careful kinds but he had this fire in him, I could see it.