Dilemmas

19

Shaun woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. I groaned and took it out, seeing a push notification. A text message.

He groaned in annoyance. "It's Saturday, six in the morning and I get a fucking text message!" he shouted to no one in particular. Partly because he buried his face on the pillow.

He closed his eyes to get back to sleep. Then a second passed, and he opened them again.

"Shit!" he shouted, pounding on the pillow. "Fuck it. Why do I always have to wake up early on weekends?!"

He sat up and my eyes immediately locked on the curtain which was glowing in the room. Shaun decided not to open that. There were no muffled sounds from below, like every morning.

No one was here, except for him.

Shaun sighed and opened his phone again, this time paying full attention. It was from Caleb.

Caleb: hey man, just knew I had your phone number

Shaun rolled his eyes. Then he typed in his reply.

Shaun: lol. So what's up? Usually when you text something, there's always something up.

He pressed send. The reply came a minute later.

Caleb: hahaha you know me :)

He smirked. Classic. Light-hearted.

Caleb: so how's you and Ryan going?

Shaun lost the smile.

Shaun: wdym?

Caleb: i mean, no biggie, but you guys are in love right?

Shaun's heart skipped a beat. He flashed back to Caleb's birthday party. Shaun had told Caleb everything, all except the fact that he and Ryan were in love.

Then the phone buzzed. "Shit," he muttered. "He's calling me."

Shaun waited for it to pass. Thankfully, it did. The screen returned to the chat.

Caleb: i'll go to ur hous

Caleb: *house

Caleb: see u

Shaun pressed a key on the virtual keyboard, but he stopped himself. Then he closed his phone and climbed out of the bed to get changed.

•

"You promised to tell me everything," Caleb groaned as Shaun exited the house and locked the door with the key. He pointed at it. "Wait—where are your parents?"

"Mom is at work again. I think," Shaun said.

Caleb's face froze like he remembered something. He choked on his next few words. "I'm—I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"About your—never mind."

Shaun bit his lip. "My dad. You were talking about my dad?"

Caleb didn't reply.

It was a complicated story, and he didn't want to talk about it. Silence stood between them like a barrier and they just locked eyes like they were total strangers.

"I'm—I'm sorry," he admitted. "I should've never reminded you."

"It's fine," Shaun managed. "Don't worry."

"I worry about you," Caleb said. "I really do."

Shaun almost wanted to tell the story, but he shook his head to himself. "It's fine. Let's take a walk? I know a good place where we could chat about it."