Closer To The Sun [Poly] [Bi]

9 - Campbell

Q.O.T.D – What other stories are you reading on Wattpad right now? Give me some recs!

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🌿 . 🦊 . 🌿

After some hours, Campbell returned to the kitchen to scavenge a proper dinner.

He unfurled his map back over the table and frowned as he ran his fingers over the teeth marks. The page was pocked and scrunched and there was a u-shaped hole above Crested Butte. He poked the scrunch of paper back into place and wiped off what he was pretty sure was saliva.

Gross.

Campbell stooped to pluck a few stray M&Ms off the floor. No one had been in here since he'd left. Callum's girlfriend must have gone home after Campbell's hasty exit. He wondered if Callum had even said goodbye. 

Not that Campbell himself had been any better.

He grimaced as he replayed the scene: her red eyes, puffy from crying, his palpable discomfort, swooping out of the room the moment it looked like Nora might start to actually feel something out loud...

What is the matter with my family?

He'd left his phone on the table in his hurry to leave. He picked it up and scrolled through his texts. He'd left it unattended for only an afternoon, and it his lock screen had filled with messages – evidence of his friends' inabilities to be alone for any amount of time.

I are you going to say something about Leonard?  Trey had texted. Campbell read the message as if it were dripping in poison; Trey's usual speaking tone. I do NOT consent to this new group member. He's playing in a fountain. Why is he playing in a fountain?

Campbell ignored the text. Trey hated everyone new that Shea or Campbell tried to bring into the group. He and Leonard would fight it out for a bit, Trey would get used to him, and the circle would grow to encompass them all. It was just how it always had to go with Trey.

Shea had messaged him as well. His heart skipped a bit. A reflex.

Found an escort, she'd said. And he's skinnier than Leonard. If you can believe it.

Campbell snorted. Everyone was set on picking on Leonard today. He'd have to request that his friends mind their manners.

As if Shea could tell he was standing there reading her texts, another message bubbled up below it. He'd wouldn't be surprised if, after all these years, Shea did have a sixth sense about him.

C'mon, mouse. Be excited. We're doing this. This summer.

He put his knuckle against his mouth. This summer. It was so soon. It had been six years of searching, reading old books on older bookshelves, preparing for the physical strain of spending the summer exploring the mountains outside their secretive little town. Six years of preparation, and now they were finally off to the races. 

Campbell picked at the chipped edge of the dining room table. It was beveled in the delicate likeness of horses, running along a field. His mother loved horses. His father loved dark wood. Between the two of them, they had enough dark wood horses to start a nutcracker rodeo. Campbell preferred this styling choice to the days when his father had a fondness for porcelain, and his mother for foxes. He'd fully had his fill of gaudy porcelain foxes perched on stumps or yawning big wide yawns or squinting their little eyeliner-black eyes.

He did like the way they slept in little balls, though. He hated the word "cute," but there it was.

The horses were quietly elegant and western, emblematic of the heavily sanitized Scholastic textbook version of the great state of Colorado, where the plains were a thing to be carved up and obtained. He had to admit a fondness for the cowboy, or the cowboy he'd learned about in Westerns, who he'd at first suspected was highly fictional, and then later confirmed through reading the actual bloody histories.