I was, frankly, starting to dread his constant apologies. But despite that, I always continued to wonder how he could have been with someone like Tatum. Been so very intimate with someone like her, for that matter. As part of my new promise to be honest, I mustered up the courage to ask Reed the question that had been burning on my mind for days.

“It’s really not your fault, Reed. I promise. Please stop worrying about it,” I said, smiling genuinely. “But… you know? I sort of was wondering. A couple weeks ago you mentioned that it was over between you and Tatum a long time ago. When did you know it was over?”

I waited. Reed smirked again, pulling his hat off and running his hands through his hair, putting the hat back on his head and then looking down for a few seconds. He patted his hand on the side of the Jeep a few times while he stared off at the sunset, squinting a little and taking in a deep breath. Finally, he turned to look at me and gave me a faint, but honest, smile. “The moment I danced with you,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

And like that, he drove away.

14. Time

I was pretty tired while I tried to force down the toast and eggs my dad made for me before he left in the morning. It would be being generous guessing that I slept for an hour last night. I replayed Reed’s words in my mind over and over, at first a bit dazed, not sure I heard him correctly. When I finally had to admit to myself that perhaps I did hear him right, I couldn’t slow the speeding beats of my heart down long enough to let my body fall into sleep.

I started to type Reed a text at least a dozen times throughout the night, completely oblivious to the idea that sending him a text at 1 a.m. was probably not the best idea. Deleting paragraphs on a tiny keyboard was hard as I restarted my words time and again. I was ready to confess everything from the moment I first saw him drinking from that fountain in the gym to the way he made me feel when his warm hands touched my bare shoulders at the dance. I knew I was reacting a bit much, but in my wildest dreams did I ever think the door would open for this chance. The slightest crack. I had to be thoughtful about everything. I was not going to mess this up.

I picked an outfit from the me side of the closet this morning. Knowing we would be swimming a lot, I pulled out my black Speedo racing suit, which fortunately made my body look like it belonged to an Olympic swimmer. The snug fit sucked in all the right places and the open back and shoulder straps made my upper body look broad and strong. I pulled a pair of cut-off sweat shorts that were a bit big over the suit and rolled the top down to keep them up. I slid my flip flops on by the kitchen door and sat on the chair by the window where I could easily watch the road for Reed’s Jeep when it approached.

I could hear the clock ticking slowly and took in every sound of our house. The whishing sound of my blood rushing over my ears as my heart beat was starting to drown out everything else when I saw the front of his Jeep round the corner and head for my house. I grabbed my backpack stocked with towel, sunscreen, extra clothes, granola bars and water and headed out the door, locking it behind me. I ran down the steps to the front gate so he wouldn’t have to pull completely into our driveway.

Be cool, Nolan. Be cool.

“Hey, morning person,” Reed said as he rolled down his window. “Ready to swim? I bet we’re gonna freeze our asses off!”

“No kidding,” I said, throwing my pack in the back of the Jeep and climbing into the passenger side. I buckled up as he was peeling out a bit on our driveway. He looked at me sideways and smiled.

“Hope your parents are gone. I always wanted to try that on your driveway,” he said.

“Typical boy,” I said, leaning into him. Oh my god.

We were on the highway in no time and Reed was cranking his stereo at full blast. The sun was barely up and it felt like we were disturbing the peace, but the truth was we were miles from anything but sage brush and rattlesnakes. He had a classic rock station on and it was playing “Wild Thing” and he started singing along, overacting to the lyrics and being freer than I had ever seen him. I giggled and tried to sing along with the chorus, completely blundering the words, which only made him laugh and sing louder, trying to help me.

When the song ended, he turned the radio down a little and silence set in for a few miles. I could tell we were both itching to talk, but holding back. We kept stealing glances and then smiling before looking away. As a rarity, I actually came up with small talk to keep us going for the rest of the trip.

“What do you think the test will be like?” I asked, honestly wondering as I’d never been through this process before.