Eighteen
Derrick
It was weird being back at school.
The ranch was such a different way of life, and Derrick had gotten used to it. The early mornings, the hard work, the companionship, and the laughter. The generosity of the people around him. That was the ranch, and school was much colder, much more sterile, somehow.
“You look weird. Are you okay?” Jessica glanced over from where she was draped over Derrick’s dorm room couch. He had thought that she had been lost in her phone, but at some point, she must have looked over at him.
“Yeah. It’s just …” Derrick gave a helpless little shrug. They both knew what it was. Derrick hadn’t been able to make himself think about it much, much less talk about it, but Jessica had been there, she knew what had happened.
“Have you turned your phone on yet?” she asked, predictably enough. She asked him that at least a few times a week since they had left, which had been weeks ago. No, it was months. He hadn’t been home, or spoken to anyone from home, in months. Strange.
“No,” he admitted, though he knew that she wouldn’t approve of his answer. “Look, I just can’t talk to them yet, all right? Malcolm will yell.”
In reality, he was more worried that, when he powered his phone up, he would have no messages. That his family, who had stuck with him through so much, would abandon him now. Maybe Logan had told everyone that Derrick had kissed him, and they were all just glad to be rid of him now. Really, who would Malcolm support in a pinch? His little brother or his best friend?
“Look, Derrick, you really have to turn your phone on,” Jessica said, just as she had done so many times before. Derrick knew how this went. He could practically say the words right along with her. “I hate having to come over here and get you like it’s the middle ages or something. Normal people text.”
Derrick sighed. It wasn’t going to happen, not yet. He wasn’t ready. But then she reached over and snagged his phone, which he had tossed into his sock drawer. How had she even known that?
Still, he could have tried to stop her, and he didn’t. Mostly he was nervous, but some small part of himself did want to know just how bad this really was. So he just watched as she thumbed the power button on and held his breath as the phone loaded.
It seemed to take forever for her to stop scanning the screen, and then, very slowly, she glanced up at him, her lips calm but her eyes full of mischief.
“You have a text,” she told him and then handed the phone to him. With his heart pounding a mile a minute, seemingly lodged in the base of his throat, he accepted the device and let his eyes slip down to the screen.
“Oh shit,” he whispered, as he read the few words in the text. Short but sweet. Logan certainly knew how to get his point across without needing to use very many words.
“What? Damn it, Derrick, you’re killing me.” Jessica was bouncing on the couch, practically vibrating. Quietly, Derrick handed the phone back to her. She had forced his hand, but she had been too respectful to read his phone without his permission.
He knew what the text said. He had read it a million times, it seemed, in the course of a few seconds.
I’m sorry. I love you. Call me if you want to talk.
“Oh my God,” Jessica whispered, and she was very pale as she looked up at Derrick. Neither of them could have expected that. Derrick had thought it likely that he would have a message from Malcolm or Craig or even Wyatt, but never Logan. He had hoped, but he hadn’t really thought it would happen.
“I’m such an idiot,” Derrick realized, and even Jessica couldn’t deny that. He had been a coward, and because of it, he had missed out.
“But he said that he didn’t want anything to do with you,” Jessica replied, her eyes so huge that they seemed to take up half of her face. “He said that …”
Derrick sighed and rubbed at his head, which was aching. Derrick had reached out, and then Logan had. They had both tried, Logan had even said the three words that Derrick would have been willing to believe wouldn’t be said, but they’d never quite connected.
“Maybe he thought about it; I don’t know,” Derrick said. “He sent the text not long after we left the ranch. He has a bit of a temper.”
“Well, there’s really one question to ask yourself,” Jessica said calmly. “Do you still love him?”
Derrick didn’t even need to think about it. He nodded immediately.
“Yeah. I think about him all the time,” he confessed.
“So, then, what are you waiting for?”
It was an excellent question, and Derrick practically dove on his phone. He snatched it up and got so busy in composing a reply that he didn’t even notice when Jessica tactfully left the room to leave him to do it.
I do want to talk. When can I call you?
His fingers shook as he pressed the button to send the simple message. He closed his eyes and let his hands, cradling the phone, fall loosely into his lap.
All he could do was hope that Logan got the message soon, and that when he did, he didn’t simply delete it. That it wasn’t too late, though realistically, it most likely was.
How long he just sat like that, stunned by the enormity of what had gone on between him and Logan, he had no idea. He just sat, and thought, and tried to imagine, even just to himself, that he could still have hope.
When the knock came at the door, he naturally assumed it was Jessica, come back to ask what had happened. He could use someone to talk to, so he went to the door and pulled it open.
It wasn’t Jessica.
