Roland’s POV

The cabin felt too small. I lay in the only bed that was made. The sun was high in the sky, I had yet to leave the bed, and the cabin felt too small.

I was reminded for the umpteenth time why I had liked having a roommate who talked so much. Even in the beginning when I didn’t like Kit, it was nice to have someone to fill the silence of the cabin.

The smell of Kit had long since disappeared, leaving the smell of old wood and cut grass in his place. I hated it.

I usually liked small spaces when I panicked but when the panic was nowhere to be seen the feeling of small was overwhelming. It reminded me of those days when my Mom locked me in the shop. 

I tried not to think about those days. Most of the time I was successful but when the dreams popped out of nowhere and the spaces felt too small it was almost impossible to not think about it.

I had been fine the first few days. Being in the shop again after leaving it behind for a month had been nice. I had taken every last part out of those cars and completely rebuilt them just to pass the time and make it feel more like normal but before long the hunger won out and I was stuck huddled in a corner just to ease the pain.

After the second day, my Mom opened the door just long enough to shove a plate full of a few sandwiches through before locking it again. After that, once a day for a week that’s all I got. On the eighth day, the door stayed open and I was allowed out.

No one at school questioned my absence. I guess they assumed I took an extra week to mourn but ever since then that was her go-to punishment for anything she deemed as ‘over the top’. I lost count of how many times I was trapped inside the shop I used to love more than anything.

My chest felt hollow as I tucked myself farther into the blankets. I wanted Kit. I wanted my Dad. I wanted to be out of this god-forsaken camp and its small fucking cabins.

 I could just get up and leave, walk right out the door, find a way out of camp, and never look back but I made a promise to Kit and it had only been two weeks. I couldn’t give up that fast. Besides, any time I got up I froze in place. 

I had managed to leave my Mother’s punishment only once and I vowed to never do it again. The aftermath wasn’t worth it. It didn’t stop me from breaking in the shop from time to time though. 

I wanted to go home. I wanted to be there with Kit. I wanted him to sit in my old chair while I fixed cars and talk about everything he thought about. 

A knock at my door broke me out of the daydream but I only rolled to my other side in an attempt to ignore it. It didn’t work. The knocking came again and again and eventually, the door opened.

“Roland,” Andrew asked as he eased into the room. “You missed our session this afternoon. Are you feeling okay?” I didn’t speak as I stared at the opposite wall. He eased closer to the bed before coming to kneel in front of me. I don’t know what he saw but he frowned. “What’s wrong?”

I shrugged because speaking felt impossible.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I shook my head. Kit would help but I couldn’t have Kit. “Do you want me to go get you something to eat? Or maybe we could hang out in the shop for a little bit?” That was the last place I wanted to be for once.

He sighed when I didn’t answer and looked past him to stare at the wall, mumbling something under his breath about not thinking it would happen so soon.

“Have you spent your hour outside yet today,” he asked with a small smile yet we both already knew the answer to that. “Why don’t we go do that then,” he asked as he stood up and motioned for me to follow. I shook my head.

“You can’t stay here like this all day, it won’t help. You need to get out of this negative head space. Sometimes having a change of scenery can help break people out of a slump; at least for a little bit so come on; get up. Let’s just walk for a second. We don’t have to speak but you need to get up. Don’t make me call Mary.”

Yeah, like Mary was the scariest thing imaginable.

“What would help?” I didn’t bother answering and he sighed. “Alright, we aren’t doing this.” The next thing I knew the blankets were thrown off of me, leaving me cold and bare to the small space.

I shrank into a smaller ball as Andrew began pulling the mattress off the frame and onto the floor.

“What are you doing,” I managed to squeeze out of my tightened throat. 

“Most kids react negatively when touched, plus I’m not that fond of touching people who clearly wouldn’t like it so if I can drag the bed onto the porch maybe that will be enough to break you out of this funk.”

“Do not drag my bed out there,” I screeched as I sat up and faced his hands away. “You’ll get outside dirt on it! That’s disgusting Andrew!”

“Then you’ll come outside without me dragging you?”

“If it means you don’t ruin my bed then yes.”

“Then let’s go,” he said with a shrug as he led me to the door. I followed behind him, glaring daggers into his back but he didn’t seem to care as he sat down the stairs of the porch.

I sat beside him, glaring at the field in front of me. People ran around at random. Some dragged their feet, looking about as sad as I did. I noticed a few of them from Call Day and some sick part of me was happy that I wasn’t the only one who was missing their friend. 

“Wanna tell me what got you in a funk like that,” Andrew asked after a few minutes of sitting in silence.

“Bad dream,” I said with a sigh. 

“Must have been pretty bad if it made you that upset,” Andrew said with a concerned look on your face. “Do you want to talk about it?” I shook my head and he nodded. “That’s understandable. What would help then? You said no to the shop, you don’t want lunch, you don’t overly want to be out here; so what do you need?”

“Do you have Kit’s number?”

“I do,” he said after a second of contemplation.

“Can I call him?”

“You have call day in three days,” he said after another few seconds. “Do you think you can wait? Remember, we’re trying to cut it down to once a month; you’ll have twice in one week. Besides, there’s a chance he won’t be able to come to the phone right now.”

“I think I need it,” I said, not being able to look up from the grass peaking through the cracks in the stairs. “I’ll get better but I think I need it. I need to talk to him.”

“Alright,” Andrew said as he pulled out his phone, dialed the number, and handed the phone to me. 

I counted the rings until the call was sent to voicemail. I pulled the phone away from my ear and started a new call. It also went to voicemail. I called over and over until Andrew sighed and held his hand out to take the phone.

“He might be working,” he said gently. “It’s not Call Day, he wasn’t expecting a call so he probably picked up an extra shift. Please don’t be upset with him.”

“I’m not," I sighed but still held the phone in my hand.

“You seem upset.”

“I’m sad,” I said as I played with the phone case. “And disappointed, but not upset with him.”

“Let’s go get that lunch yeah? Food is good for you and I happen to know that food makes almost everything better as far as teenage boys are concerned.”

“Can you bring it to me,” I asked. “I don’t want to go into the cafeteria.” Andrew smiled as he stood up.

“Are you going to hang on to that,” he asked as he looked down at his phone. I nodded.

“Just in case,” I said, barely above a whisper. He nodded and walked away. 

I stared at the phone, debating on whether or not I should try calling again.

I didn’t have to wait long for my answer. The phone rang in my hands and I accepted it without a second thought.

“Hello,” Kit’s voice said from the other side of the phone. His voice was light and airy and slightly out of breath. The sound alone made my chest feel a little less hollow. “Andrew? You there? Is everything okay? That was a lot of calls for it to not be an emergency.”

“Hey,” I mumbled into the phone, not bothering to hide my smile.

“Roland? Is everything okay?”

“I missed you,” I said as I held the phone closer to my ear, trying to keep his voice ingrained into my ear.

“I missed you too,” he said and I could tell he was smiling through the concern. “How has camp been?”

“Fine. How is life on the outside?”

“Don’t make it sound like jail,” Kit teased. “It’s been good though. I’m at the skate park right now actually. I set my phone down with my water so I wouldn’t drop it, that’s why I missed the calls.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can let you go. I just wanted to hear your voice for a second.”

“No!” His voice was rushed and panicked. “I didn’t say that. I want to talk to you. Tell me what’s going on. It’s something other than just missing me. I can by the short answers.”

“I had a bad dream last night,” I told him with a sigh because Kit said boyfriends didn’t keep secrets from each other. 

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It was about my mom,” I told him. I could all but see the interest in his eyes, the way his mouth would be slightly open, the way his hands played with each other just to give him something to do while he paid attention. 

“You don’t talk about her much.” Or ever really.

“She kept me locked in my dad’s shop a few times. I dreamed about the first time. It wasn’t nice.”

“She kept you locked in a shed,” he asked slowly as if to make sure he fully understood. “For how long?”

“8 days the first time. Sometimes it was longer, sometimes shorter but always at least 5 days.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kit cursed. “What did she do while you were in there?”

“She didn’t let me each much and sometimes she hit me on the first or last day but that was mostly it. She screamed a lot too.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Kit whispered in my ear and I wanted to savor that sound so I said nothing. “I assume Andrew only let you call because you were acting ‘off’, am I right?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh, knowing there was no point in trying to lie. He chuckled in my ear and it tickled even through the phone. I closed my eyes and if I thought hard enough I could almost feel the heat of his body beside me and the breath against my skin.

“You missed your session today didn’t you,” he asked and I was surprised that there was no judgment in his voice, still a light chuckle in his tone.

“Maybe,” I teased back since he already knew the answer. He laughed in my ear and I loved him. I could see the way his head was tossed back as he laughed, the way his eyes crinkled as he put a hand over his chest. 

“Haven’t even left the cabin today, have you?”

“I left the cabin! I’m sitting on the porch right now!”

“Because you wanted to or because Andrew made you?” I didn’t answer as I felt a blush crawl up my cheeks. “That’s what I thought,” he teased, the smirk surely on his face. “Are you blushing for me, sweetheart?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, I’m not so there’s that.”

“What happened to not lying to each other?”

“Okay, so maybe it’s a small blush.”

“That’s what I thought,” he teased and I wanted nothing more than to have him in front of me. I wanted to hold his face between my hands, to figure out some way to make him as hard as I was.

“Shut up,” I told him, then decided I never wanted him to stop speaking to me. “Keep talking,” I said after a minute of him not speaking.

“Cody is excited to meet you,” he said easily, finding conversation like it was as easy as breathing for him. “Every time I bring you up around him, he tries to convince me to let him be the first one to meet you. He’s a bit crazy and unhinged but I think you’ll learn to love him. Nathan is pretty happy about being out of his foster home, which who wouldn’t be right? You’ll like him I think but he’s pretty quiet, doesn’t talk much, and keeps to himself. You’ll think he’s mad at you most of the time until you learn him a bit more. Anthony is going to be your favorite. He’s good at reading the room, ready to live it up or tone it down depending on how everyone else feels. He’s pretty touchy though so you’ll have to remind him a few times that you don’t like it.”

“They sound nice,” I said because they really did. “The house is big enough. If we share a room they could move in with us.”

“I love them more than almost anything else but I don’t know if I want to share your house with them. I might want you all to myself,” he teased. 

“I love you,” I told him because I did.

“I love you too.”

“I wish you were here or that I was there.”

“You want to be in a skate park,” he asked with a knowing smirk.

“If you’re there then yes.”

“You know, the four of us skate. Most of our hang-out time is spent at the park. If you want to learn we could easily teach you.” I couldn’t help but turn up my nose at that.

“I don’t think I would like skating.”

“You never know if you don’t try,” he said with a shrug.

“Maybe one day,” I said even though we both knew I didn’t want to.

“We’ll find something else to do when we hang out with them then.”

“I think that’s better,” I said as Andrew came over the hill with a trey in his hand. 

For a second I thought Andrew was going to make me hang up when he placed the trey in front of me but he only looked at me for a second before smiling and nodding at me to continue.

Kit and I talked for hours, Andrew sitting next to me but not at all listening. It was nice to have company. After a while Kit had to hang up and it was sad but once I was promised a call in three days at our normal time I felt a bit better about hanging up and handing the phone back to Andrew.

“Feeling better,” he asked as he tucked the phone into his pocket.

“Much better,” I admitted with a small smile. “Kit makes things better.”

“I glad that he does,” Andrew said with a smile. “Do you want to talk about what made you upset now?”

“No. I don’t want to ruin the mood.”

“That’s okay. Do you want company or would you like to be alone now?”

“I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t want to talk either.”

“We don’t have to talk,” Andrew said before falling silent, sitting beside me on the porch, watching kids play, birds fly around, and water on the lake lap against the shore.

It was nice but I wanted Kit.