Page 31 of Ancient History

Mr. Brightside: It wasn’t always like that. When we broke up, I felt so alone, Hutch.

Pangs of pain hit me in the gut. The past never truly went away. No matter how close we were, no matter how great tonight felt, what I did would always be in the middle.

SoccerStar: I’m sorry about what I did, Amos. I really am. I hate how things ended.

Mr. Brightside: So you didn’t realize you were straight after all?

SoccerStar: Fuck. Thinking about that text still makes me cringe.

Mr. Brightside: Why did you do it?

One simple question. One answer that I wished was more complicated.

SoccerStar: Because I was scared. I was scared of losing my friends, my family, my future.

Mr. Brightside: But you weren’t scared about losing me.

Mr. Brightside: I was scared, too. I was scared to lose all those things. But we would’ve been scared together.

Beep beep.

My alarm clock blared its heart out. Its rhythmic screeching jolted me back to stark reality. Life didn’t exist inside of an app. The world had real consequences. All the apologies in the world couldn’t change the past. I had my chance with Amos, and I blew it.

I slammed my hand on the alarm clock, shutting it up.

It was time to wake up.

9

AMOS

Iarrived at school exhausted and buzzing, my mind and body in a weird battle of trying to stay alert. I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since college, and back then, I could nap in the middle of the day.

A nap sounded good. Were morning naps a thing?

I’d picked up the largest coffee Starbucks sold, which was helping me survive so far. I got to my classroom early and caught up on grading the papers that I’d let lapse when Hutch and I began our epic conversation.

Did last night slash this morning even happen? It all unfolded like a dream. My heart swelled with thoughts of Hutch, and that anything was possible. But in the cold light of day and caffeine, I reminded myself that we could be friendly, but that was it.

I’d been devastated by Hutch before. I had to protect myself from false hope. He had one foot still in the closet, and the other foot was on an online dating app looking for new love.

My morning crawled by. I was very tempted to put on a video, but I pulled myself together and led engaging, fun Thursday classes where we discussed the lingering artifacts of medieval times in our society. Teaching always cleared my head and energized me. And to my pleasant surprise, most of my students brought their A-game to class today.

In fourth period, I was fading. I did my best to turn away from my students whenever I needed to yawn.

“Are you okay?” Reynash asked. “Do we need to call you a doctor?”

His question was half-concerned and half-hoping this tangent could take us to the end of class.

“I’m fiiiiine.” I yawned into my fist.

“Late night?” Dale raised his eyebrows.

I wish I could blatantly sleep in class like Tommy was doing in the back row. I didn’t have the energy to go there.

“Yes,” I said, making more of my students raise their eyebrows. “Not that kind of late night.” Not technically. Last night had the intimate glow in my memory as if we’d had sex, but with words.

“Did you go out?” Rosalee asked.

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