CHAPTER 18 - BUILDING WALLS
1166 Words
Caleb noticed.
I don't know exactly when – maybe it was the way I stopped flinching when Rhys touched me in public, or the way my laugh around him had shifted from performative to real, or maybe Caleb just had a predator's instinct for knowing when something he considered his was slipping further out of reach. But he noticed.
He found me between classes. Fell into step beside me like it was still something we did, like the last month hadn't happened, like we were still the version of us that walked together everywhere.
"Can I ask you something?" Casual. Light. The tone of a friend making conversation.
"Sure."
"You're not actually taking Maddox seriously, right?"
I kept walking. Didn't look at him.
"I mean – he's fine. Whatever. But you know what he is. He's a transfer with a violent history and a bad attitude and he's been here five minutes." He laughed. Short. Friendly. The kind of laugh designed to make the thing he was saying sound reasonable instead of calculated. "I just don't want you to get hurt again. You deserve someone who's actually good for you."
Again. Like the last person who hurt me wasn't him. Like Valentine's night had been a natural disaster instead of something he did with his own mouth in his own kitchen.
"I appreciate the concern," I said. Flat. Giving him nothing.
But the words stayed. That was the thing about Caleb – he didn't need you to agree. He just needed to plant the seed and walk away and let your own anxiety do the watering. You're not actually taking him seriously, right? Sitting in my head like a splinter. Making me wonder if the shift Caleb had noticed was something everyone could see, and if everyone could see it, then how long before it reached My mom, Richard, the entire campus.
How long before September became a problem with witnesses.
The Miles campaign also started that week.
Caleb showed up to Miles's youth league practice on Tuesday. Not just showed up – brought gear. A new stick, tape, a bag of pucks. Miles called me that night practically vibrating through the phone.
"Caleb brought me a real composite stick! Like the ones the team uses! And he stayed for the whole practice and taught me edge work and Coach said I was the best skater on the ice today!"
"That's amazing, buddy."
"Can Caleb come to my game on Saturday? He said he would if you're okay with it."
If you're okay with it. Asking my permission through a thirteen-year-old. Making me the gatekeeper so that if I said no, I was the one ruining Miles's happiness. If I said yes, the leash tightened another notch.
"Of course he can come."
Thursday: Caleb at Miles's game. Sitting in the stands like a proud older brother, cheering, high-fiving Miles after every shift. Mom noticed. "It's so sweet that Caleb's taken Miles under his wing. That boy really does care about your family."
Friday: Miles wearing the new stick to school. Telling his friends about his hockey mentor. Caleb's name woven into my little brother's life like thread – one strand at a time, so slowly you didn't notice until the whole fabric depended on it.
Zara was the only one who saw it.
"He's building a leash," she said. We were in her car after a coffee run, and she said it the way Zara said everything – direct, no cushion, truth first and feelings second. "Think about it. If Miles loves him, you can never fully cut him off. Every time you try to distance yourself, Caleb shows up at your brother's practice with a new stick and a smile and suddenly you're the villain for pulling away."
"He's being nice to a kid. I can't exactly–"
"You can't prove it. That's the point. That's why it works." She looked at me. "Caleb isn't stupid. He's patient. And he's playing a longer game than you're giving him credit for."
I didn't argue. I couldn't. Because she was right and I knew she was right and the helplessness of knowing someone is manipulating you but not being able to prove it without sounding crazy was its own special kind of torture.
***
I kept the next tutoring session strictly professional.
Room 3B. Books open. Notes spread out. I sat on my side of the table. He sat on his. No touching. No accidental thigh contact. No loaded eye contact over Fitzgerald.
Rhys noticed immediately.
He didn't say anything for the first twenty minutes. Just worked through the essay outline I'd given him – quietly, methodically, his pen moving across the paper while I corrected grammar and pretended the six inches of space between our elbows wasn't screaming at me.
"The thesis needs to be more specific," I said. "You're arguing that Gatsby's obsession is self-destructive but you're not grounding it in textual evidence. Find the passage where–"
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Building walls." He didn't look up from his paper. Kept writing. "You get close. Then you get scared. Then you put a table between us and talk about thesis statements like that's going to fix whatever's happening in your head."
"I'm being professional."
"You're being distant. There's a difference."
"Maybe distance is what we need right now."
He kept writing. Didn't push. Didn't reach across the table or make a joke or do any of the things I half-wanted him to do because at least then I'd have something to push against. The restraint was worse than pursuit. The silence was louder than any argument.
We worked for another hour. Clean. Professional. Agonizing. Every time his hand moved across the page I watched his knuckles – still scarred, still bruised – and thought about those same hands on my skin two nights ago and wanted to scream.
At the end of the session, he packed up his books. Slowly. Deliberately. Then he looked at me.
"You're scared."
"I'm being smart."
"No." He slung his bag over his shoulder. Those grey eyes steady, seeing everything I was trying to hide. "You're being safe. There's a difference."
He left. Door clicking shut behind him. No drama. No argument. Just the quiet devastation of someone telling you the truth you've been avoiding and walking away to let you sit with it.
I sat in the empty library room for a long time after.
He was right. I wasn't being smart. Smart would be evaluating the situation and making a decision. I was being safe – retreating, withdrawing, building walls out of thesis statements and professional distance because the alternative was admitting that what I felt for Rhys Maddox had outgrown every container I'd built for it.
Safe meant nothing could hurt me.
Safe also meant nothing could reach me.
And the thing about that – the thing I was only just starting to understand – was that those were the same thing.
- Writer
