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caesura

noun. a break in the music, during which time is not counted.

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THE MARCHING RED FOXES PLAY in the Homecoming Parade, which is a procession of spirit groups and performing arts ensembles in advance of the football game.

Compared to a halftime show, parade marching is so much easier. Left, left, left-right-left and just watch the drum major (who is watching center snare) for when to stop, mark time, or turn. We use the most popular of our songs from the Sun show.

Callum is throwing yet another band party this Saturday, and this time I seriously deliberate skipping it. I can't keep up with his social energy. But the drumline already likes him more than me, and being liked translates into being respected, which has a direct impact on your ability to lead.

By Saturday evening, after dinner, I'm still torn about whether to attend. I pull out my makeup bag from the drawer in my desk. As soon as the first drop of foundation touches my cheeks, the decision is made. I don't wear make up during the day, and now I will feel like I've wasted product if I don't debut it to some sort of crowd. (Look what social media has done to us. Perception becomes reality.)

The sky outside is covered with milky pink clouds, the fall weather still blissfully dry. At her desk, Renata watches me apply my makeup in the closet mirror.

"You know, I hear so much about Callum and his beloved strip beer pong, and yet I never see any photos."

I snort, working contour in the hollows of my cheeks. "You never see any photos of Callum stripping?"

"Precisely," and just as my expression curdles, "hey, we can agree that someone is objectively criminally good-looking and not endorse their personality or behavior. You don't even have to know a name to know beauty."

I fill in my brows to balance my eyes, which I think are too deep set and cavernous. Blush and contour and mascara. "He is not criminally good-looking."

"Bay, sweetheart," Renata says softly. "He's an Adonis."

I mime barfing in my mouth and swallowing it back down again, with a piteous distressed expression, too. "If I get you a shirtless photo of him, will you shut up?"

"Yes."

I swipe on the gloss I'd saved for after dinner, then pick up my Science Faculty tote bag to pack my party essentials. "What are you doing tonight?"

I'd offered to bring Renata as my plus one, but apparently Vivian, the Treasurer of WISA, is taking a bunch of the executive committee clubbing tomorrow night, and, "I need a full social battery to keep up with Viv. She parties hard."

"Studying till eleven. Then UberEats. More study," Renata rattles off. "Having a meltdown about the employability of my degree at one a.m. Asleep by about two a.m."

I chuckle. "Don't forget the Tiktok rabbit hole."

"Don't attack me like that."

Wallet, phone, keys, lip gloss, earphones, packet of tissues, umbrella, a glass bottle of cheap gin, and a plastic bottle of margarita mixer. I'm always prepared.

"Okay, I'm off."

"Have fun! Remember the picture!"

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At Callum's house, which is already booming with noise and odor, I head straight for the kitchen.

I nod in greeting to anyone I recognize, forcing my lips into a coy smile. Pulling out my gin and mixer, I help myself to a red solo cup from an open pack and make a drink that is one part spirit, three parts mixer.

Downed that.

Make another, half and half.

I need to be buzzed if I am going to play nice. I'm not going to survive sober. I take measured sips from my cup. I eye the kitchen, looking perpendicularly across the hallway that I came in from.

A flash of ash blond hair emerges from the crowd. I snap as clear a photo as I could, sending it off to Renata with a click.

I down the rest of my half-half drink, feeling a tight burning sensation in my chest. Oof. My stomach lurches in protest at the poison I just forced into it. It tastes toxic. My next drink is one third gin and two-thirds mixer, preparing myself for long conversations with fellow musicians where I can laugh at the correct time and sip at the correct time, slowly sinking myself into inebriation.

But, what actually happens is that I spend the night avoiding everyone. I knew I shouldn't have come.

The garden is a nice place to pass time until the interior of the house gets too hot, sweaty and noisy. Then groups of people start trickling into the yard to smoke or talk—I see a group of people put on an ambient noise playlist of whale songs and start swaying to it—and I have to find a new quiet place.

I end up in Callum's room.

It's an invasion of privacy, but I know that if he minds, I won't. The hatred is paradoxical that way. Besides, I am a tidy person. I'll just catch my breath in here—without the pressure of being perceived by a dozen different pairs of eyes and a dozen different brains all forming opinions, a dozen-factorial social connections to track—and leave.

I shut his door, plunging the room into complete darkness. I sit on the carpet by Callum's bed. The bed frame is solid and comforting at my back, and I rest my forehead on my knees. An indeterminate amount of time passes, during which I just breathe through the familiar iciness sweeping through my mind. This happens sometimes. I will be conducting the usual affairs of my day, studying, socializing, putting food into my body, practicing marching band music; then suddenly everyone's face becomes a skin mask that they've safety-pinned to the corners of their skull. Everything is a facade covering up the ugly truth of the world.

When I realize this, I just detach from everything. I want to go home, but I don't have one. Where is home? There is no place that truly feels safe, feels like mine.

The door clicks open. I jolt to my feet, squinting at the triangle of light that splashes onto the carpet, following it up to the illuminated rectangle that Callum stands in. The whole room whirls around my eyes. His body is silhouetted, lean arms and broad shoulders.

"Bay," Callum says, stunned, walking closer.

His smile vanishes when he sees me, and I rearrange my features into a wry smile. "Sorry for invading. I just needed a break from all the noise."

"That's alright," he says. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. I'm great."

Callum shuts the door, which makes the room go dark again. He flicks on the lamp by his nightstand, stopping me from leaving when I reach for the doorknob. "Don't go if you don't want to. Still pretty loud down there."

I nod, my throat squeezing. I'm surrounded by him in this room. His childhood, his memories, his hobbies. With superheroes on the walls and framed pictures of his family on his desk, suddenly he looks more youthful and innocent than I've ever seen him.

It's then I notice the wet patch on his white t-shirt, the fabric clinging to his torso.

"There was a spill," he explains, right before one-handedly peeling off his top. I avert my eyes, but it's too late. I'm blinded.

I take a seat on his desk chair and wait while he pulls a new shirt on. His back muscles flex before they disappear underneath dark gray cotton.

Finally in dry clothing, Callum perches on the end of his desk. He extends a gentle smile in my direction. I do my best to mirror it, though all outward emotion feels unnatural at present; I'm just a brain telling this sack of minerals, proteins and water to smile.

"You know, I wasn't lying when I said I'm glad we're co-leading," he says mutedly. "You do make me a better leader."

Even in the low light of the lamp, peripherally I notice the flash of his teeth, the pale mass of his hair. I turn my head and absorb his side profile; I trace the regal slope of his nose and his high cheekbones, the perfect dip of his brow bone into his eye socket. He's an Adonis.

"Really?"

"Really." He briefly meets my eyes and looks away. "I respect your judgment and your technique."

Disliking someone on principle of self-preservation is incredibly difficult when that someone is Callum. I pretend to scowl. "Well, now I have to pay the same compliment. I respect your... empathy and musicality."

Callum breathes. Then he laughs, brown eyes crinkling. "Are you having teeth pulled? Don't say stuff you don't mean."

"Then I lose the moral high ground."

"This again," he drawls.

I smile wanly. "Liberal democracies are built on reciprocity, Callum. Give and take. Taxes. Public education. Protecting the commons. Please, thank you, and returning compliments."

"Why do you always do this?" He runs an exasperated hand through his hair. "I try to be nice, and you over-analyze my words until they mean nothing."

My shoulders stiffen. I hate when he does this, trying to break me open. I throw out a weak, whiny impression of his voice. "Why is Bay so mean to me?"

Callum's jaw ticks. "Fuck you." He gives me a withering, tight-lipped smile, shaking his head in frustration. "I don't know why I bother."

"Why do you bother?" I pick myself up from his chair. "I'll leave."

He doesn't even blink before following me, closing the distance between us until my back hits the door. "Don't you dare."

Callum braces himself against the door by placing a hand at my side. He searches me, and I want to dissolve. "Tell me. Why are you only mean to me? Why don't you like me? Don't say it just is. One valid reason and I'll drop it. I won't antagonize you anymore."

I can't tell him that. I want the antagonism.

I drop my gaze to my sneakers. There's a reason I never look at Callum for too long. He hurts to look at, he's too magnetic. I want to unwind for him, take him on a walk through the haunted forests in my head. Do you understand now? Why sunshine burns people who have lived so long in the dark?

Despite our proximity, his body caging me in against the wall, I don't feel trapped. Anticipation shivers through my spine. I plant my heels into the carpet and try my best to meet his stare, pulling up a chain-mail defense of niceness. I can weaponize meanness. I can weaponize niceness. I'm a weapon. Stay away, stay away.

Deflecting: "I kind of want to pay you a compliment you'll never be able to return." My voice is a mere hoarse whisper at the back of my throat, like a pencil scratching over paper, sheets rustling against skin. "I would have the moral high ground ad infinitum." Callum could have killed the rivalry by choosing to never engage. Don't fight with me. Don't sink to my level. Don't try to walk me home or give me your bedroom. Just ignore me. "I'm jealous of you. Your sociability and your confidence."

He scoffs disbelievingly. "You can play that role whenever you want to. I've seen you pull every eye in a five mile radius."

I cock my head to the side. "Fine. Here's another: I often feel threatened by how well you drum."

"Ha. That one I can return," he drawls. "Try again."

I would have bluffed the next one, but I'm out of body tonight. Dissociated, released from my previous limits. I feel like I could say and do whatever and just walk away from the consequences. Compliments, compliments.

So I suck in a breath and murmur, "Ever since we made out in Toby's bathroom I haven't stopped wanting to kiss you again."

Silence.

It's like the floor rumbles where we stand as the meaning sinks in.

A guilty flush crawls up my spine and onto my cheeks. Callum notices my expression before I can school it into innocence. I am always too honest when I'm not sober. I shut my eyes, unable to keep meeting his suspicious, blazing eye contact. I watch the multicolored fractals whirl on the back of my eyelids.

Callum's voice comes right by my cheek, his warmth inches away. "Open your eyes, Bay."

I shake my head.

He takes my chin in my fingers and tips my head back.

I know his body well enough to imagine, in this position, the exact distance between his face and mine, the whisker of breath that can pass between us, but nothing more, the space too slim.

"Open them. Please."

I blink, meeting his gaze.

Callum exhales raggedly, his golden brown eyes flickering over every part of my face. He looks at my mouth a lot. There's an odd quality to his face. Too... smooth. Very civil, very blank, like he's intentionally keeping every emotion at bay. Nothing like the grinning embodiment of the campus golden boy I know he is.

But maybe what I take as too civil is just another normal expression of his, one that I never get to see, because we are only ever on bad terms. I don't know how to survive a Callum that isn't my enemy.

"Do you mean that?" he whispers, his thumb caressing the ridge of my jawbone.

Do I mean it? Yes. Infinitely.

Do I want him to know that I mean it? Usually not.

But tonight...

Slowly, I nod my head. "Yes."

Instantly his expression darkens.

I'm afforded a nanosecond view of the ruinous haze, the lusty smoke in his eyes before Callum lays me against the door—

—and presses his mouth against mine.

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a / n:

first kiss (second technically, but you know what I mean)! how are we feeling about our leading lovers and their dynamic?

a warning that this book is a fast physical burn and slow emotional burn.

i.e. the next chapter is going to be graphic af, prepare some holy water.

aimee x