Dusk (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 34 - Thoughts

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Snow had started to bury the plants and hug the branches of the trees, and the skies darkened earlier and earlier as winter settled in for good. Everything seemed quieter when it snowed, which left me with only my thoughts.

I'd told Rowan the night before that my parents wanted me to stay. It was a weak excuse to avoid talking to him about what had happened, I just needed more time. Time to figure out what to tell him, how to say it. But it only seemed to make me more anxious the longer I kept it from him, and now I had to worry about explaining why I took so long to bring it up at all.

He'd invited me over again, so either I'd run out of time to stall, or it'd be obvious that I was avoiding him.

"Evan, did you hear me?" My dad popped his head up from where he was crouched next to my car on the icy driveway. He was attempting to show me how to fit snow chains to my tires, though I was both heavily distracted and freezing. I sat in the driver's seat, with only cold air blowing through the vents of my car.

"No- dad the heat still isn't working."

"I asked you to inch forward a bit- I need to cover the rest of the tire." He rubbed his nose, looking unbothered by the cold. "And of course it's not working yet the engine hasn't heated up. It'll take a few minutes."

"How am I supposed to put the car in drive when my hands are frozen solid?"

"Your mother told you to put gloves on!"

"I didn't think I'd need them cause I've got a heater in the car!"

My dad leaned through my open window and changed the gear from park to drive. I mumbled a thanks feeling like a spoiled child, and gently stepped on the gas.

"Okay, stop there- perfect."

Once the chains were all placed properly I hurried back inside, seizing a cup of hot chocolate right out of my mothers hands.

"-Evan!" She whipped around trying to grab it back,

"Wait- mom let me just have this one and I'll make you a new one now- I'm so cold," I took a big gulp of the hot chocolate, and it warmed me up like magic.

"I told you to dress warmer didn't I? Where are your gloves?"

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" I poured some milk into a pot and started boiling it, before adding the chocolate powder to a cup.

After a few minutes, I handed her the fresh hot chocolate before joining my dad on the couch while he watched the news.

"Ah, fuck. Not another shooting."

Shooting...

"You're not surprised, are you?" My mom asked him from the kitchen.

Images of the gun I'd hid the night before popped into my mind for the hundredth time that day.

"Of course not it's just fucking miserable."

There was no way Rowan's dad would have found the gun...

"Absolutely."

What if he needed it? For protection? My hands clenched into themselves and I felt my palms sweat. What if I'd taken his only form of defense away from him?

He was literally going to shoot himself in the skull if you hadn't. He almost shot you!

But what if someone else killed him today instead? Because you took away his gun?

My eyes shot to the tv screen, quickly reading the headline and releasing a breath. The shooting wasn't local.

There are other ways to kill someone though-