Georgia Boys

19. in which we love

gb readers, give me suggestions for bonus chapter ideas ! 

(e.g. character instagram pages, character q&a, seasonal chapter)

ily guys thanks for sticking around for my biyearly updates 🤭

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QUINCY

Our last two weeks of summer are too much, and simultaneously not enough. 

Being in love with Silas Barnes is like an adrenaline rush, like being dead and then alive once more. 

When we are seventeen, we fall deep, deep, deep in love. It's a whirlwind summer, where Silas finally allows me to take his hand anywhere I want to go. Like he'd follow me everywhere. 

Two weeks before school starts up again, I break his heart. And it should end then, but he refuses to let me. He calls me out on my shit. I don't admit to him until way later that sometimes I break things that I love too much, so they don't have power over me anymore.

School starts again, and Silas worries that very first day. I can tell he worries, because we meet at school rather than walk together. He's at the end of the hallway, with this adorable furrow to his eyebrows, and he's gripping his backpack straps tight. 

He finds my gaze, and his eyes just, like, fill with warmth. But he's also nervous. Like deathly nervous. And I approach him and swing my arms around his neck and just melt into him. He smiles a little. He towers over me.

A year later, not much has changed.

Our parents think I have him wrapped around my finger, like he'd do anything at my beck and call. But I think it's that he's not as good as hiding his feelings as he thinks he is. I'd do anything for him, but I'd never tell him. I'm better at hiding that.

I love having fun with him, our last summer before college. I take him to the skatepark again, spend hours in the bakery while watching him do this magic. The thing he loves, that I couldn't care less about. But it's him I care for, that I'd watch him pipe fondant forever if I could.

I'm going up north for college. I knew I would. Silas knew I would. I don't belong in this town any longer than I've stayed.

Graduation was everything. We cross the stage. I kiss him silly once we're in private. I kiss him all over. 

But we haven't discussed it. 

His heart is right here, I think, as I watch him. It's late August and I'm flying off in a week, and here he is, cluttering about his bakery, even though the Barnes are closed up for today. He keeps on dropping things and screwing up and thinking too hard.

My boyfriend, the overthinker.

But I get it. I watch him in that apron, move around the kitchen. He's handsome as hell. I get kind of pissed off about it, the fact that he's this beautiful, the fact that other people can tell. I think I genuinely started tweaking last summer, when Robbie was all over him.  

I understood it, that's why it pissed me off.

But these moments are perfect, because there's no one else around. His parents have retreated for the night. They know we're dating, but they can't do much about Silas' hours. And I think they feel a little bad, anyway, that we'll be so far apart for college. 

Silas is doing an online degree, which means he has more flexibility, and can still work at the bakery. I'd never ask him to up and leave with him. I suppose it's something we just have to do. Be apart for a minute. Maybe it's a canon event.