just dive in [reed bishop spin-off] ✔️

twelve

— t w e l v e —

WHEN HE WAS thirteen, Oliver had his first kiss.

Most people talked about their first kiss as something sweet, monumental, perfect, underwhelming, unimpressive. It was none of these things for Oliver. It was completely unexpected, and something he never thought he would get. One thing for sure was that it was a memory he would never forget. It was August and with the end of summer drawing closer with every day, Oliver was running out of time to deliver the news of his move. He kept working himself to spit it out every time he saw Reed and Adam, and every time, he pussied out. He just hated that his whole life was going to change – at least, it felt that way to a thirteen-year-old moving across the country – and wanted to pretend, if just for a little longer, that everything was okay.

This was the mindset that backed Oliver into a corner where he was leaving the city in a week and he still hadn't told either of them. That was what the sleepover was supposed to be about. An opportunity to tell them the news that he should have said weeks ago. If either of them noticed the moving boxes scattered around the house, ready to pack their lives up, they didn't comment. It started as another normal sleepover. Ordering too much pizza, watching bad horror they found on dodgy online websites, kicking a muddy football around the garden, making up outrageous dares for one another to do. Technically, it was truth or dare, but Reed always picked dare and Oliver would try to match him as best as he could. Adam was the only one who would ever choose truth.

Not long after Reed downed the disgusting contents of a makeshift cocktail Oliver and Adam put together for his dare, with pickled onions and coleslaw they'd hunted out of the fridge among other things, Adam fell asleep. It was 2AM and the two of them, Reed and Oliver, were the only ones awake in the otherwise silent house. Oliver sometimes wondered how differently that night would have played out if Reed had been the one to fall asleep first or if none of them had given into sleep that night. Then again, he could take it as far as wondering what would have happened if he wasn't moving to London a week later or if he'd never met Reed in the first place.

"Reed," Oliver began, swallowing his trepidation and knowing he had to say something, now. Before it was too late. "I – "

"Let's go out on the roof," Reed suggested, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "We won't wake anyone up when we talk."

Oliver just nodded. The roof was, technically, strictly off-limits. Oliver and Reed had first discovered they could climb out onto his windowsill and haul themselves up onto the slanted rooftop above the window when they were nine. The third time they did this, sneaking up blankets and food to camp out there, Oliver's mum found out. It was safe to say she was not impressed and forbid either of them from ever doing something so dangerous again. Oliver never went out when he was on his own but more often than not, when Reed came round, they'd wait until it was late enough that they wouldn't get caught and crawl back out on the roof looking out over Oliver's back garden.

That was how they ended up sitting cross-legged opposite each other, surrounded by the peaceful quiet of the night and the starry sky. And while Reed ranted about his English teacher for giving him a low mark on a recent essay, Oliver couldn't help staring at the pale glint of his hair in the dark, the way his icy eyes lit up when he was animated something, which was often; he was easily angered. Oliver knew this was the perfect moment to tell him, to say "I'm moving", yet still he hesitated.

Oliver had been pushing down his confusing thoughts and feelings for a while but, for the first time, he dared himself to acknowledge them. He allowed himself to consider that maybe the way he was watching Reed wasn't the way a friend should be watching another friend and that maybe it was because Oliver didn't think of Reed just as a friend anymore. He could feel his own heart racing just at the possibility of what he was thinking but he didn't stop himself, didn't immediately think of something else like he usually would when his own feelings scared him. He would be leaving this city, leaving Reed, at the end of summer. In a week.