Free Point Pleasant by Jen Archer Wood

don’t mean that, Nic.”
    “I don’t understand,” Nicholas said finally. Ben was not sure if the dread he felt in the pit of his stomach was due to the long silence that met his initial statement or the calculated evenness of Nicholas’ tone.
    “I love you,” Ben said. “I’ve loved you for years. You don’t belong with Lily because I think you belong with me.”
    “Ben!” Nicholas said as if Ben had just uttered some blasphemous curse. “ Stop .”
    Ben prepared himself for the response he had always known he would receive if he ever made this confession. Nicholas stepped away from him.
    “This is crazy,” Nicholas whispered as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “You don’t mean that, Ben.”
    “I do, Nic. I do,” Ben replied. The air seemed to vacate his chest entirely as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his lungs. “I mean every word.”
    “Since when are you gay?” Nicholas asked abruptly, and his even tone finally broke to reveal his confusion.
    “I don’t know what I am. All I know is that when I’m with you, I’m happy. Happy in a way no one else has ever made me. Happy in a way I don’t think I could be with anyone else but you. Happy in a way that makes me want to do anything you want if it meant you could feel what I feel when I’m with you.”
    Ben caught only a fleeting glance of his friend’s eyes in the dim glow of the porch light. Their usual easy, open glean was now as shuttered as the windows of the Carmichael house behind him.
    “Ben, we’re friends,” Nicholas started, and Ben had the sudden urge to break in, to say something— anything— to stop Nicholas from saying whatever he was going to finish with, but Ben forced himself to remain quiet as Nicholas went on. “And I love you like a brother. You’re my best friend. But I don’t think of you that way. I never have. And I don’t think—” he said, but he seemed to struggle to find his words.
    A flare of hope stilled Ben’s breath. If Nicholas had even the slightest hint of doubt, Ben might have a chance . ButthenNicholas’ shoulders stiffened with a resolve as effective as a fire extinguisher.
    “I never will,” he finished. “I just can’t think of you like that.”
    Ben was certain he felt his heart stop. The words were bad enough, but the sheer finality of Nicholas’ tone brokered no argument and quelled the flicker of optimism that Ben had felt just seconds before.
    “Oh well,” he said at last. “I didn’t expect you to.”
    Nicholas shifted with unease. It was as if he had discovered a copperhead had coiled itself by his front door, and he was trying to discern the best way to dispose of the creature before it slithered inside and infected him with its venom.
    “Ben—” Nicholas started, but Ben shook his head.
    “It’s fine. I get it,” Ben said. For a brief, feverish moment, he could almost feel the skin on his back transfigure into red scales. “But don’t marry her. You’re not happy, not like you should be. Like you deserve to be. When you marry someone, whoever it is, you should be over the moon. You should be so happy that you can’t stop smiling for days. I didn’t see that earlier, and I don’t think I’ll see it as long as you’re with her.”
    “I am happy,” Nicholas said with a sharpness that stung like a bite from that fucking snake. “I’m with Lily, and I’m pleased with the decision I’ve made. You need to respect that. And don’t presume to know anything about the way I feel.”
    “Don’t marry her, Nic,” Ben whispered. “Please, don’t marry her.”
    “That’s enough,” Nicholas said, and his voice took on an icy edge that Ben had often heard Nicholas direct toward assholes like Josh Calloway but never toward himself.
    There was nothing more to say. Ben had confessed, and it ended just as he had always known it would. They stood in silence as Ben gazed at Nicholas, who looked off at the trellis that climbed the side of the house and refused