The next day felt unreal. Dewey wandered through it as if wrapped in gauze - each moment translucent, suspended.
The kiss had not echoed, had not spiraled into panic or regret. It simply lived inside him now, a warm stone he could turn over in silence.
Eliot hadn't messaged or called. Dewey didn't expect him to.
Instead, he biked to the lakeside, where the wind braided through tall grass and the water sparkled like spilled stars. He laid out his sketchbook and tried to draw anything but Eliot. But his fingers kept tracing the curve of a smile, the slope of forearms. His heart, stubborn and foolish, wanted to be remembered.
By mid-afternoon, a soft notification buzzed. Luca.
"Hey. I've been quiet. Sorry. You free?"
Dewey stared at the message. Something fluttered inside him - joy or guilt, he couldn't tell. They met at the overpass, where graffiti bloomed like wildflowers across concrete. Luca looked the same, yet not. His eyes held a kind of nervous sunlight.
"I missed you," Luca said, brushing his hair back.
"I wasn't sure if you wanted to talk," Dewey replied.
"I didn't know what it meant. The umbrella. The kiss." Luca looked at Dewey's shoes. "But I think I liked that I didn't know."
They walked quietly for a while, footsteps syncing. No confessions, no explanations. Just two boys existing in the space between questions.
Eventually, Dewey spoke. "I kissed someone else."
Luca didn't flinch. "Did you want to?"
"Yes."
Luca nodded. "Then I'm glad."
They sat beneath a graffiti mural of a goldfish in orbit. Luca rested his head on Dewey's shoulder, and Dewey let him. It wasn't about answers. It was about softness - the kind that holds you when everything is both beautiful and complicated.
"You're brave," Luca murmured. "You chase feeling like it's light."
"I get scared," Dewey admitted.
"Me too. That's why I didn't reach out."
They lingered there until the sun dipped behind the trees. Luca kissed Dewey's cheek. Gentle. Grateful.
"I don't know what I am," Luca whispered. "But I think I like how I feel near you."
Dewey closed his eyes, the wind threading through his hair.
The wind didn't ask who he was or who he wanted.
It just blew through everything and moved things forward.