Page 1 of Bruised

1. PUPPY

I heave my duffel bag into Oliver’s hallway with a grunt. “You sure it’s cool I crash here?”

“Of course,” says Oliver, my best friend in the whole world. “Mom doesn’t care. She’s touring Europe with her newest fling, Fabio—can you believe it?” He rolls his eyes. “Come on, drop that off in my room.”

He leads me upstairs, and I carry the duffel bag on my shoulder, huffing and puffing. The plan is to stay for as long as I can—the whole summer, if possible—so I’ve stuffed it close to bursting.

It’s obvious before even entering the house that Oliver’s family is better off than mine, but his room makes the contrast even clearer.

Special-edition action figures line his bookshelf, and unlike my haphazard IKEA setup, there’s actually some thought behind Oliver’s furniture. Everything feels cohesive, welcoming. Like a home.

I dump my duffel bag near the door and gasp at the sight of his desk. “Dude! Really?”

“You brought your laptop, right?”

“Of course I brought my laptop! But I didn’t think…”

Instead of one, there are two gaming setups on Oliver’s desk—complete with monitors and RGB keyboards. There’s even an additional gaming chair next to his.

Crying would be a bit much, but Oliver’s grinning face makes my eyes burn.

“Told you we’re gonna game all summer,” he says. “Just wait until you see the snacks.”

We abandon his room for the kitchen, and Oliver pulls the cabinet open to reveal a sick collection of chips, chocolates, and sour candy—my favorite.

He throws me a bag. “Here. Dinner.”

I look down at the candy and then up at him, and my eyes must be gleaming, because he turns serious for a beat.

“I told you, Lane. This summer is all about you and me having the house to ourselves and the time of our lives. One last summer.”

“One last summer,” I repeat, and the days and nights spreading out in my mind make the hollow ache in the pit of my stomach a bit easier to bear.

If only I could forget Oliver is leaving town. If only I could forget he’s leaving me behind.

We snack on our “dinner” in his room while we set up my gaming laptop at his desk, and after that, we game for hours until late into the night. When we’re bug-eyed and twitchy, Oliver leads me downstairs, and we grab blankets, more snacks, and put on a chill Xbox game.

“Finally, huh?” Oliver says.

“Finally, what?”

“We finally made it.”

We did. Oliver and I both repeated our junior year—me because of my dad’s work that left us constantly moving, and Oliver because of his mom and stepdad’s nasty divorce. When we first met, we bonded over that, and when we both got hooked on gaming, it was game over. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

This summer, we have his house all to ourselves, and in the fall, Oliver’s going to MIT—literally at the other end of the country. Why couldn’t he get accepted at another college instead? It’s a six-hour flight from Portland to Boston, and I can’t afford the plane tickets, that’s for sure. We’ll never get to see each other.

A few times a year, maybe.

The summers, if he spends them back at his mom’s.

That’s it. And when he’s done, he’ll be a full-fledged engineer—who knows what opportunities he’ll have? He might not even come back to Portland. He’ll leave me behind in more ways than one.

I put down the controller, unable to focus with all the thoughts running through my head.

“Excited about college?” I ask.

“Excited?” Oliver mutters. “I don’t know. It just feels like the right thing to do.”