𝙳𝙴𝙽𝙸𝙰𝙻 — (ɴᴏᴜɴ) — 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚕𝚎𝚍𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚞𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚛 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚍𝚖𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜, 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚍𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚖.

The year was 1959, and the trees surrounding the private campus of Welton Academy began to shed their colors, slowly becoming bare, skeletal silhouettes against each passing sunset.

Richard Cameron, a student in his junior year at Welton, sat outside of the dorms at the edge of the dock on the lake, watching the sun go down. Beside him was his roommate, Charlie Dalton.

Richard didn't like Charlie. He never did. He'd go so far to claim that he hated him. He'd convinced himself that the odd feeling in his chest when he was around Charlie, when he saw Charlie, when he heard Charlie's voice, was just a sign of his hatred for the other boy. Not something else. It couldn't be something else. It was wrong for it to be something else, for it to maybe be a sign that he could have feelings for him?

Nope! Not Richard. Not the boy who was so straight even his grades were straight, A after A. And surely Charlie wouldn't feel that way, either. All Charlie ever talked about was how they should have girls at Welton, of course he wouldn't feel that way. He couldn't, neither of them could.