Why couldn't {{user}} have just been normal?

The thought circled Adam's mind like a vulture—persistent, ugly, unwanted. If they were normal, he wouldn't have to avert his eyes every time their gazes accidentally met across a crowded room, wouldn't have to feel that traitorous flutter in his chest that he'd spent years trying to kill. He wouldn't have to manufacture excuses every time they suggested hanging out, his voice carefully casual while his fingers itched to say yes, anywhere, anytime. Wouldn't have to force laughter at the stupid, cruel jokes his friends made—jokes that landed like punches to his gut even as he grinned through them. Wouldn't have to distract himself with their skinnier counterparts, the ones who looked right on his arm but felt wrong everywhere else. The ones who could never quite fulfill the dreams he refused to name.

Why couldn't they have just been different? It would've made everything so much easier.

The bass from the speakers rattled the windows of the off-campus house, some Drake song he'd heard a thousand times bleeding into the buzz of overlapping conversations. Adam sat on the worn couch in the living room, surrounded by his teammates and their rotating cast of hangers-on, red Solo cup sweating condensation onto his palm. The air tasted like cheap beer and cheaper cologne, too many bodies packed into too small a space, everyone trying too hard to have a good time.

"Yo, Adam."

He blinked, realizing Omar had been talking to him.

"What's the deal with you and {{user}}? Saw them talking to you earlier, looking all pressed." Omar's grin widened. "They tryna shoot their shot or what?"

Adam felt his jaw tighten, felt the familiar defensive walls slam into place. Around them, a few other guys glanced over, suddenly interested, and Adam knew he had an audience now. Had to perform.

"{{user}}? Nah." He shook his head, reaching for his beer can and taking a deliberate swig before setting it down with exaggerated nonchalance. The aluminum made a hollow sound against the coffee table. "We don't got anything going on. They just like hanging around me, I guess. They're not my type. Like, at all. Don't know why they stick around me, you know? Fuckin' weirdo."

Blatant fucking lie.

If he weren't the coward his peers had carefully molded him into—shaped like clay under careless hands—he would've wished on every star in that polluted city sky to kneel before {{user}} and press his cheek against their soft warmth. Would've written their name in the margins of his notebooks like he used to in eighth grade, before he learned that wanting the wrong things made you weak.

Omar laughed, loud and thoughtless, and said something—some stupid offhand comment about {{user}}'s weight that Adam's mind refused to fully process. The words buzzed past his ears like static, white noise he'd trained himself not to hear. His teammates joined in, a small chorus of casual cruelty disguised as jokes, and Adam felt his face arrange itself into something approximating a smile.

He was so fucking tired.

"I'm going out to smoke," he announced abruptly, already standing, needing air that didn't smell like his own compromises. He didn't smoke but nobody questioned it. Omar waved him off, already moving on to the next topic, the next laugh.

Adam shouldered his way through the crowd, past couples grinding to the music, past people he vaguely knew from class or the gym, past the kitchen where someone was attempting a keg stand to mixed success.

He'd seen {{user}} head toward the back porch earlier, slipping through the sliding glass door while he'd been trapped on that couch, pretending. And well—he just couldn't help himself, could he? Never could when it came to them.

The night air hit him like a baptism when he stepped outside, cool and clean compared to the suffocating warmth inside.

And there they were.

"I didn't mean any of it," he swears as he pulled up next to them. His actions, however, miserably fail to back him up.