Chapter 16

The memory of Matthew’s kiss played on a loop in his brain as Alex tossed and turned in bed that night. It was exciting, confusing, and scary all at once. When his alarm blared the following morning, he groaned, hauling himself out of bed, grumpy and bleary-eyed.

He barely made it to his first class, sliding into his seat just as the professor started lecturing. The day seemed to drag on, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t focus on what was being discussed.

Back in his room later that day, he was still at loose ends, pacing restlessly, biting the inside of his cheek as he stared at the phone on the desk. He didn’t want to seem too eager, but the longer he waited, the more the silence gnawed at him.

Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. Grabbing the phone, he scrolled to Matthew’s name, and hit call, his pulse quickening as it rang.

Matthew picked up on the third ring, his voice sounding a bit sleepy. “Hey, Alex,” he said warmly. “I was wondering when I’d hear from you.”

“Hey, bro,” he replied, trying to sound casual as he settled onto his bed. “Just checking in. Sounds like I caught you napping. How’re you feeling?”

“Much better,” Matthew said. “Stitches are sore, but the headache’s mostly gone. Feels like living in the dark ages, though—no computer screens, no books, nothing—Mom’s relentless.”

Alex laughed softly. “Sounds thrilling.”

“Oh, it is,” Matthew said sarcastically. “You’d be jealous.” He paused, then dropped to a stage whisper, as if worried someone might overhear. “Listen, I hope I didn’t freak you out yesterday.”

Alex’s breath caught. A nervous giggle slipped out before he caught himself. “No, it was okay. Umm . . . no worries, man.”

“Well . . . good,” Matthew continued in a lighter tone. “Besides, I had a head injury. Who knows what all that might have caused?”

Matthew then continued with exaggerated sternness: “Anyways, you better keep the dorm clean while I’m gone. And keep your hands off my snack stash—I know you’ve been eyeing those Doritos.”

Alex forced a little chuckle. “I make no promises, Hargrove.”

*

They said their goodbyes, and Alex tossed the phone down. He sat on his bed, staring off into space, his mind buzzing with uncertainty.

So, what did Matthew mean exactly? Had it all been a joke? Was he embarrassed and trying to downplay what had happened? Or did Matthew maybe like him . . . as more than a friend?

After a few moments of internal debate, his gaze settled on Matthew’s desk across the room. His laptop was still there, evidently left behind in the rush of packing for their Thanksgiving trip to the farm. Curiosity seized him like a sudden itch. He remembered the lyrics he’d glimpsed weeks ago, before the farm trip.

With everything that had transpired between them in the past few days, he began to wonder all over again who and what that song was really about. He slid over to the desk, his heart beating a little faster, and flipped the laptop open. The screen lit up, no password prompt in sight, and Alex’s guilt warred with excitement as he looked at all the folders on the desktop.

He spotted one labeled “Random Tunes.” He clicked it, and a list of files popped up—song projects, it seemed. He scanned the names: “Cornfield Blues,” “Endless Sky”—titles that sounded like the country-pop stuff he’d heard Matthew listening to on his headphones.

Then he saw it—“Zero Gravity.”

He clicked the icon, and GarageBand opened, filling the screen with rows of sound waveforms, a digital tapestry he didn’t fully understand. He wasn’t familiar with this kind of software, but he was astute enough to spot a “play” button at the bottom of the screen.

He hesitated, his finger hovering over the mouse, then grabbed Matthew’s beat-up headphones from the desk. He plugged them into a port on the laptop, slipped them over his ears, and clicked play.

The music started—a pulsing, minor-key techno synth, haunting and ethereal. Then a four-on-the-floor kick drum and growling synth bass slid in beneath it, echoing the riff in deeper tones. The groove sounded 80s retro but it was catchy.

Then Matthew’s voice came through, rough-edged but earnest, softened by some sort of echoing effect.

“You don’t know what you do to me

When I look into your eyes, my secrets can’t be concealed.”

Alex’s eyes widened as the lyrics unfolded, each line like a confession, mirroring the feelings he’d been trying to ignore.

“When you—you’re standing so close to me

Oh, It feels like we’re moving in zero gravity.”

He listened—the music weaving a spell around him—until the song finally ended.

*

Long after the final notes faded into silence, Alex sat motionless, headphones still on, staring at the screen. Slowly, almost in a trance, he closed GarageBand, making sure to exit the program completely. He closed the laptop and slipped the headphones off his ears, setting them carefully back on the desk where he’d found them so they would look untouched. He didn’t want Matthew to know he’d been fooling with anything.

He drifted back to his bed, the room feeling suddenly smaller, the air heavier with the weight of what he’d just heard. He sat down, his back against the headboard, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

The evasiveness, the way he never mentioned his music—was this why Matthew had been so secretive? He seemed so open about everything else.

He felt guilty he’d snooped around on his laptop—but now that he’d heard this song, he wondered what else Matthew had written—what other secrets were tucked away in that “Random Tunes” folder?

But he didn’t dare mess with the laptop anymore. He’d already pushed his luck. If he screwed something up, Matthew would catch it for sure. He didn’t want him thinking he couldn’t trust him.

He finally snapped out of his reverie, his thoughts pulling him back to the present. He stood, grabbed his towel and shower caddy, and made his way out of the room toward the showers down the hall.

*

The dorm was unusually still for a Monday night, most students off studying or somewhere else. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead as he stepped into the tiled space of the shower room and headed for a stall in the back.

He turned on the water, the warm spray a welcome relief, and began to lather up as steam rose. Letting the water cascade over him, he found himself humming the melody of “Zero Gravity”, the notes slipping out unbidden. First the synth line, pulsing and haunting, then the chorus—the lyrics forming quietly on his lips. Then the first verse:

“When we’re together,

It feels like I’m floating through the sky

I’m as light as a feather

I can’t tell you why.”

He stopped abruptly when the door creaked open—another student stepping in to use the facilities. Fortunately, the guy hadn’t seemed to notice his quiet singing. He quickly finished up, rinsing off the last of the soap.

Stepping out, he grabbed his towel and dried off as the other student—a vaguely familiar freshman—brushed his teeth at one of the sinks. Wrapping the towel around his waist, his mind turned the song over and over.

He couldn’t decide what he thought.

But then again, there was that kiss . . .

Was this how Matthew felt about him? Surely he was mistaken.

It must have been a joke. Matthew just goofing around like he always did, head injury or not. And that song could be about anybody—or nobody, right?

He slipped on a clean pair of sweatpants and padded barefoot down the chilly hall, his shower caddy swinging in his hand, the song still echoing in his ears.

The rest of the night passed in a blur as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The room felt emptier without Matthew’s presence. A silence where his voice should have been—complaining about his biochemistry professor or bugging Alex to make another batch of ramen for the both of them—pressed down on him.

*

Tuesday dawned gray and cold, the sky heavy with the promise of more snow. Alex dragged himself to class once again, but his focus was shot. Doodles that morphed into Matthew’s face filled the margins of his notes.

By the time he got back to the dorm that afternoon, he was restless again. He dropped his backpack on the bed and unzipped it to grab his laptop. His fingers brushed against the small, worn sketchpad tucked inside.

He hesitated, then pulled it out—the cover battered and creased from years of use. He hadn’t sketched since that night a few weeks ago when he came down with that nasty cold, but the urge hit him now—a need to render the thoughts swirling around in his head.

Drawing had always been his escape since he was a kid. He’d started with sketches of his suburban Chicago neighborhood—street vendors, kids playing in the park, the skyline at dusk—but over the years, it had become a way for him to make sense of the world.

His parents—practical, focused on his future in computer science—might have dismissed it as a distraction. So, he kept it under wraps, a secret part of himself he only let out when he was alone.

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he flipped the sketchpad open to a blank page, the paper slightly yellowed at the edges. He reached over and grabbed a pencil from his desk.

He began sketching an outline of Matthew’s face as he’d looked in the hayloft—laughing, his eyes crinkled at the corners, hay caught in his unruly hair. The memory was vivid, etched into Alex’s mind, and his pencil channeled all of it: the angle of Matthew’s jaw, the curve of his lips, the softness in his gaze.

When he finished, he sat back, staring at the drawing, his chest feeling tight for some strange reason. He then flipped through the sketchpad, past older drawings: his mom cooking in their Chicago kitchen, a street market in Seoul, a self-portrait from last year.

He stopped at a blank page, his pencil hovering, and then began to sketch again—this time, an abstract image, a swirl of lines that felt like the weightlessness Matthew sang about in “Zero Gravity.”

Two figures, undefined but intertwined, floating against a field of stars, caught in orbit around one another, began to take shape on the page.

*

Throughout the rest of the week—between classes, meals at Burge or the IMU, and late nights in the room studying—he continued to sketch, filling pages with images of the farm: the barn, the pond, the grove of trees Matthew had pointed out. He drew Tucker the tabby cat, curled in the hay, and even a rough sketch of Tom, his broad frame silhouetted against the snowy driveway.

Eventually his thoughts would always return to Matthew—the sound of his laughter, the way it felt when he’d held his hand, his eyes staring at him after he’d kissed his cheek.

As the week passed, an idea began to form in his mind. Perhaps he could talk Matthew into letting him sketch a full-on portrait of him? The thought of actually asking him tied his stomach in knots, though.

But, it also excited him in a way he didn’t entirely understand.