3 - Nightmare

The reply came almost instantly.

{Alice: WHAT?! as in THE Callum Reid? the one from the stories? Leo, tell me you're joking. please don't tell me you're just being dramatic because you lost your pen.}

{Me: I wish I was. He's in my room right now. I can still smell his cologne. It's disgusting.}

{Alice: get out of there. go to my place stay on my couch for the night. I don't care if you have an essay due, you cannot be in a room with that sociopath.}

I wanted to take her up on it. I wanted to run until my lungs burned. But there was a stubborn part of me that refused to be driven out. If I left now, he won.

{Me: No. I'm staying. I'm not letting him take this from me too.}

{Alice: you are so stubborn. Fine. yut if he does anything weird, you call me and I will bring my largest palette knife to your dorm. love you!}

I sighed and leaned my head back against the door. I stood up and walked to my desk, reaching for my blue pen. I gripped it tightly. I wouldn't let him see that he still had the power to make me flinch.

Around midnight, the door swung open. Callum walked in alone. His hair was damp from a shower and he wore nothing but a pair of low-slung grey sweatpants. His chest was broad and mapped with lean muscle that rippled as he moved. On his ribs, I caught a glimpse of a tattoo in elegant script: nessun dorma (none shall sleep).

He didn't look at me as he walked to his side of the room, but I could tell he was aware of my gaze.

"Still awake, Hayes?" he asked. His voice was devoid of the loudness he used with Sean. "Or are you just staring at me because you've never seen a real man before?"

I turned back to my laptop, my jaw tight. "I'm studying."

"Right. The little scholar," Callum mocked. He sat on the edge of his bed and chewed the inside of his cheek. He looked at me and his expression shifted into something more intense. "You know, it's funny. You still look at me the same way you did when we were kids. That mix of terror and... what is that? Longing?"

I froze. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. "I don't long for anything involving you."

".. Liar," Callum murmured. He leaned back on his elbows, stretching his torso and making the muscles of his abdomen flex. "I remember that kiss in the grass, Leo. I remember how you shook. You were so desperate to be touched that you didn't even care that I was a prick back then. I bet you're still that desperate. I bet you've spent the last six years wondering if I still taste the same."

I felt a surge of genuine disgust, mixed with a traitorous heat in my stomach. "You are sick. You think you can just walk back in here and talk to me like that? You're nothing but a bully with a trust fund."

"And you're nothing but a good boy who does everyone's homework and carries their books," Callum countered. His voice dropped to a low growl. "Tell me, Leo, does it get tiring? Being the saint of the campus? Does it make you feel better about the fact that you're terrified of a little bit of water? Or the fact that you're still hiding who you are from everyone?"

I stood up so fast my chair screeched against the floor. "I'm not hiding anything! And I'm not a saint. I just don't go around making other people miserable for fun like you do."

Callum didn't flinch. He just watched me. His gaze scanned my face with a hunger that felt invasive. "You're so easy to wind up. It's almost boring. You get that little crease between your eyebrows and you start breathing like you're drowning all over again. It's pathetic."

"I hate you," I spat.

"I know," Callum said, his voice smooth and dangerous. "That's the only honest thing about you."

I turned back to my screen, but the words of my essay blurred. I could feel him watching me. His gaze was like a physical weight on my skin. I folded my shoulders inward, trying to disappear into myself.

"You should go to sleep, Leo," Callum said suddenly. His voice was quieter now, almost soft, which felt more threatening than his shouting. "You look like you're about to collapse."

"I'll sleep when I'm finished," I replied without looking at him.

"Still so rigid" he murmured. "I wonder if you're that stiff in other ways too."

I felt my face flush deep red. I didn't respond, but my heart was racing.

I lay in bed that night, listening to the sound of Callum's steady breathing across the room. Every time he shifted, I jumped internally. I thought about the boy I thought he was and the man he had become. The person in this room was a stranger who happened to have Callum's face.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the pool, the long, blue stretch of water where I felt in control. But as I drifted toward sleep, the blue turned to black. The surface vanished. And I felt the familiar, terrifying sensation of sinking.

I woke up gasping, my chest locking in a sudden flinch.

Nightmare.

I sat up, my glasses skewed on my face, and looked over at Callum. He was awake, propped up on one elbow, watching me in the moonlight.

"still dreaming about the water?" he asked softly.

I didn't answer. I just lay there, my heart racing. I looked at him one last time before closing my eyes. He was already shifting back to sleep, his face relaxed, the scar on his chin a pale line in the dark.

I stared at the ceiling, the silence of the room feeling heavier than it ever had before. I was trapped in a few hundred square feet of space with the one person who knew exactly how to break me.

I didn't know how I was going to survive the semester, but as I listened to the wind rattle the window and the rain continue its relentless assault on the building, I knew one thing for certain.

I wasn't leaving this room.