ログインThe Lakeside Invitation.The text blinked on Sudan’s phone for the third time that afternoon.Hey… my family’s going to the lake this summer. Thought maybe you could come. It’s just a few days. You’d like it. We’d like it.Zach’s message made the hair on Sudan’s arms rise, not from warmth, but from the weight of everything he wanted and could never have.He stared at the screen, thumb hovering, as Mary’s face flashed through his mind, her soft apologies, her excuses, the calm way she had once left him standing in the rain.He didn’t want to go. He didn’t belong in that world. That house. That perfect, polished, wealthy, laughing world Mary had built without him.But imagining himself stepping into that house, walking those gleaming hallways, watching the Musk family move in sync like a well-practiced performance… it stirred something darker in him.He could already see it:The estate. The dock. The boats. The pristine gardens. Mary’s careful smile. Bask’s measured, commanding gaze.He
The second confrontation. The line Mary could not come back from.Sudan didn’t go back to the dorm immediately.Zach’s message sat waiting on his phone like an outstretched hand, but the air in his lungs felt too sharp, too cold, too full of everything he thought he’d buried.His feet carried him down the street, past shops and crowds, until the city thinned and storm clouds darkened the sky above him.He just needed space.Breathing room.Silence.But silence never stayed quiet for long, not with the past clawing its way up his spine.Fifteen minutes later, his phone buzzed again. He checked it out of habit.Not Zach.Not a friend.Mary.He shouldn’t have opened it.He opened it anyway.Sudan… I’m still at the café. Please, can we talk again? I didn’t say everything. There’s more you need to know.His chest tightened. Rage simmered beneath his skin.Need to know?What could she possibly say that he needed?Sudan shoved the phone back into his pocket and kept walking, jaw ticking. Sno
Snow fell in slow, drifting sheets outside the gym’s cracked windows, turning everything beyond the glass into a white, distant blur.Inside, the air reeked of sweat, rubber, and metal, familiar, grounding, almost comforting.Sudan’s fists struck the heavy bag again and again, each hit sharp enough to rattle bone. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t. The rhythm was the only thing keeping his mind from tearing itself apart.Zach’s voice still lingered in his head. His laugh. The way he’d looked at Sudan in the dorm last night, worry written all over him even though he tried to hide it.He shouldn’t have gone back to Zach. Or let him look at him like that. Or let himself want things that had nothing to do with revenge.Revenge was simple. Clean. Easy to define. Love, or whatever the growing ache in his chest was, complicated everything.Sudan hit the bag harder, the chain above him squealing. Two goals. Two obsessions. Protect Zach from the darkest parts of himself. And burn to the ground the l
The door clicked softly behind them, muffling the howl of the wind outside. Zach stood in the small entryway of the dorm room, watching Sudan step inside like he was entering foreign territory instead of the place he’d slept in dozens of times before.Sudan lingered near the door, shoulders tight beneath his jacket, gaze fixed on the floor. Snow clung to the hem of his jeans, slowly melting into small droplets on the tile.He looked like someone bracing for impact.Zach waited. He had learned, painfully, that with Sudan timing mattered as much as words.After a long stretch of silence, Zach spoke softly. “You don’t have to tell me everything right now.”Sudan’s jaw flexed, his face unreadable. “I know.”Zach hung his jacket on the hook and approached slowly as if Sudan were made of glass, as if a wrong move would send him splintering into pieces too small to gather.“You cold?” Zach asked.Sudan shrugged one shoulder. “I’m fine.”He wasn’t. The tremor in his hands said otherwise, subt
Sudan woke for the second time that day, and this time the world didn’t feel soft or slow. It felt… unfamiliar.Warm.Quiet.Safe.He blinked into the hazy afternoon light, disoriented for a moment by the weight against his shoulder. It wasn’t until he shifted slightly that he realized something or someone was leaning on him.Zach.Asleep.Sudan’s breath stilled.Zach’s head rested lightly against him, his hair brushing Sudan’s jaw, his arms loose at his sides like he wasn’t guarding a single part of himself. Sudan had seen him sleep before, during all-nighters, movie nights, accidental naps but never like this. Never on him.Sudan stared at the window instead, trying to control the sudden, terrifying heat climbing up his neck. He wasn’t used to warmth without cost. He wasn’t used to comfort without debt. And yet here Zach was giving it freely, like it didn’t break him to do it.Like it didn’t break Sudan to receive it.Carefully, slowly, Sudan eased out from under him, adjusting Z
Zach didn’t move at first. Sudan’s forehead pressed into his shoulder, warm and trembling, and it felt like the whole world tilted enough for Zach to realize how close Sudan had come to disappearing. Not physically. Emotionally. Into himself. Into the fights. Into the places Zach couldn’t reach but he was here now and Zach wasn’t letting go.He kept one hand at the back of Sudan’s head, the other hovering near his shoulder like he was afraid to touch too much, too fast. Sudan’s breath hitched to tell Zach how hard this was for him. How much it cost just to lean.Minutes passed. Maybe ten. Maybe a lifetime. The room stayed dim and warm, a little messy with thrown clothes and scattered textbooks, but it felt like the safest place in the universe.Finally, Sudan pulled back for Zach to see his face.His eyes were red at the edges, not from crying but from holding everything in for too damn long. His jaw was tight, his posture rigid, and Zach recognized the look. He’d seen it the night







