Chapter 4: The Edge of Everything
The city below Dante’s windshield was a grid of amber lights swallowed by a brown haze. He took a long drag, the cigarette’s ember flaring in the dim car, and watched the ash fall onto a printed email headed Regrettably. The scent of smoke and old leather was suffocating.
He thumbed his phone awake again, the glow harsh against his face. Dre’s latest story was a time-lapse of a painting, quick strokes resolving into a night sky over a football field. The caption read, Focus mode: activated.
Good, Dante thought, his chest tight. That’s what you should be doing.
He wasn't in the picture. He never would be. Dre was saving himself from the inevitable shitshow Dante’s life was becoming. The laptop on the passenger seat glowed with a blank message box, cursor blinking beside Dre’s name.
He typed I’m sorry about today, then deleted it. His fingers hovered, then tapped out a different truth. I think about that dare every night.
He stared at the words, his pulse loud in his ears. The memory of clay under his fingernails and Dre’s grip on his wrist was a phantom ache. His father’s voice, cold and final, cut through the memory: No fags under my roof.
He deleted the confession again, the empty box a silent verdict. Three months. The dashboard clock read 11:17 PM. He had nowhere to go after graduation. Below, the city hummed, indifferent.
He lit another cigarette from the butt of the last one, the new flame a tiny, defiant conflagration in the dark. He didn’t send anything. The screen went black, reflecting only the hollows of his own eyes.
The screen went black, reflecting only the hollows of his own eyes. He let his head fall back against the headrest, the unanswered messages and rejection letters blurring into a single, leaden weight behind his ribs. Exhaustion, thick and chemical from smoke and despair, finally pulled his lids shut.
The world faded into a grayscale smear. He was lying under the sprawling branches of the old oak at the edge of the practice field, but everything was drained of color, silent and still.
Then he heard his voice—Dre’s. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Dante.”
As Dante looked up, he saw the most beautiful smile and brown eyes he’d ever seen. Everything around them turned into vivid, impossible colors: the grass a shocking emerald, the sky a deep violet, the tree bark rich and burnished copper. As Dante sat up, Dre leaned over him closer, his lips hovering right above his.
“One day, Dante, I’m going to paint you. Just like this.” Right as their lips touched, his ringtone blares.” It was Dre.
Dante jerked awake, a strangled sound caught in his throat. The steering wheel was cold under his clenched hands. His joggers were soaked, and not from sweat.
Fucckkkkkkk. He groaned and flopped his head back down against the seat, the dream’ colors seared behind his eyelids. The city lights below were just dirty yellow smudges again.
The city lights below were just dirty yellow smudges again. His phone buzzed against the console, a harsh vibration he felt in his teeth.
He stared at it, the screen casting a sterile rectangle on the roof lining. It was a notification from Dre.
His thumb hovered, smudging the glass. He opened it.
Dre: hey man, are you still coming over to watch the big 10 game with us?
Fuck. Dante remembered suddenly. He, Huang, Dre, and Scott were meeting at Dre’s house to watch the game. The plan felt like it was from a different century, before the art room, before the cafeteria.
The cold vinyl seat seeped into his bones. Dre’s living room would be warm, smelling of lemon cleaner and the herbal tea Dre’s mom always made.
His damp joggers were a cold, shameful secret. The rejection letters crackled under his shifting weight.
He typed a reply, his fingers clumsy. Yeah. Gotta go shower and change real quick, I’m sweating something fierce from my workout.
He hit send. The lie tasted like the cigarette smoke still clogging the car.
Dre: bet. see you when u get here.
The engine growled to life, shattering the cliffside silence. He pulled away from the overlook, the tires crunching over gravel.
He was going. The dashboard clock glowed. He was going because he had nowhere else to be, and because a simple, stupid text had been a rope thrown into the dark. He was going because he needed to see if Dre’s eyes still held that hurt, or if they had already moved on, and that need was a physical hunger, sharp and undeniable.
The hot water beat the cliffside chill from his skin but did nothing for the knot in his stomach. Dante’s hand slid lower and lower in the shower. He needed to calm his ache before facing Dre.
Maybe this was normal. Being around someone for that long, surely it was normal to have this… unnatural affection. Maybe it was just a deep fondness he’d confused for something else.
Up until recently, they shared everything with each other. He finished quickly, disgusted with his own trembling relief, and turned the water ice-cold until his teeth chattered. He eventually dressed, grabbed some snacks from the pantry, and headed over to Dre’s.
His parents were at a conference, so it was just the guys, and Mia’s ass was upstairs somewhere. When Dre answered the door, he made a face. “Dude, you reek of squares. I can’t believe your parents ain’t tripping over you smoking and shit.”
Dante forced a grin, holding up the bag of chips like a shield. “Open a window, mom. You gonna let me in or what?” He stepped past Dre into the familiar, warm hallway, the ghost of turpentine now replaced by citrus cleaner and popcorn.
From the living room, Huang yelled, “Turn it up, Scott’s about to get sacked again!” The normalcy of it was a slap. Dre closed the door, his gaze lingering on Dante’s profile for a second too long, silent and assessing.
Dre closed the door, his gaze lingering on Dante’s profile for a second too long, silent and assessing. The living room was a cave of flickering television light and sprawled limbs. Huang and Scott were already buried in the sectional, a bowl of popcorn balanced between them.
“Bout time,” Scott mumbled through a mouthful, not taking his eyes off a replay. Dante dropped onto the far end of the couch, putting Huang’s sprawled legs between him and Dre. The game was a blur of colored jerseys and manic commentary, a noise he could hide inside.
They fell into the old rhythms, shouting at bad calls, groaning at fumbles. Dante laughed at Scott’s jokes, the sound cracking in his own ears. During a commercial break for pickup trucks, Scott nudged Dre’s foot with his own.
“Damn man, you still haven’t tapped that Breonna situation,” Scott said, grinning. Huang nodded, swallowing a gulp of soda. “Yeah dude. You could literally have any girl you wanted.”
Huang gestured with his bottle. “You’re unnaturally handsome and an artist. Chicks dig that shit.” Dre shrugged, staring at a graphic for an insurance company scrolling across the screen. “I’m just not into that,” he said, voice casual.
Dante froze, a chip halfway to his mouth. Dre glanced at him, then quickly amended. “I mean not into the girls that want me. I’m focused on my art and these scholarships.”
“Spoken like a true artist,” Scott said, and they all laughed. But there it was again, etched into the muscles of Dante’s face. The reality. Dre had a bright future ahead of him.
Meanwhile, he’d be lucky enough to go D2-D3 at best. And that was only if he found a school in such short notice. The game came back on, a roar of crowd noise filling the room Dante had suddenly left.
The game came back on, a roar of crowd noise filling the room Dante had suddenly left. He stood up, the cushions sighing. “Gotta piss,” he muttered, not looking at Dre as he headed for the stairs.
The hallway upstairs was quiet, a world away from the televised chaos. He pushed into the bathroom, locked the door, and braced his hands on the cool sink, staring at his own hollowed-out reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. He turned the cold tap on full and plunged his hands under the stream, then cupped the water and splashed it hard against his face.
The shock was a brief, clean nothing. He did it again, droplets streaking down his neck and soaking into his shirt collar. He needed the numbness, something to scour away the phantom smell of cigarettes and the echo of his father’s voice.
He grabbed a towel, roughly dried his skin, and took one steadying breath that didn’t steady anything. He opened the door to see Mia leaning on the wall, filing her nails. “What’s good, sis?” he asked, forcing his voice into its usual casual groove.
“Mmmhmm,” she said, not looking up from her nail. “Don’t ‘sis’ me. We need to talk.” She finally met his eyes, her expression unreadable. “About?” he asked, the word tight in his throat.
“About you, dumbass.” She nodded toward Dre’s bedroom door down the hall. “And what happened in the art room today. And why you’re hiding up here smelling like an ashtray.” She pocketed her nail file. “My room. Now.”
He followed her down the hall, the muted roar of the football game rising from the living room like distant traffic. Mia pushed her bedroom door open, the air inside smelling of vanilla lotion and nail polish remover.
“Close it,” she said, sinking onto her bed piled with throw pillows. Dante leaned against her desk, arms crossed over his still-damp shirt. “What’s this about, Mia?”
“You know what it’s about.” She fixed him with a look that saw everything—the cliffside, the dream, the shame drying on his joggers. “I saw Dre after school. He’s messed up, Dante. Because of you.”
The words landed like a physical blow. Dante’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t.” She kicked a stray slipper across the floor. “He thinks he ruined everything. That he crossed a line in the art room and now his best friend hates him.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping. “But that’s not it, is it? You’re just scared.”
“You don’t know anything,” he muttered, staring at a poster on her wall, seeing nothing.
“I know you’re in love with him.” The statement hung in the vanilla-scented air, stark and undeniable. Dante’s breath hitched, a sharp intake he couldn’t control. All his denials, all his performances, evaporated under her steady gaze.
A frantic energy seized him. He pushed off the desk, running a hand through his hair. “Mia, you can’t just say that shit. What if someone hears you?”
“Who’s gonna hear?” She shrugged, but her eyes were soft. “Look, I just wanna help. You’re both miserable.”
“You can’t help.” The confession was a whisper, ripped from somewhere dark and raw. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. My dad... the scholarships... it’s all fucked.” He paced the small length of her rug. “Nothing can happen. Ever.”
She watched him unravel for a moment. “So you’re just gonna ghost your best friend? Let him think he did something wrong?”
“It’s better this way!” The words were too loud, and he flinched, glancing at the door.
“Is it?” She stood up now, facing him. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re just being a coward.” The truth of it was a barbed hook in his gut. He had nothing left to say.
“YOU KNOW DRE WILL KILL ME, IF HE THINKS I’M IN YOUR ROOM HITTING ON YOU.” SHE ROLLED HER EYES, AND CONTINUED, “but I don’t care. Someone had to say it to your face.”
He stared at her, the fight draining out of him. She was definitely like her mama; she didn’t miss shit. “Btw,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper, “you wiped your concealer off when you were in the bathroom earlier.”
Her eyes fixed on the left side of his face. “I can see that fresh bruise on your cheek.”
The memory hit him with a physical weight: his father’s hand connecting last night after going through his phone, the screens lit with Dre’s name and pictures. Dante had panicked, walking out of the room with the concealer bottle burning in his pocket. He’d bumped into Dre right outside Mia’s door.
“Why are you leaving my sister’s room?” Dre had asked, his brow furrowed.
“Online… she was showing me how to apply this,” Dante mumbled, showing him the bottle.
“Another football injury,” Dre said, his voice flat.
Dante just nodded. “I got you,” Dre said softly.
They’d entered Dre’s room, and Dre made him sit on the stool in front of his wardrobe. After watching Dante apply the concealer horribly, Dre snatched the sponge from his hand, grabbed Dante’s cheeks to steady his face, and started dabbing it on with a gentle precision. “How are you so good at this?” Dante had asked, his voice tight.
“Well, you know my sister,” Dre said, not meeting his eyes, focusing on the task. “She lives for makeup, so she taught me since I always have to drive her around.”
Dre’s thumb brushed just below Dante’s eye, his touch firm and careful. The room was quiet, the distant shouts from the television a world away. Dante could smell the faint, familiar scent of graphite and soap on Dre’s skin.
His own breathing felt too loud in the space between them. Dre’s eyes were focused, intent on his work, but the line of his jaw was tight. He smoothed the makeup with a final, soft pat, his fingers lingering for a second on Dante’s cheekbone.
“Are you okay, Dante?”
The question was barely a whisper. Dante’s heart stuttered against his ribs. “Yeah, I’m, good.” Dre’s hand didn’t move. He searched Dante’s face, his gaze dropping to the barely visible tremor in Dante’s hands where they gripped his own knees.
“Are you sure? Because you’re trembling, again.” Dre’s voice was low, concerned. “Are you cold?”
“No.” The word came out too sharp. Dante practically leaped from the stool, the movement violent and sudden, putting three feet of worn carpet between them. “I don’t want to miss the rest of the game.”
He was at the door, hand on the knob, before Dre could speak again. He didn’t look back as he fled downstairs, the phantom warmth of Dre’s touch burning like a fresh brand over the hidden bruise.
He didn’t look back as he fled downstairs, the phantom warmth of Dre’s touch burning like a fresh brand over the hidden bruise. The final quarter of the game played out in a blur of green turf and shouting commentators, the glow of the screen washing over the silent living room. Dante, usually so vocal from the couch, just stared at the patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling, his fingers tracing the raised edge of the concealer on his cheek.
When the clock hit zero, Huang stretched with a loud groan. “You staying over?” Dre asked from the other end of the sectional, his voice careful, testing the new space between them.
Dante just nodded, staring at a stain on the carpet. He wasn’t going home, not while his dad was there.
After the game, the guys talked about nothing, the conversation a lazy river avoiding all the rocks. Huang started it, digging in the chip bag. “So, Kim and Chloe are tight, right? Kim told me that Chloe told her that y’all got it in last night.” He grinned, aiming a crumpled bag at Dante’s head.
Dante caught it, forcing a familiar, smug smile onto his face. “I mean, what can I say?”
The guys all laughed, a rough, easy sound. “So how was it, Dante?” Dre asked. His tone was light, almost identical to Huang’s, but his eyes were flat and dark in the television’s afterglow.
Dante had to suppress the internal scream, his soul wanting to confess that Chloe had sensed the abnormality in him, that it had taken him forever to get hard because he wasn’t laying next to him. “It was decent,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “She was a screamer.”
They all laughed again, the sound crashing around him like broken glass.
The laughter faded into the rustle of chip bags and the groan of Scott standing up. "I'm out," Huang announced, clapping Dante's shoulder a little too hard on his way to the door.
Dante stood abruptly, the lie about Chloe still sour on his tongue. "Gonna shower," he muttered, not waiting for a reply, and took the stairs two at a time. The bathroom was a sanctuary of white noise.
He showered longer than usual, the water scalding his skin until it turned pink, trying to avoid the inevitable intimacy of the dark, shared room waiting for him. He dressed in his pajamas, the soft fabric feeling like a poor disguise, and pushed the door open.
Dre was at his desk, hunched under the pool of his desk lamp, focused on a large sketchpad. The rest of the room was in deep shadow. "Hey," Dre said, not looking up, his pencil whispering across the paper.
"I am working on my realism skills." He finally glanced over, his expression unreadable in the lamplight. "Would you mind laying down on the bed? On your back and facing me."
This felt intimate. Too intimate. Dante's pulse jumped in his throat, a frantic bird. But he obliged, crossing the room and lowering himself onto the familiar comforter, the mattress dipping under his weight.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the soft, deliberate sound of charcoal on paper. Dre spoke, his voice a low murmur in the quiet. "I just wanted to capture your eyes, and the way your hair falls across your forehead."The pencil stopped. "I learned that you want your sketches to look as natural as possible." The words hung there, an echo of every careful touch, every hidden bruise perfectly concealed. Dante held his breath, trapped in the intimate silence
The scratch of the pencil resumed, a soft, persistent rhythm in the dark room. Dante focused on a crack in the ceiling plaster, his body rigid against the mattress. He could feel the weight of Dre’s gaze traveling over him, mapping the lines of his throat and the set of his jaw.
The air grew thick with the scent of charcoal and the clean cotton of Dre’s sheets. “Just relax your mouth,” Dre instructed, his voice a low hum. “You’re all tensed up.”
Dante forced his jaw to unclench, exhaling slowly. He felt intensely seen, more than he ever had on a football field. The pencil stopped again, and Dante heard the soft thud of the sketchbook closing.
“Done,” Dre said, clicking off the desk lamp. The room plunged into a darkness cut only by the streetlight bleeding through the blinds. Dante listened to the sounds of Dre brushing his teeth in the connected bathroom, the routine domesticity of it aching in his chest.
Eventually Dre crawled into the bed. Dante had his back towards him, facing the wall. He laid straight so he could put as much distance as possible between them.
“You look hella uncomfortable, dude,” Dre laughed, his voice close in the dark.
Dante didn’t move, every muscle locked. The streetlight painted a slatted shadow across the wall he was facing, a prison bar of pale orange. “Just tired,” he muttered into his pillow.
The mattress shifted as Dre turned onto his side. The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful; it was thick and listening. Dante could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
“You good, Dre asked.” The words came out flat, stripped of the earlier laughter. “Like, for real?” Dante closed his eyes, pretending sleep was a thing he could summon. “Yeah, man. I’m straight.”
A longer pause. The sheets rustled. “Because I know that bruise didn’t come from football.” The air left Dante’s lungs. He stopped breathing entirely, his face still turned toward the wall. Dre’s voice was closer now, a soft pressure in the dark beside him.
“I wish you would just tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.” It was quiet, almost broken. Dante’s throat tightened. He felt the lie he’d rehearsed dissolve into ash.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. The confession, the one from the cliffside, clawed its way up his chest. “Dre, I—” he started, his voice a rough, unused thing.
He saw the silhouette of Dre propped on one elbow, watching him. The words stuck, trapped behind his teeth. “Forget it,” Dante whispered, turning back toward the wall, the moment gone.