Somewhere Only We Know - 4. The Warmth and What It Brings with It

Spring didn’t arrive all at once in Lakehurst. It crept in slowly, almost shyly—thin patches of grass appearing under retreating snowbanks, the smell of wet soil rising after the first warm rain, birds returning and singing over bare branches long before the trees remembered how to grow leaves again. By mid-March, the cold had loosened its grip enough that coats unzipped, hats disappeared, and the boys looked up one afternoon and realized the sky had softened without either of them noticing exactly when winter ended.

Their friendship thawed too.

After the stiff distance and clumsy apologies of winter, Matt threw himself back into their bond with the kind of reckless determination he usually reserved for fourth-quarter drives. He greeted Kitt loudly every morning in the hallway, nudged his shoulder whenever he could reach him, flicked folded bits of paper at him in class when the teacher wasn’t looking, and dragged him toward the cafeteria table at lunch like Kitt might vanish if he let go for even a second.

Kitt tried too—more quietly, but just as deliberately.

He waited for Matt by his locker again, leaning against the metal door with his hands in his pockets, pretending to be casual even though he timed it almost to the minute. He walked a bit slower on the way home so they could make the route last longer, stretching ten minutes into twenty whenever they could. He laughed more, even if the sound still came out soft and brief, like it wasn’t used to being loud.

One gray afternoon they sat under the school awning, watching the rain drip in steady lines off the edge of the roof. The parking lot shone with reflections—cars, streetlights, a washed-out sky turned into broken pieces on the asphalt. Their backpacks rested between them, damp where the water had splashed up from the ground.

“You remember our promise, right?” Matt said suddenly. “No more hiding stuff?”

Kitt blinked, pulled from wherever his thoughts had wandered.

“Yes,” he said.

“Good,” Matt replied, bumping his shoulder. “So don’t get weird again.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” Matt cut in. “And I’m kinda dumb, Kitt, but not that dumb.”

Kitt looked down, his mouth twitching at the corner.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll try.”

“No trying,” Matt said. “Just say things. Even if it sounds… uncomfortable. That’s the rule.”

Kitt nodded, the smallest smile sliding over his face. For a brief moment, the warmth of spring seemed bright enough to melt everything that winter had stiffened between them.

But warmth didn’t just melt things. It also revealed what had been sitting under the ice the whole time.

At home, Kitt’s father held his newest report card as if it were evidence in a trial. He sat at the kitchen table, glasses perched low on his nose, the late afternoon light turning the page a pale yellow.

“These A’s are good,” he said, nodding once. “Very good.”

His finger moved down the page and stopped.

“But this…”

The pad of his finger tapped the B+ in biology.

“This concerns me.”

Kitt stood on the other side of the table, fingers tightening around the back of the chair.

“It’s still a good grade,” he said carefully.

“It’s not what you can do,” his father replied, tone even and controlled, as if that made it kinder. “You’re capable of excellence, Kitt. Not just adequacy.”

The words settled in Kitt’s stomach like small stones, stacking on top of each other, heavy and familiar.

“Yes, sir,” he murmured.

His mother, drying dishes at the sink, cast him a sympathetic glance, her voice softer.

“You’re doing well,” she said. “Don’t be discouraged.”

He nodded again, but the pressure didn’t leave. It clung to him like damp fabric.

Later, in his room, Kitt stared at his open notebook without really seeing the words. His father’s voice echoed in his head—excellence, expectations, don’t disappoint—a looping chorus that made his chest tighten.

His phone buzzed.

Matt: Lake tomorrow? The weather’s perfect. And yes, I checked.

Kitt let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Yes, he typed back. I need it.

The next afternoon, the lake looked like it had been subtly remade. The ice was gone, replaced by ripples of dark water that caught the weak April sun. Reeds along the shore swayed lightly, and the trail leading there was lined with damp earth and bright pockets of moss. The air smelled fresh, like the world had been rinsed out.

Matt picked up a pebble and skipped it across the surface. It hopped twice before sinking with a quiet plunk.

“You okay?” he asked, eyes on the water.

Kitt didn’t answer.

“Kitt,” Matt said, turning toward him.

The way he said his name—steady, familiar, like he’d been saying it his whole life—made something inside Kitt loosen and knot at the same time.

“It’s just my dad,” Kitt said finally. “He wants me to do better.”

Matt frowned. “You already are doing better. You’re doing great.”

“He wants perfect,” Kitt said, his voice low. “And I don’t know how to be that.”

Matt looked at him for a long moment, the breeze lifting a strand of hair across Kitt’s forehead.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” Matt said softly. “Not with me. Not with anyone.”

Kitt’s breath caught—not in a dramatic way, but in a deep, quiet way, like the words had found a place in him they’d been searching for. He looked away quickly, afraid that if he met Matt’s eyes, whatever was swirling in his chest might show on his face too clearly.

Matt nudged his arm.

“Hey,” he reminded him gently. “We promised, remember?”

Kitt nodded once. “I know.”

“So don’t keep things inside,” Matt said. “Not from me.”

Kitt swallowed.

“Okay,” he said.

They sat there, side by side, watching the water breathe against the shore. The air around them shifted—warmer, closer, humming with something unnamed. Matt leaned a little closer without thinking. Kitt leaned too, almost unconsciously, their shoulders brushing for a heartbeat.

Something almost happened.

A thought, half-formed.
A feeling, half-admitted.
A truth, almost spoken.

They both felt it—like standing at the edge of a diving board and realizing how far down the water was. And they both stepped back at the same time.

A gust of wind rolled across the surface of the lake, lifting goosebumps along their arms, clearing the moment away before either of them could ask what it meant.

. . .

The warmth of spring brought something else too. Lindsay.

It started like most things at their age did—small and almost unnoticeable. A laugh in English class at something Matt said. A shared worksheet in biology. A compliment about his hair after practice. Then, one day, Kitt walked into the cafeteria and saw them sitting together.

Lindsay leaned close as Matt told a story, her elbow brushing his arm when she laughed. Her hair fell forward in waves, and she pushed it back as she looked at him. Matt was smiling in that open, unguarded way Kitt knew so well—the one that made people feel like they were the only person in the room.

Kitt froze for half a second. Just long enough for something inside him to give a quiet, tight twist.

He didn’t know what to call that feeling. He only knew he hated it.

Matt’s gaze skimmed the room and landed on him almost immediately. His face brightened.

“Kitt! Come sit!” he called, waving him over.

Lindsay turned and smiled as Kitt approached.

“Hi!” she said. “Matt was just telling me about how you guys always go to the lake. Your secret spot. That’s so cute.”

Kitt stiffened, heat buzzing under his skin.

“It’s not—” he started. “It’s just a place we go.”

“Oh, I know,” Lindsay said quickly, still smiling. “It’s sweet.”

Kitt looked down at his tray, suddenly uninterested in food. His appetite had retreated somewhere he couldn’t reach. He sat, listening as Matt continued the story he’d been telling, hands moving animatedly, laughter coming easily. The rhythm between Matt and Lindsay flowed smoothly, like they’d been talking for weeks instead of days.

Kitt watched them from the edges of the moment, feeling like someone who’d arrived late to a conversation and was now trying to catch meanings from the spaces between words.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. He refused to call it that.

But it was something close to it. A quiet ache. A soft fear he didn’t want to acknowledge—that maybe, just maybe, there was a version of this future where he didn’t belong at Matt’s table anymore, not in the same way.

A week later, near the bike rack, Matt walked up to him with unusual caution in his voice.

“Kitt,” he said. “Are you… upset about Lindsay?”

Kitt’s spine straightened.

“No,” he said too quickly. “Why would I be?”

“Because you’re acting weird again,” Matt said bluntly. “And you promised—”

“I’m not upset,” Kitt cut in. “I like her. She’s nice.”

He wasn’t lying about that part. Lindsay was nice. She smiled easily and spoke kindly and didn’t seem to mean any harm.

But being nice didn’t stop his chest from tightening when he thought about Matt choosing someone else first.

Matt studied him, trying to make sense of the tension he couldn’t see all the way through. He didn’t understand why Kitt’s approval mattered so much. He didn’t understand why Kitt pulling away hurt in a specific, personal way that had nothing to do with anyone else.

He only knew that something between them was shifting. And the thought of it scared him.

The lake became their place again in April, but even there, things felt changed.

The water was darker but softer now, the sharpness of winter gone from its surface. The air smelled of damp earth and new leaves. Trees along the shore were finally budding, small green leaves unfurling like shy hands.

They walked out to the end of the dock, the wood creaking beneath their weight. Matt dropped down with his legs dangling over the side; Kitt lowered himself beside him, moving quietly as always. Their shoulders brushed, then settled apart.

“I didn’t mean to make things weird,” Matt blurted suddenly.

Kitt blinked, pulled from his thoughts.

“You didn’t,” he said.

“Yeah, I did,” Matt insisted. “I know I did. I’m not good at… balancing things.”

“Balancing what?” Kitt asked slowly.

“Friends. Teammates. Lindsay.” Matt frowned at the water. “I don’t want you to think I’m replacing you or something.”

Kitt’s heart thudded once, hard, against his ribs. He hadn’t expected Matt to say it so plainly.

“I know you’re not,” he said, voice quieter. “I just… don’t always know where I fit.”

Matt turned fully toward him, his expression suddenly fierce in a way Kitt wasn’t used to seeing when it wasn’t about football.

“With me,” he said. “You fit with me.”

Color rose in Kitt’s cheeks.

“Matt—”

“I mean it,” Matt said, his voice low and earnest. “Don’t disappear again. Please.”

Kitt swallowed, throat thick.

“I’m trying,” he said.

“Good,” Matt murmured. “Because when you pull away, I honestly don’t know what to do. It feels like I’m missing a part of myself. Like trying to breathe through one nostril. It sucks. It’s suffocating.”

The ridiculous analogy might’ve made Kitt laugh on another day. Now it just made his chest hurt more, in a strangely hopeful way. The air between them felt thicker, like it was holding something fragile that might break if they spoke too loudly.

Their shoulders touched and stayed there this time. Kitt’s breath came shallow. Matt’s heart stuttered a beat.

Something almost happened. Again.

That same edge. That same sense of standing one step away from a ledge neither of them knew how to name.

Matt stood abruptly, clearing his throat too loudly.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing for the easiest escape. “Race you home.”

Kitt looked up, a swirl of unsteady emotion in his eyes. He nodded, pushing himself to his feet and brushing off his palms.

As they walked off the dock, he realized one thing with uncomfortable clarity: spring had shifted something between them. Even if they pretended it hadn’t.

Spring, soft as it had arrived, didn’t stay gentle for long.

Lindsay and Matt became official sometime in late April. Kitt wasn’t supposed to see it happen—he wasn’t meant to be anywhere near it—but he was cutting across the courtyard on his way to the bike rack when he saw them.

They stood beneath one of the tall, leafing trees, sunlight dappled across the pavement. Lindsay’s hand slipped into Matt’s, fingers weaving between his like it had always been meant to fit there. Matt looked surprised for half a second, then he smiled—slow, bright, and real.

Kitt’s feet stopped moving.

He didn’t mean to stare. He didn’t mean to freeze. But he did.

The courtyard noise fell away in his ears, leaving only the image of Matt looking at Lindsay like she was something new and radiant, like the world had just shifted one inch to the left and everything made sense again.

It didn’t shatter Kitt. It didn’t send him running.

It just… quieted everything inside him.

He turned before either of them could see him and walked home, step after steady step, as if nothing had changed. As if something hadn’t just shifted in his chest that he didn’t know how to fix.

Later that afternoon, his phone buzzed.

Matt: Dude!! Lindsay and I are dating. This is crazy.

Kitt’s hands shook around the device. For a moment, he just stared at the message, watching the words blur slightly.

He forced his fingers to move.

I’m happy for you, he typed.

He stared at that sentence longer than he should have, then hit send.

It wasn’t entirely true. But it was what he was supposed to feel. What he wanted to be able to feel.

At home, pressure rose in other ways too.

Kitt’s father seemed to decide that turning fifteen meant the training wheels were off his entire life. Responsibilities multiplied like unchecked pages in a textbook. Chores had to be done faster and better. Study hours stretched. Curfew sharpened into something strict and non-negotiable.

“You’re older now,” his father told him one evening as Kitt ran water over dinner dishes. “You must be responsible. No distractions.”

Kitt nodded, water hissing under the tap.

“Yes, sir.”

He didn’t ask what counted as a distraction. He already knew.

Matt didn’t fit cleanly into the list of “what mattered most.”

His father didn’t ban him from seeing Matt, but he started asking more questions.

“How late were you out?”
“You seem tired. Are you studying enough?”
“Football doesn’t help your academics.”
“Don’t lose focus.”

Each comment was light on its own. Together, they became a constant hum pressed against Kitt’s ribs.

Matt could feel the shift, even if he didn’t know all the details.

He noticed Kitt’s replies getting shorter over text.
He noticed his smiles shrinking, curling instead of unfolding.
He noticed how Kitt’s gaze slipped away whenever Matt mentioned Lindsay’s name.
He noticed the exhaustion that clung to him, not the physical kind but something deeper, like he was tired from carrying around something heavy and invisible.

Matt wanted to fix it. He wanted to help Kitt the way Kitt helped him breathe when football got overwhelming. But this wasn’t a game he could memorize plays for.

One night, he sat at his desk with his history book open and unread. He pushed it aside, grabbed a piece of paper, and started writing.

Kitt,
I don’t like how far away you feel. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I don’t want you to disappear again.

He stared at it, then crossed it out.

Started over.

Kitt,
I miss you. Not just walking home or going to the lake. You. I miss you.

He crossed that out too.

Again.

Kitt,
I don’t understand how to feel when it comes to you. I don’t know if it’s normal. I don’t know if it’s okay. But I hate when you’re not here.

His hand shook.

He tore the paper into small pieces and tossed them into the trash.

Matt Everest did not write things like that. He didn’t hand notes to his best friend confessing feelings he couldn’t even name to himself.

The torn scraps stayed buried in the bin under old worksheets and candy wrappers.

The weight of the words stayed in his chest.

It was the lake, again, that tugged them back to each other.

One night in mid-May, Kitt climbed out his bedroom window—not in rebellion, not because he was grounded, but because the house had grown too tight to breathe in. The rules, the expectations, the constant measuring of his worth—none of it was shouted, but all of it echoed.

He didn’t text Matt. Somehow, he didn’t need to. His feet just knew where to go.

The trail was quieter at night, the path lined with shadows and the smell of damp soil. When the trees opened, the lake stood still and silver under the moon, its surface barely moving.

Matt was already there.

He sat at the edge of the dock with his knees pulled up and his arms draped over them, hood up against the breeze. His shoes were unlaced. His gaze was on the water, but his thoughts were clearly someplace else.

He turned at the sound of footsteps on the wood.

“Kitt?” he said, voice small in the open air.

Kitt nodded. The simple sound of Matt saying his name in the dark made his throat tighten.

Matt scooted over immediately, patting the space beside him. There was no joke in the gesture this time. Just quiet relief.

Kitt sat down.

For a while, neither of them said anything. The lake moved softly beneath them, small waves brushing against the posts of the dock. Crickets chirped somewhere in the tall grass. The night wrapped around them like something secret.

“I’m sorry,” Kitt said at last, his voice barely above a whisper.

Matt closed his eyes for a second.

“For what?”

“For being weird,” Kitt said. “For pulling away. For not telling you things.”

Matt stared at the water.

“Me too,” he replied, his voice rough at the edges.

Kitt turned his head. “You’re not the one who—”

“Yeah, I am,” Matt said, cutting in gently. “I keep doing stuff without thinking how it affects you. And I should think about that. I should think about you.”

Kitt swallowed hard.

“You don’t owe me that,” he said.

“That’s not how this works,” Matt said quietly. “You matter to me. A lot.”

The words hit Kitt like contact with cold water—shocking, clarifying, making everything feel too vivid for a second.

Matt looked down at his hands, fingers twisting together.

“I know things changed when I started dating Lindsay,” he said.

Kitt’s chest squeezed.

“But I don’t want that to change us,” Matt went on. “You’re still… you’re still my person.”

Kitt’s eyes burned suddenly, sharply.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel the way I feel,” he confessed, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

Matt’s heart jolted.

“Feel what?” he asked.

Kitt froze.

The entire world seemed to hold its breath with him. The air between them thickened—heavy, electric, terrified. Moonlight painted pale lines along Kitt’s cheekbones, along the curve of his throat as he swallowed. Matt’s eyes searched his face like the answer might be written there.

Kitt’s lips parted.

Almost.

Matt leaned in an inch, barely aware he’d moved at all.

Almost.

Kitt flinched—not away from Matt, but inward, his shoulders curling in like a reflex, like someone bracing for impact.

Matt stopped immediately, pulling back, hands going still.

“I’m sorry,” Kitt whispered, his voice cracking on the last word.

“No,” Matt said quickly. “No, hey—hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

He reached out and touched Kitt’s sleeve, fingers careful, grounding. Kitt didn’t pull away. That alone felt like a small miracle.

The moment loosened, retreating just enough that they could breathe again. Whatever nearly happened slipped back into the shadows, not gone, just waiting.

Matt exhaled shakily.

“Promise me something?” he asked, voice low.

Kitt nodded without hesitation this time.

“Don’t run from me,” Matt said. “Even if things get scary. Don’t run.”

Kitt’s throat felt tight enough to hurt.

“I’ll try,” he said.

Matt shook his head, a faint, unsteady smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

“No,” he said. “Don’t try. Stay.”

Kitt’s eyes glistened under the thin wash of moonlight.

“Okay,” he whispered.

They sat there until their fingers brushed on the weathered boards between them—light, unsure, possibly accidental, possibly not. Neither of them acknowledged it. Neither of them moved away.

The lake lapped quietly under the dock, reflecting the bright, low moon. Crickets sang. The town slept behind them.

Spring had brought warmth back to Lakehurst—the kind that made flowers bud and ice crack and people roll their windows down.

But it had also brought the first real storm neither boy knew how to outrun.

And neither of them had any idea just how much it was going to change everything.