Somewhere Only We Know - 7. The Year of Almost

Junior year didn’t slam into them the way everyone older had promised it would. It slid in on cool mornings and warm afternoons, with dew on the grass and the scent of leftover summer still clinging to the metal of the lockers. The hallways at Lakehurst High buzzed with voices Kitt and Matt already knew—same kids, same teachers, same bulletin boards—but everything felt just a little… sharper. Like someone had turned up the contrast on their lives without asking.

They fell back into step as if summer had never ended.

Their schedules lined up more closely than either of them had dared to hope. English together. Chemistry back-to-back. Lunch in the same period with overlapping circles of friends. Football and swimming on opposite ends of the building meant their days didn’t match perfectly, but they crossed paths constantly: Matt coming off the field with grass stuck to his socks and sweat dried along his hairline, Kitt walking toward the pool with condensation dripping down his water bottle and the faint smell of chlorine already clinging to his skin.

“Hey!” Matt called one afternoon across the courtyard, jog-trotting past a cluster of juniors. “You free after practice?”

“I have swim,” Kitt said, shifting his bag higher, sounding almost apologetic.

“When you’re done?”

Kitt hesitated, weighing the way his evenings were already carved into homework and quiet expectations, then let himself smile.

“Sure,” he said.

Matt grinned like that single syllable had been the answer to a much more important question.

Football swallowed him as the season settled in. Coach Reynolds pushed harder this year—more reps, faster reads, louder expectations for leadership now that Matt wasn’t just the scrawny freshman trying to prove himself. Matt sprinted until his legs shook, threw until his shoulder ached, studied playbooks until the lines blurred. But even when he was running routes or shouting counts at the line, part of him tugged toward the southwest corner of the building, where the high windows of the pool gleamed like strips of blue glass.

Sometimes, when the coach’s back was turned, Matt let himself glance up. He’d catch sight of Kitt walking past the edge of the field with the swim team—hair damp and curling slightly at the ends, goggles hanging loose around his neck, his expression softer than it ever was in class. Occasionally he’d laugh at something a teammate said, the sound faint but clear, and every time Matt saw that laugh—unguarded, real—something warm uncurled in his chest like a small animal waking.

He never stayed with the feeling long enough to name it.

Swimming consumed Kitt in a way that felt less like drowning and more like being carried. Coach Vega had moved him into a higher training group at the start of the year: harder intervals, stricter form corrections, fewer breaks. Kitt welcomed it. The pool gave him structure that didn’t feel like a cage. The water stripped away everything—his father’s expectations, his own spiraling thoughts, the noise of the hallways. In the lane, there were only strokes and turns, breath and burn.

He liked the ache in his muscles. He liked the rhythm of counting laps. He liked the quiet pride in Coach Vega’s nod when he hit a target time. And underneath all of that, threaded through his focus like a secret, was the echo of Matt’s voice from other meets, other seasons—You’re good. You can be better. You can be great.

Sometimes, after a particularly brutal set, Kitt would pull himself out of the pool, chest heaving, water running off him in cold rivulets, and his gaze would flick instinctively toward the windows that faced the field.

He always stopped before actually looking.

He didn’t know what scared him more—that he might see Matt still out there practicing, or that he might not.

Despite the chaos of their schedules, time together seemed to arrange itself on its own. There were shared walks home when practices lined up just right. Late-night calls when they both pretended they were only calling about chemistry homework. Afternoons where Matt would show up in the hallway outside the locker rooms, hair damp from a quick shower, backpack dangling from one arm, pretending he’d “just been passing by.”

And Kitt, leaning against the lockers with his arms crossed and his bag already zipped, would pretend he hadn’t left the locker room a little early on purpose.

They didn’t talk about feelings.
They didn’t talk about summer.
They didn’t talk about the night at the lake when the air between them had gone tight and dangerous and almost.

They just existed together.

For a while, that was enough.

Almost enough.

. . .

One Friday afternoon in September, they ended up at the lake without really planning to. Practice had ended early, the sky was painted in soft bands of gold and fading pink, and the air carried that first hint of chill under the warmth. They were halfway down Willow Creek Drive when Matt nudged Kitt’s arm, tilting his chin toward the thin path behind the houses.

“Five minutes,” he said.

Kitt pretended to weigh it, even though they both knew the answer.

“Six,” he replied.

Matt laughed. “Deal.”

The lake shimmered under early autumn light, still holding the last of summer’s warmth but already edged in cooler shadows. The trees along the shore were just beginning to yellow at the tips. They walked out to the end of the weathered dock and sat, sneakers dangling over the water, toes just close enough to disturb their reflections if they wanted.

Kitt picked up a small stone and flicked it with practiced fingers. It skipped twice before disappearing.

Matt let out a low whistle.

“Show-off,” he said.

“You taught me,” Kitt replied.

“Wrong,” Matt corrected. “I inspired you.”

Kitt rolled his eyes, but his mouth curved.

For a while, they were quiet, watching the sun inch toward the treeline. The surface of the lake caught the sky and stretched it out, turning it into ripples of color. Somewhere on the opposite shore, a dog barked. A bird skimmed low over the water and disappeared into the trees.

“Sometimes I feel like everything’s moving too fast,” Matt said suddenly.

Kitt glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“Football. Grades. The future,” Matt said, dragging his hand through the water and watching the ripples spread. “Everyone keeps talking about college like we’re already leaving.”

Kitt drew his knees up, arms hooked loosely around them.

“Does that scare you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Matt said, without hesitation. Then, after a beat, quieter: “And no.”

Kitt waited, listening. Matt always found his way to the rest eventually if Kitt gave him enough space.

“I’m not scared of leaving,” Matt said. “Not really. I’m scared of leaving the wrong things behind.”

Kitt’s breath caught.

“What would be the wrong things?”

Matt turned his head, and for a moment the angle of the sun caught his eyes, making them hard to look at. His expression had gone strangely open, all his usual jokes and deflections stripped away.

“You,” he said simply. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Kitt swallowed, the answer lodged somewhere between his chest and his throat.

“You won’t,” he managed.

Matt nodded like he wanted to believe him. Like he had to.

Their shoulders brushed—not much, just the barest shift, fabric whispering against fabric. The contact hummed through Kitt’s nerves, so small and so loud at the same time. Matt didn’t move away. Neither did he.

Another almost. Another breath on the line between safe and something else.

Almost was the language they lived in.

They stayed on the dock until the last light sank and the air turned cool enough to raise goosebumps on their arms, then walked home under the streetlights, conversations light and easy while their distance stayed carefully measured.

. . .

School settled into a rhythm that felt, for a while, almost like balance.

Kitt started tutoring Matt in chemistry, because Matt had declared on the first week of junior year that “science should pick one thing and stick with it” and apparently chemistry choosing to be both numbers and letters was “a personal attack.” They took over a corner table at the library, surrounded by open textbooks and half-empty snack wrappers.

“Just remember,” Kitt said one afternoon, tapping his pencil against a formula, “moles are just a way to count particles. It’s—”

“—witchcraft,” Matt muttered.

Kitt sighed. “Math. It’s just math.”

“Exactly,” Matt said. “Witchcraft.”

Kitt stared at him.

“Chemistry is the language of the universe,” he said, dead serious.

Matt blinked once.

“You’re so hot when you say nerd things,” he blurted.

Kitt choked on nothing. His ears went hot. Matt’s face flushed bright red almost instantly.

“I mean cool,” Matt sputtered. “I meant cool. Shut up.”

Kitt didn’t. He laughed instead, the sound bubbling out before he could stop it. Matt groaned and dropped his forehead onto his notebook, but there was a smile pressed into the paper.

Saturdays sometimes turned into study marathons at Matt’s dining table—Matt sprawling across three chairs with his notebooks spread out in front of him, Kitt sitting upright with his notes meticulous and color-coded. Matt snacked constantly, leaving a trail of crumbs. Kitt sighed and brushed them into the trash, grumbling about “barbarians,” but his eyes were soft when he did it.

Friday nights were for football.

Kitt sat in the bleachers with a blanket over his knees, pretending he wasn’t tracking every moment Matt spent on the field. The roar of the crowd blurred together, but he always heard the specific pitch of Matt’s voice when he called plays, always saw number eleven even when the field felt like chaos.

Saturday meets belonged to swimming.

Matt stood in the stands, clapping too loudly, whistling like a siren, shouting Kitt’s name every time he stepped onto the blocks. Afterward, he would sprint down to the deck, ignoring the “no running” signs, and throw an arm around Kitt’s shoulders regardless of how wet his hair still was.

“Bro, you were a machine,” he’d say. “Like a torpedo. Or a dolphin with anger issues.”

“Please lower your volume,” Kitt would mutter, cheeks pink, but he never shrugged him off.

Their happiness was stitched together from small scenes like that—scattered, ordinary, somehow extraordinary. Quiet jokes and shared looks. Stolen hours in between the things that demanded so much of them.

Underneath it all, something hummed.

Warm.
Uncertain.
Waiting.

They didn’t know what to call it. They only knew that this year felt different. Bigger. Like every day was another step toward a line they couldn’t quite see yet but felt coming all the same.

So they pretended not to notice.

For now.

. . .

Autumn crept deeper into Lakehurst before anyone could pretend it was still summer. Nights cooled enough that Kitt’s breath ghosted in the air on his way to early practices. Fog pooled over the lawns some mornings, clinging low and silver. The trees lining Willow Creek Drive turned slow and deliberate, deep green bleeding into orange and red.

Junior year was supposed to be overwhelming, and in some ways it was—the workload heavier, the talk of SATs and campus tours louder—but somehow it also felt almost… right. Busy in a way that meant they were moving toward something, not just spinning their wheels.

Especially together.

Matt buried himself in football. Early-morning weight training, afternoon practices that dragged into dusk, weekend film sessions. Coach Reynolds had him running long routes until his lungs protested and practicing tight spirals until his arm throbbed. He was stronger this year. Surer. The older players actually passed him the ball now when they messed around after drills.

On the other side of the building, Kitt pushed himself through swim sets that would have terrified his freshman-year self. Coach Vega tested his endurance, reading out times that made Kitt’s stomach flutter. He wasn’t just good anymore. People had started to expect him to be good.

Their lives were intense, but their orbits stayed locked around each other almost without effort.

On a foggy Wednesday, Matt dropped his lunch tray on the table beside Kitt’s, nearly toppling his water bottle.

“Bro,” he hissed, barely whispering. “Chem test Friday. I’m gonna fail.”

Kitt slid a granola bar across the table.

“Eat this,” he said, pushing Matt’s notebook toward him. “And open your notes.”

“Why is science all numbers?” Matt groaned. “Isn’t that what math is for?”

“No,” Kitt said calmly. “Chemistry is—”

“—the language of the universe,” Matt finished in a mocking falsetto, then grinned when Kitt glared. “Yeah, yeah. I remember. Teach me your cursed ways.”

Kitt tried not to smile. He failed.

These moments—messy, warm, unguarded—held their days together more tightly than anything else. They were the quiet proof that no matter how full junior year became, no matter how much weight their futures seemed to carry, there was still this: a table, a shared snack, a half-serious promise to help each other survive.

The big meet came in mid-October.

All week, the swim team buzzed like live wires. The Tri-County Preliminaries weren’t the final stage, but they were one step below state-level competition. Qualifying meant something. It meant possibility. It meant attention.

Kitt felt the pressure humming in his muscles before he even stepped onto the bus.

Coach Vega wanted him sharp. His father wanted his grades unaffected. His teammates wanted points. Kitt wanted—he didn’t know. To not disappoint anyone. To not prove his father right when he warned him about “distractions.”

The natatorium was a riot of color and noise. Swimmers in team jackets, whistles shrieking, coaches pacing with clipboards, parents crammed into bleachers, the smell of chlorine sunk into tile and air. Kitt stretched, headphones in, breathing slow and measured, trying to let the routine carry him.

He refused to look at the stands.

He did not let himself hope.

He walked toward the blocks for the 200 free with his goggles in one hand, feeling the usual mix of nerves and focus tighten inside him. At the last second, something tugged at his attention, and against his better judgment, he glanced up.

Matt was there.

High in the bleachers. Hair a little wild, Lakehurst hoodie three sizes too big, standing on his seat with both hands cupped around his mouth.

“KITT WELLINGTON! LET’S GO, BABY!”

It echoed. It echoed off the tiles and the water and the metal of the stands, impossibly loud, impossibly him.

Heat shot up Kitt’s neck. A few teammates laughed under their breath. Someone near him whistled and said, “Damn, your boy is loud.”

“He’s not—” Kitt started, but his voice came out thin.

He didn’t bother finishing.

Inside, something uncurled in his chest and stretched, warm and stunned and seen. Matt caught his eye through the distance and gave him a thumbs-up, face split in a grin that left no room for doubt.

Kitt nodded back, the smile tugging at his mouth shaky and real.

. . .

The race hurt.

The water was colder than he’d expected, his body shock-tingling as he dove. The first fifty went by in muscle memory—long strokes, clean breathing, tight turns. By the hundred-meter mark, the leader was half a body-length ahead. Kitt locked onto the pattern of his own movement, refusing to chase times in his head.

Turn. Push. Kick. Reach.

The last fifty meters burned. His lungs felt like they were being squeezed from the inside. His shoulders screamed. The wall at the far end seemed both too close and impossibly far away.

But every time he turned his head for a breath, he saw, through a blur of lights and water, the outline of Matt at the top of the stands—arms moving, body leaning forward like he was trying to will Kitt through the lane.

Kitt couldn’t hear him. The water had its own roar. But he could imagine the words.

Come on.

You’ve got this.

Go, go, go.

He dug in.

When his hand hit the wall, he surfaced with a gasp, chest heaving, vision warped at the edges. For a second, nothing made sense. Then the numbers on the board snapped into focus.

Second place.

A drop of nearly two seconds from his best time.

He barely processed the ranking before the sound above him broke through.

“YES! YES! LET’S GO!” Matt shouted, voice cracking, somehow louder than everything else.

Coach Vega clapped him on the shoulder, grip hard enough to sting, pride blazing. Teammates slapped his back, ruffled his hair, shouted his name. Kitt let it rush over him, disoriented and lightheaded, but under all of it, he was acutely aware of one line of attention from the top row—the direct, steady beam of Matt’s gaze.

Afterward, as swimmers filed past each other in damp crowds, Matt practically hopped down the bleachers, nearly wiping out on the wet tile. He grabbed the closest towel and threw it at Kitt’s face.

“Dude!” he said, practically vibrating. “You were insane! I was screaming the whole time like an idiot!”

“You always scream,” Kitt muttered into the towel.

“This time it was for a good cause,” Matt said, thumping his shoulder.

Kitt lowered the towel, his hair sticking up awkwardly.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, and meant it in more ways than one. “You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” Matt said, and there was something plain and unvarnished in his voice that made it hard to breathe.

The walk home later felt softer than usual. The air had turned cool, the trees along the sidewalk shedding leaves that crunched under their shoes. Streetlights flickered on one by one as the sky darkened.

Kitt carried his duffel bag. Matt insisted on carrying the small silver trophy Kitt had almost refused—second place, not first, but still marked, still proof.

“You don’t have to hold that,” Kitt said. “It’s not like I won.”

“I’m proud of you,” Matt replied.

Kitt’s heart thudded in a hard, uneven rhythm.

“You say that like I came in first.”

“You did,” Matt said, not looking at him. “Doesn’t matter what the board says.”

Silence stretched between them, warm and fragile.

“I really like watching you swim,” Matt added after a moment, voice quieter.

Kitt looked at the ground, suddenly fascinated by the cracks in the sidewalk.

“I really like when you’re there,” he said, almost too soft to hear.

Matt’s foot caught the edge of the curb. He stumbled and recovered quickly, face flushing.

Kitt pretended not to notice. Inside, everything fluttered.

. . .

The weeks after that blurred into a rhythm that felt like a life they could almost imagine lasting forever. Football Fridays, swim Saturdays, homework Sundays. Walks home on weekday afternoons when their practices miraculously lined up.

There were late-night texts when sleep wouldn’t come and everything felt too loud in their heads. Study sessions where Matt stared at his notes like they were written in another language and Kitt chewed the inside of his cheek trying not to snap. Trips to the library where they smuggled in snacks and earned matching glares from the librarian.

On a long bus ride for an away game, they shared earbuds—Matt’s playlist, Kitt’s phone—heads tilted just close enough that their hair brushed when the bus hit a bump. At one point, Matt, sleep-deprived and muscle-sore, let his head tip sideways until it rested against Kitt’s shoulder.

Kitt barely breathed.

After maybe thirty seconds, Matt jerked upright, ears pink.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” he muttered. “I was… strategically resting.”

“Sure,” Kitt said, hiding his smile in the angle of the window.

Everything was so easy.

And so complicated.

And so perfect in a small, precarious way that made both of them afraid to touch it too hard. Neither of them knew exactly where the line between friendship and something else was anymore. Neither of them knew what would happen if they crossed it on purpose.

So they didn’t.

Not yet.

One night in late October, after a home game that left Matt sore and buzzing and a long practice that left Kitt pleasantly exhausted, they ended up on Matt’s front steps, wrapped in blankets, sipping hot chocolate Kitt had made on the stove while Matt chattered about a play that had almost gone wrong.

The street was quiet. The air smelled like wet leaves and distant woodsmoke. Porch lights glowed warm up and down the block.

“You ever feel like we’re getting older too fast?” Matt asked suddenly, eyes on the halo around a streetlamp.

“All the time,” Kitt said, fingers tightening around his mug.

Matt shifted a little closer until their shoulders touched under the blanket, warm and solid. It was small. It was everything.

“And do you ever wonder,” Matt went on, voice dropping, “if we’re gonna stay like this? You and me?”

Kitt swallowed, the answer aching in his chest.

“I hope so,” he said.

Matt’s gaze flicked toward him, warm and unsure and searching, like he was looking for something he knew was there but couldn’t quite bring himself to name.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Me too.”

They stayed that way until the light in Matt’s living room blinked on behind them, his parents’ shadow moving past the curtains.

They didn’t move.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t try to pin the feeling down.

Whatever was growing between them was almost something. Almost everything.

For now, that was as far as either of them was brave enough to go.