Boy In Bloom

By Nina Powers

Ollie Cunningham has just been pushed in front of a train. At least that's how it feels facing his dad's high expectations, the pressure to make his own decisions, and the daunting prospect of growing up. That's why having Ryan Calloway as a roommate his senior year at the all-boys boarding school where is father is also headmaster is a breath of fresh air. On the surface, Ryan is Ollie's antithesis - outgoing, relaxed, unpredictable. But as the two form a friendship that blossoms into a romance, both realize that youth is a finite resource and they are truly unprepared for the future. Walking the fine line between adolescence and adulthood, each boy is forced to ask the question neither of them wants to ask: What's next?

Written by a LGBTQIA+ teenager, this book seeks to answer questions about sexuality and growing up that many teens face today, with humor and romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Telling Room
• Release date: Aug 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005661786

Book preview

BOY IN

BLOOM

Nina Powers

THE TELLING ROOM

225 Commercial St., Suite 201

Portland, ME 04101

©2020 The Telling Room

All rights reserved, including right of reproduction

in whole or part in any form.

Managing Editor: Kathryn Williams

Cover and Interior Design: Andrew Griswold

Cover Images: Extended License / / stock.adobe.com

Author Photo: Molly Haley

Distributed by Smashwords

This book is also available in print

To my family, for supporting me

since I first put pencil to paper.

And to Helen Bertlesman,

for being the best friend I could ask for.

A NOTE ABOUT CONTENT

This book includes mature language and content and deals with sexuality.

SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author and the programs that support her and other young authors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

YOUNG EMERGING AUTHORS FELLOWSHIP

ABOUT THE TELLING ROOM

CHAPTER ONE

Ollie needs new shoes. The red canvas always sticks out against the drab walls of Stowe Prep, and they look strange against his stiff uniform. He loves his shoes, but as he walks through the hallways, they seem to call attention to him. His skin crawls in a way that makes him feel he’s being watched, and the empty hallway behind him feels as if it is filled with ghosts. As he walks, the walls of the building lean in to watch him, waiting for something to happen.

When he rounds the corner to the hallway that leads to his dad’s office, he’s met with dozens of faces glaring down at him from their perches on the wall. The paintings are beautiful, the eyes lifelike, thin lips holding in imaginary breath. Ollie hates them. He remembers making up stories with his brother, Jack, years ago, pretending that the man with the turkey neck and wrinkly skin was an evil villain and he and Jack were superheroes sent to stop him. Ollie’s dad’s portrait is on the end, staring blankly into the distance with the cold eyes that always make Ollie feel as if he’s done something wrong. People say they look alike, but the more Ollie looks for similarities, the fewer he finds.

He wishes that the door wasn’t so massive. It’s big and oak, imported from France, his dad always tells him proudly. But it’s heavy and hard to push open, and sometimes Ollie thinks the wood swallows sound, because when he knocks, it takes a couple of seconds for his dad to answer. This time when Ollie knocks, he’s left waiting, his arms too heavy at his sides and his knee itching. He’s just leaned down to scratch it when he hears a gruff come in, and he straightens, pushing the door open. Ollie doesn’t care if the door is imported from France or that it’s apparently two hundred years old. He doesn’t care about any of that. He just wishes it wasn’t so heavy.

Headmaster Cunningham closes the screen of his laptop with a heavy sigh, as if it pains him to stop working. Ollie feels like an intruder. Can you shut the door all the way? his dad asks, scrubbing his forehead. Ollie glances behind him; the door hangs slightly ajar, letting a tiny bit of the mothball scent of the hallway inside. His dad’s office always smells minty. It’s too fake for Ollie’s liking, and he almost prefers the scent of mothballs outside.

Yeah, sorry. Ollie doesn’t know why he’s apologizing, because he hasn’t done anything wrong. There won’t be anyone in the hallways for another couple of hours. Still, he shuts the heavy door with no objection. There would be no use complaining anyway.

Is your dorm set up? his dad asks. Ollie has barely sat down.

Yeah. Ollie is strangely antsy. Maybe it’s because he’s in the trouble seat. That’s what everyone else calls it, anyway, because Ollie has never gotten in enough trouble to have to sit in it. He has heard stories, of course. His friend Zach could rant for hours about the trouble seat, complaining to Ollie about how obnoxiously strict his dad is, as if Ollie has any control over it. At the end of the day, Ollie agrees, because even though he hasn’t done anything wrong, even sitting in the trouble seat and getting stared down by his father is enough to make anyone nervous.

You finished your summer homework?

Yeah. When have I ever not finished my summer homework? Ollie says it with a lift to his voice, meaning for it to lighten the conversation. His dad doesn’t react, and Ollie glances past him and out the window behind him. The sunny quad looks so tantalizing from this spot in his father’s stuffy office. He doesn’t know how or why, but his dad’s office is always cold. His dad sighs heavily, fiddling with his bright red Stanford tie. Ollie hates that tie. Ollie’s dad wears that tie, or a variation of that tie, every day. He has to brag about his successes even through the clothes he wears.

Have you met your roommate yet? Mr. Cunningham asks. Ollie hadn’t expected to be grilled the day before school starts.

No one’s supposed to be here for, like, another two and a half hours, Ollie points out.

Oh, yes, that’s right. Ollie’s dad smiles, but it looks forced, and the expression quickly slides off his face. Lost track of time.

I don’t get why I have to stay in a dorm this year, Ollie says, an odd hint of complaint in his voice. It isn’t as if he loves living at home. The house is always strangely quiet, and with Jack at college, he has no one to talk to. Dinners are always awkward, and Ollie’s in his room for the night fifteen minutes after they’re over. But at this point, everyone already has a roommate. Ollie will either be stuck with a transfer kid or one of the weird ones who no one else wants, and he doesn’t love either of those options.

His dad sighs, rubbing his forehead again as if Ollie’s question is nothing more than nuisance.

We’ve been over this numerous times, Oliver, his dad says.

Yeah, but—

It’s already set up; there’s no changing it, his dad says. You need to learn how to live in a dorm. It will prepare you for Stanford next year. And we both want that, right?

Yeah, of course, Ollie says. The words slip out easily. He’s been repeating it for such a long time, it’s just another reflex.

Good. Ollie’s dad smiles again, and this time it isn’t quite as forced, the tiniest bit of warmth melting the ice that’s usually in his eyes. He pulls out his wallet, handing Ollie a fifty-dollar bill. Take your roommate out for dinner when he gets here. Somewhere nice but not too stuffy. I want you to learn how to make connections this year, too. I was thinking Italian. You like Italian, don’t you? Ollie doesn’t. It makes him feel too full and slightly nauseous, but his dad doesn’t take a second to let him answer. That’s it, unless you have anything else.

Ollie stands up, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor. He crams the money into his pocket. His dad is opening his laptop again. This is going to be our year, his dad says with a smile. Ollie doesn’t want it to be their year. He wants it to be his year, but he also wants to be as good as his father, as good as his brother, as good as everyone expects him to be. So, he only nods, pushing in the chair as an awkward silence fills the space and he tries to keep his smile from slipping. He’s just about to walk out of the room when he turns around, and his dad glances up with his eyebrows raised. Was there something else you wanted to talk about?

Ollie has a million things he wants to talk about. He wants to talk about how he’s scared he’s going to hate his roommate, how he’s nervous about his classes and about college and his future. But the look in his dad’s eyes tells Ollie that he just wants to get back to his work, so Ollie pushes a smile onto his face, shaking his head.

No, sorry. Uh, see you later, Ollie says.

Bye, Ollie. His dad has already slipped back into the rhythm of his work, and Ollie gets the sense that he has already begun to fade into the background. Ollie doesn’t know what he was hoping for. Maybe some encouragement or a warm smile. An I’m proud of you, or an I love you. But there’s none of that, and Ollie lets the heavy door close behind him with an earth-shattering boom. Old, French doors are apparently loud as well as heavy. When the door is jammed tight, Ollie slumps against the wall, sighing heavily. His chin drops to his chest like a flower wilting from lack of warmth and light. The school year hasn’t even started yet, and he’s already drained.

When he’s back in his dorm, Ollie falls face-first onto his deep-blue comforter, burying his face inside of it as he listens to the birds outside his window. There’s a dull throb at the back of his head. As he kicks off his shoes, he stares out the window, watching as the wind blows through the trees just hard enough that the leaves dance in the wind to a melody that only they can hear. Ollie wishes he could hear it, too, the music that the world seems to be synced to, the one that makes everything do what it’s supposed to at just the right time, so beautifully.

He knows, as he slips in an earbud and turns on music, that he probably won’t remember this moment in a month. He knows that it’ll fade into the memories of summer and become a blurry haze in the back of his mind as his attention is stolen by things that he considers more important. But at this moment, he has nothing better to do than to watch the leaves dance in the wind as he waits and he waits and he waits.

***

Ollie watches the time fly by as the hands on the clock above the door spin in a full circle. Two hours till registration is over. One and a half. One and a quarter. By one hour, he begins to hear sounds of life, thumping as bags are pulled up the stairs, excited chatter that sounds like murmurs through the thin walls. He watches as the campus green below him slowly fills with people. A boy in a Stowe Prep T-shirt tosses a football, and it spirals over to his friend, slicing through the air. There’s a group of girls sprawled out underneath a tree, and at some point, Ollie is sure he sees Milo’s shock of messy, black hair and Zach’s cocky grin. He’s missed them the most. Despite the arrivals, however, there still hasn’t been a sign of his roommate. The letter Ollie got from the school back in July said his roommate would be Ryan Calloway, but that same letter also claimed that he was going to have a fun and exciting time at Stowe Prep that year. So, maybe no one is coming.

An hour later, Ollie’s almost begun to believe that he really isn’t getting a roommate when the door swings open and a boy stands in the frame, duffel bags strapped to his chest as he clutches a grease-stained paper bag. It’s almost a superhero pose, his body lit from the glow of the hallway behind him, the luggage as a shield and the McDonald’s bag the sword. Ollie sits up, slipping out an earbud as the boy steps inside the room, dropping his duffels to the floor with a heavy thud. The boy sits down on the edge of his bed, stretching his long legs to their full capacity. Ollie is pretty sure he hears a crack. Neither of them has said a word, and the awkward silence is only relieved by the sounds of laughter drifting up from the green and the music that’s still playing in Ollie’s ear, until Ryan holds out the bag, showing Ollie a massive box of nuggets and a fry container that has tipped over. Hey, he says. I’m Ryan. Want some fries?

For a second Ollie is frozen in place, and Ryan raises his eyebrows, shaking the bag lightly. Come on. I can’t have gotten stuck with the only guy in the world who doesn’t like McDonald’s.

Thanks, Ollie says slowly, taking out a couple of fries and popping one into his mouth. It’s cold and too chewy, but he eats another anyway, salt caking on the tips of his fingers. I’m Ollie. Cunningham. Ollie Cunningham. He clears his throat, scratching the back of his head with greasy fingers. He can feel his body heating up, but if Ryan has noticed Ollie’s awkwardness, he hasn’t let on.

Cunningham? Ryan asks, licking salt from the tips of his fingers. He’s lounging on the side of his twin bed, one long leg swinging off the edge. He’s lanky, and yet his movements are fluid, as if he does everything effortlessly. Ollie doesn’t know whether he admires that or envies it.

Yeah, Ollie says, poking at the loose fries in the bag. Why?

Like the principal dude? Ryan has a fry hanging from his mouth, and he sucks it in without a sound.

Yeah, Ollie says. He’s my dad. He’s heard people refer to his father as Mr. Cunningham, Headmaster Cunningham, and the Most Terrifying Man on the Planet. But Principal Dude is a new one.

Ryan laughs quietly, wiping the corners of his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel. A strand of hair falls in his face, and he pushes it away with the back of his hand. That must suck. I mean, I kinda get it. He swallows so hard Ollie’s pretty sure he can see the lump of fry move down his throat. Like, my parents are professors at Brown, in Rhode Island—you probably know where it is, I guess. But like, they’re always on my ass about stuff. But to have your dad just constantly watching you like that—I mean, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Yeah, I guess, Ollie says, awkwardly playing with the string of his sweatshirt. He’s kind of an asshole sometimes. He feels the color drain from his face. But don’t tell him I said that. This time he doesn’t get a half-laugh but a full one, and Ryan’s eyes glitter. Ollie feels the rapid pace of his heart slow.

Don’t worry about that. I plan to stay as far out of his way as possible, Ryan says. So, what are the people like here? He finishes off his fry and waits.

Rich and mean, mostly, Ollie says. He feels his muscles start to untense. And also snobby, but only sometimes.

Ryan smiles again. Sounds like I should fit right in. Ollie eats a fry just to avoid commenting. No one talks about this part of meeting new people. The uncomfortable gaps in conversation. Feeling the need to connect with someone you barely know.

So, Ryan says, eyes darting to Ollie’s side of the room. Ollie had not yet realized quite how plain it is, with just a few textbooks on the desk and clothes stuffed tight into dresser drawers. Someone walking into the room wouldn’t be able to tell who lived there. He didn’t feel uncomfortable with his decor before, but with Ryan looking at it, Ollie wishes he had done something differently. You wanna help me unpack? Ryan asks.

Sure. Ollie jumps at the opportunity, slipping off his bed.

Do you wanna start putting my clothes away? Ryan unzips a duffel bag that appears to be full of nothing but junk: a couple foam footballs from various colleges, a family picture snow globe from a trip to Santa’s Village in 2006, loose golf balls rolling around at the bottom. Ollie starts putting things on the shelves that line the walls.

Thanks for helping out, by the way, Ryan says after a couple of minutes.

Yeah, of course. Ollie isn’t sure what he would have done if he had been forced to sit and simply watch Ryan unpack, too awkward to help but too nervous to do anything else. Do you have, like, some sort of system or something?

Not really, Ryan says, scratching the back of his head. If you wanna make one that’s cool.

I’ll just group stuff together. The room falls into an uncomfortable silence as Ollie shoves crewneck after crewneck into drawers, barely able to close them once he’s done. He doesn’t know how any one person can have so many crewnecks.

You look like the type of person who would organize his clothes, Ryan says, turning to Ollie as he crams a tube of Pringles underneath his bed.

Is that some sort of insult or something? Because I’m going to be really honest with you, I’ve been told I’m terrible at understanding social cues. Ryan laughs, and Ollie feels the same warmth from before blossom in his chest.

Not really. Just—you seem organized and stuff, Ryan says. Are you smart? Because you seem smart.

Uh. Technically, I guess.

Fuck. That means we won’t have classes together, Ryan says, frowning at his duffel bag. I was kinda hoping for a stupid roommate. Like, no offense, because you seem cool and stuff, but it’d be nice to recognize someone in class on my first day.

Don’t worry too much about it; I’ve got a stupid friend, Ollie says. I’ll introduce you to him.

Ryan’s face breaks into a smile. What’s he like?

Kind of gross and just a little bit too prideful for his own good, Ollie says.

Great. I’ll love him.

Ollie chuckles as he shoves the last pair of socks into the dresser drawer, watching the sides of Ryan’s empty duffel fall in on themselves. The two lapse into silence, and it’s a little bit too awkward, punctuated with an uncomfortable cough from Ollie, a sigh from Ryan, but it’s not as bad as it could be.

Later, when he assesses their meeting in his head, methodically weighing all of the components, Ollie decides that as the year goes on, he’ll be able to hold a conversation, to make a joke, to not come off like a complete loser. A seed has been planted, somewhere deep within Ollie’s chest, and he’s just waiting for it to bloom.

CHAPTER TWO

The thing that Ollie hates most about Vermont is the way the weather seems to do whatever it wants without letting anyone else know its plans. That Friday night, with the whistle of the referee still ringing in his ears and the uncomfortable knowledge that his dad is definitely scrutinizing Ollie’s every move, cold air slaps the bare backs of his calves. The ball is on the other side of the field. As Zach tries to get it away from one of their opponents, Ollie’s other friend, Milo, looks tense in the goal—although, Milo always looks tense, so that doesn’t surprise Ollie.

Behind him, the other team’s goalie from the local high school looks bored, and Ollie steals a glance at him before moving up closer to the halfway mark on the field. He’s sweaty even though he hasn’t moved in five minutes; he can