Same As Always
Callum told no one. Not Marquez, not his mother, not — especially not — Warren, who'd been quieter than usual all week, giving Callum space in a way that felt like its own kind of apology.
He met Dez on Wednesday, at a diner two towns over where nobody would recognize either of them. Dez was taller than Callum expected, thinner, with a nervous energy that never quite settled — tapping the table, glancing at the door, ordering coffee and letting it go cold.
"You look like your mom," Dez said first, which felt like the wrong thing to lead with.
The conversation went nowhere good. Dez asked about football like he'd read a highlight reel five minutes before walking in. He mentioned, twice, unprompted, that he was "in a much better place now" — as if Callum had asked. When Callum brought up the championship game, Dez perked up in a way that felt less like a father wanting to watch his son play and more like a man who wanted to be seen watching.
"I could come," Dez said. "If that's — I mean, if you wanted."
Callum didn't answer right away. He was thinking about the notebook. About two hundred and eleven tally marks made by a man who never once needed to be invited.
"I don't know," Callum said finally, which was the truest thing he'd said all week.
He left the diner feeling worse than when he'd arrived — like he'd gone looking for a missing piece and found out the shape didn't fit the hole he'd imagined.
His phone buzzed on the drive home. Not Dez this time.
*See you Friday. Section 12, same as always.* — Warren.
No mention of the fight. No mention of the papers still sitting, guiltily, in Callum's backpack. Just the same promise Warren had kept two hundred and eleven times out of two hundred and fifteen, offered again without being asked, like nothing between them had cracked at all.
Callum read it three times at a red light, throat aching in a way that had nothing to do with football.
The forecast on the radio cut through a second later — flat and routine, delivering news that would matter a lot more by Friday night than it did right now.
"...severe thunderstorm warning in effect for the county, expected to move through during Friday evening hours..."