Center Of My World (2016) 〈Complete〉

By the time the leaves began to turn, Phil understood that the center wasn't a person or a place he could find on a map. It was the quiet strength he felt when he finally stopped running from his family's past and looked Nicholas in the eye, not as a savior, but as a boy just as lost as he was. The summer had ended, but for the first time, Phil wasn't waiting for someone else to tell him where he belonged.

Nicholas didn’t just enter a room; he altered its gravity. In the sterile hallways of their school, Phil found himself caught in the orbit of the boy with the quiet eyes and the unpredictable smile. Every shared glance over a textbook or brushed shoulder in the locker room became a frantic heartbeat Phil tried to tuck away. Nicholas was the sun—bright, necessary, and capable of burning anyone who leaned in too close. Center of My World (2016)

As Phil’s best friend, Kat, watched from the sidelines with a knowing, protective sadness, Phil and Nicholas began a tentative dance. They spent afternoons by the lake, where the water mirrored a sky that felt too big for their small lives. It was there, amidst the tall grass, that the distance between them finally collapsed. A first kiss that tasted like salt and the terrifying realization that Phil had found exactly what he didn't know he was looking for. By the time the leaves began to turn,

The summer Phil returned from his language course in France, the air in their small town felt heavier, as if the humidity were clinging to the secrets his mother, Glass, refused to name. He retreated to the garden, the tangled greenery a familiar sanctuary where the edges of his world usually felt safe. But then there was Nicholas. Nicholas didn’t just enter a room; he altered its gravity

Yet, as Phil’s world narrowed down to the space between him and Nicholas, the cracks in his home began to spiderweb. Glass’s erratic moods and the mystery of his absent father pulled at him from one side, while Nicholas’s sudden, cold withdrawals pulled from the other. Phil realized that making one person the center of your world means the whole thing shakes when they move.