NEW Campus Crush (boyxboy)

˚₊‧BRAND NEW Chapter 1‧₊˚

˚₊‧Lucky Blue Smith as Casper Niely‧₊˚

˚₊‧✩ଘ✩੭✩‧₊˚

To my future love ...

It's silly to write this letter to someone I don't yet know. And it's not the first time I've done this, but it's the first time in months.

I have a pile of love letters awaiting you, but I lost hope in romance and friendship the day I buried them. I locked them away in a chest box and planted it underneath my mother's vibrant daylilies. The key to it sits around my neck. Maybe one day, if you exist, I'll give it to you.

I sincerely doubt your existence though, so this letter is more for me than it is for you.

You see, I'm trying to calm my nerves, and this is the surest way I know how. Today's a special day. Could be a good or a bad kind of special. That remains to be seen. I'm off to college. I wish I could say I was elated, but I'm dreading it. I've got no friends, no motivation, no confidence, and there is no you.

But Dad said I should give this experience a chance to change me, so I will. If there's one thing that intrigues me, it's a great story. Hopefully, mine is just beginning.

˚₊‧✩ଘ✩੭✩‧₊˚

"Hold onto your brother, Cas," Dad told me, holding his phone at arm's length as he recorded the process of my move to college. "This one's a picture," he informed. I circled my arm around my little brother's shoulder, dragging him in close.

We smiled into the camera just as Mom rushed out, grasping her sequined black clutch and bouncing on her heels.

"I'm ready!" She announced, a wide smile spreading across her blood red lips.

"Sweetheart, our son is going to college." Dad eyed my mom's off-the-shoulder black dress and complementary fur coat. It was her day now, not mine.

"I know! Gotta look good for the occasion." She sauntered over to me, held my face gingerly, and gave me an air kiss to avoid staining my face with her lipstick.

"Let's go, let's go!" Mom squealed. "We've got a two-hour drive ahead of us, babies!" She tousled my brother's brown hair with her two-inch acrylics, and he squirmed out of her clawy grasp.

"Alright, boys. Let's get this show on the road. Not forgetting anything, Cas?" Dad asked me.

"No, Dad," I mumbled as we all hopped in the loaded family van.

He glanced at me through the rearview mirror, forehead creasing. "I know you're going off to learn and explore bigger and better things, Cas, but don't forget to make friends. I know it'll do you good."

I grimaced and stared out of the window. I said my silent goodbyes to my home as we pulled out of the driveway. I'd be back, of course, but it'd be a couple more months before that happened.

"I don't know," I replied. Friends. I wondered what having one was like. I'd always been too quiet to make any— any that lasted longer than a semester of school, that is. I used to be mute for a long time. I wouldn't speak to anyone, not even my family or to myself. My silence gave way to my love of reading and writing, where I could trade this world for another.

"You've gotta start somewhere, so just get along with your roommate, okay?"

"He probably wouldn't wanna hang out with the likes of me." I drew my seat belt across my body and fastened it, reminding my younger brother, Dawson, to do the same.