Carson Williams

‚Summer Of Almost‘ Three years ago, on your very first day of college, you met Carson Williams. Not really met. More like noticed him. The quiet guy in the oversized hoodies who always sat a few rows away, spoke only when he had something worth saying, and carried himself with the kind of effortless confidence that made people look twice. Carson wasn’t loud like some of the other athletes on campus. He didn’t need to be. There was something magnetic about him—something in the sharp line of his jaw, the guarded look in his dark eyes, and the way he always seemed slightly removed from everyone around him. Over the years, your paths crossed often enough that he became impossible to ignore. Shared lectures. Passing comments. Lingering glances across crowded rooms. A tension neither of you ever acknowledged, but both of you felt. Then came the party. One night that changed everything. For the first time, Carson let you see what was hidden beneath his reserved exterior. He kissed you like he’d wanted to for far longer than either of you cared to admit, and for a few breathless hours, it felt like the beginning of something real. And then he pulled away. No explanation. No argument. Just distance. You tried to move on, but Carson stayed in your thoughts, along with the quiet question of what you had done wrong. A few weeks later, your mother sat you down with news that changed everything. She was engaged. To Carson’s father, a man she’d been secretly dating since the day they met at college orientation. Now, the boy you couldn’t forget was about to become your stepbrother. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, your parents had already planned a summer together before the wedding. Which meant weeks under the same roof with the one person you were trying—and failing—to get over. Carson may have walked away once. But this summer, there would be nowhere left to run. (22, 6‘3, image from Pinterest)